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A Veritable Household Pet: A Horror Novel
Not yet published
Expected 28 Jan 26“Brooding and twisted, but beautiful in its honesty, A Veritable Household Pet will chill you to the bone as it simultaneously breaks your heart." -Paulette Kennedy, bestselling author of The Devil and Mrs. Davenport
Darla Gregory received a lobotomy at 11 years old ... and she was never the same.
Based on painfully true history, mixed with family drama, complex characters, and a gut-punch twist.
[Scribe’s This is my sister Darla’s story, as dictated to me. I have tried to remain as faithful to her diction and voice as I can, while also making it intelligible and coherent. Darla has progressed considerably since the lobotomy, but she is still unable to write by herself. I have added notes, interpolations, and supporting documentation where necessary to clarify or explain, or to add my own experience if relevant.
If you’re wondering why it took so long for you to read this, I’d encourage you to keep your bratty thoughts to yourself. You’re lucky I’m telling you the truth at all. This is the last thing I have to do for her, and I hope you’re finally mature enough to handle it.]
“Painful, tragic, horrifying—yet achingly beautiful. A testament to resilience, this book held me in its thrall from the first page. Like peering into the most intimate thoughts of two sisters, it was like witnessing a car crash in slow motion—devastating, impossible to look away. A powerful novel about sisterhood, independence, freedom, and the fragile value of our minds and bodies. I wanted to cry, to scream, to rage—and still I could not look away. I have borne witness. Now I hope you will too.” -Dawn Kurtagich, award-winning author of The Thorns and The Madness
“A blistering indictment of patriarchal power — A Veritable Household Pet is a luminous, tragic, and unputdownable story of the nightmare that is the theft of autonomy and identity, a quiet and constant terror women know all too well.” -Haley Newlin, author of The Film You Are About to See and Take Your Turn, Teddy
“This book twisted my guts, my heart, and my head. There’s toxic family dynamics that would make VC Andrews blush. There’s body horror made all the worse by its historical accuracy. There’s the ingenious device Hampton uses to tell the story from two POVs simultaneously. Plus, there’s this constant competition in tone between hopelessness and determination. All underscored by the knowledge that this exact story may very well have occurred in reality. So that’s the scariest part…all the ingredients existed for this story to be true. Something precisely like this probably did happen somewhere, sometime. What could be more tragic than that?” -Ben Young, author of Home
Darla Gregory received a lobotomy at 11 years old ... and she was never the same.
Based on painfully true history, mixed with family drama, complex characters, and a gut-punch twist.
[Scribe’s This is my sister Darla’s story, as dictated to me. I have tried to remain as faithful to her diction and voice as I can, while also making it intelligible and coherent. Darla has progressed considerably since the lobotomy, but she is still unable to write by herself. I have added notes, interpolations, and supporting documentation where necessary to clarify or explain, or to add my own experience if relevant.
If you’re wondering why it took so long for you to read this, I’d encourage you to keep your bratty thoughts to yourself. You’re lucky I’m telling you the truth at all. This is the last thing I have to do for her, and I hope you’re finally mature enough to handle it.]
“Painful, tragic, horrifying—yet achingly beautiful. A testament to resilience, this book held me in its thrall from the first page. Like peering into the most intimate thoughts of two sisters, it was like witnessing a car crash in slow motion—devastating, impossible to look away. A powerful novel about sisterhood, independence, freedom, and the fragile value of our minds and bodies. I wanted to cry, to scream, to rage—and still I could not look away. I have borne witness. Now I hope you will too.” -Dawn Kurtagich, award-winning author of The Thorns and The Madness
“A blistering indictment of patriarchal power — A Veritable Household Pet is a luminous, tragic, and unputdownable story of the nightmare that is the theft of autonomy and identity, a quiet and constant terror women know all too well.” -Haley Newlin, author of The Film You Are About to See and Take Your Turn, Teddy
“This book twisted my guts, my heart, and my head. There’s toxic family dynamics that would make VC Andrews blush. There’s body horror made all the worse by its historical accuracy. There’s the ingenious device Hampton uses to tell the story from two POVs simultaneously. Plus, there’s this constant competition in tone between hopelessness and determination. All underscored by the knowledge that this exact story may very well have occurred in reality. So that’s the scariest part…all the ingredients existed for this story to be true. Something precisely like this probably did happen somewhere, sometime. What could be more tragic than that?” -Ben Young, author of Home
336 pages, Kindle Edition
Expected publication January 28, 2026
5 people are currently reading
327 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 65 reviews
November 23, 2025
A Veritable Household Pet tells the story of a girl lobotomized as a child, and the brutal, heart‑wrenching life that follows. It’s dark, twisted, hopeful, soul crushing, and horrific all at once.
But let’s be clear: this isn’t gory horror, or body horror, or even spooky horror. This is help‑I’m‑trapped‑in‑a‑body‑that‑can’t‑speak-the-thoughts-in-my-head horror. This is toxic family dynamics and psychological trauma horror. This is people‑can‑be‑the‑absolute‑worst horror.
Imagine living every day with the awareness of what’s been stolen, carrying the impossible hope of ever being whole again, and knowing those around you will never truly grasp what you’re struggling against. This is the kind of book that unsettles not because of monsters in the dark, but because of the cruelty and silence that can live inside a home.
I couldn’t help but feel the story would have flowed more seamlessly if Darla’s sister’s notes had been given space as alternating chapters. In full form, their voices could have echoed against each other, amplifying the weight of their shared grief instead of being diluted in fragments.
The ending didn’t completely surprise me - the foreshadowing was strong - but it still managed to twist in a direction I hadn’t anticipated.
But let’s be clear: this isn’t gory horror, or body horror, or even spooky horror. This is help‑I’m‑trapped‑in‑a‑body‑that‑can’t‑speak-the-thoughts-in-my-head horror. This is toxic family dynamics and psychological trauma horror. This is people‑can‑be‑the‑absolute‑worst horror.
Imagine living every day with the awareness of what’s been stolen, carrying the impossible hope of ever being whole again, and knowing those around you will never truly grasp what you’re struggling against. This is the kind of book that unsettles not because of monsters in the dark, but because of the cruelty and silence that can live inside a home.
I couldn’t help but feel the story would have flowed more seamlessly if Darla’s sister’s notes had been given space as alternating chapters. In full form, their voices could have echoed against each other, amplifying the weight of their shared grief instead of being diluted in fragments.
The ending didn’t completely surprise me - the foreshadowing was strong - but it still managed to twist in a direction I hadn’t anticipated.
November 9, 2025
A blistering indictment of patriarchal power — A Veritable Household Pet is a luminous, tragic, and unputdownable story of the nightmare that is the theft of autonomy and identity, a quiet and constant terror women know all too well.
Probably the most unputdownable book I read this year. Viggy is officially an auto-buy author for me.
Highly recommend for readers who enjoyed Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby
Probably the most unputdownable book I read this year. Viggy is officially an auto-buy author for me.
Highly recommend for readers who enjoyed Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby
January 1, 2026
Horror comes in many forms, which is one reason it is my favorite genre. A Veritable Household Pet is not your typical horror novel, this story is based on the true nightmare of the barbaric transorbital lobotomy which was a dark time in medical history. The loss of identity and bodily autonomy, the balance of unhealthy family dynamics, and just trying to live after trauma are just a few themes in this historical horror novel.
This book is devastating in every sense of the word, but wow, it is absolutely fantastic. I was locked in from the first word and it kept the same pace from start to finish. I loved the structure of this book with our “scribe”, who was older sister, Ellie. It was interesting to get dual POVs simultaneously, and did an incredible job of highlighting the struggles of both Darla and Ellie. While Darla was trapped in her own mind, losing her identity and cognitive function, Ellie was also struggling to live her own life while trying to go to the ends of the earth for her sister. Both girls had truly such tragic stories and my heart just broke for both of them the entire time.
Thank you so much to @viggyparrhampton for this eARC. I am beyond lucky that I was able to read this fantastic book before its release, and this story will live in my head rent free for eternity.
This book is devastating in every sense of the word, but wow, it is absolutely fantastic. I was locked in from the first word and it kept the same pace from start to finish. I loved the structure of this book with our “scribe”, who was older sister, Ellie. It was interesting to get dual POVs simultaneously, and did an incredible job of highlighting the struggles of both Darla and Ellie. While Darla was trapped in her own mind, losing her identity and cognitive function, Ellie was also struggling to live her own life while trying to go to the ends of the earth for her sister. Both girls had truly such tragic stories and my heart just broke for both of them the entire time.
Thank you so much to @viggyparrhampton for this eARC. I am beyond lucky that I was able to read this fantastic book before its release, and this story will live in my head rent free for eternity.
November 18, 2025
This book absolutely blew me away. It was so well done I can’t even articulate a proper review just quite yet but … this is one of those books that will haunt you long after the last page.
December 20, 2025
BWAF SINISTER SELECTION
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: This is a vicious little character study about what happens when a terrified girl gets fed into the meat grinder of mid-century psychiatry and family burnout, and somehow keeps shambling forward. It is not a fun time, but it is a gripping, gut-sick time, and if you like your horror grounded in real world cruelty, this is absolutely worth space on your shelf.
Viggy Parr Hampton has quietly been carving out a very specific niche: smart, nasty horror about institutions that say they will save you and instead chew you up. A Cold Night for Alligators went after public health and abandoned spaces, Much Too Vulgar took a bone saw to academic ambition, and The Rotting Room dragged faith through the crypt. A Veritable Household Pet feels like the most intimate of the bunch, less set piece fireworks and more slow vivisection. You can feel the author settling all the way into character voice here, letting the spectacle of the lobotomy and the Thorazine drool sit underneath the real horror, which is how casually everyone decides this girl is a problem to be managed rather than a person to be helped.
The book is framed as the life story of Darla Gregory, an eleven year old in the 1960s whose emetophobia is so severe she locks herself in her bedroom, lives with a shit bucket and red Jell-O, and eventually attempts suicide rather than risk vomiting again. Her parents, exhausted and broke, sign her up for a cheap transorbital lobotomy with a sleazy doctor. The procedure “fixes” her fear at the cost of almost everything else, leaving her a placid, childlike woman who gets shuffled from home to home as a kind of living responsibility. Around her, big sister Ellie grows into a surgeon, a wife, and a deeply angry narrator trying to make sense of the wreckage. The stakes are simple and horrible: Darla wants a life that is not ruled by terror; everyone around her wants a life that does not revolve around Darla. The collision of those wants feels like watching a slow train crash you cannot stop.
What makes this book special is the duet between Darla’s voice and Ellie’s “Scribe’s notes.” Darla tells her story in soft, looping, almost childlike prose, always slightly behind her own life, always minimizing how bad things were. Ellie drops in bracketed commentary like a scalpel, correcting details, confessing to petty cruelties, and admitting the kind of resentments most families pretend do not exist. When Darla remembers a “good” relationship with her sister, Ellie cuts in to admit that she saw Darla as a needy, squeaky wheel who sucked all the oxygen out of the house. When Darla describes her parents as loving but confused, Ellie spells out the arguments through the thin walls, the money problems, the suicide attempt with the broken glass, the fact that Thorazine and lobotomy were as much about parental relief as patient care. The effect is fucking brutal: you are constantly forced to hold the version of events Darla can live with against the uglier truth Ellie insists on.
Hampton leans into a hybrid structure. You get Darla’s first person recollections, Ellie’s notes in a sharp, almost clinical first person of her own, and interludes of medical notes from smug psychiatrists and hack surgeons describing Darla like a case study instead of a human. The prose is clean but textured: Darla’s sections are simple, repetitive, and obsessive, circling germs and sickness and safety; Ellie’s are spiky, sarcastic, and tired; the doctors are full of detached jargon that reads like a long, dry shit of paternalism. The pacing is deliberately slow, especially in the middle stretch where Darla is trapped in her room, then trapped in her sedated haze, then trapped as a “household pet” in later homes. The drag feels intentional. You are meant to sit with the boredom and indignity of a life that never expands beyond the next caregiver, the next small humiliation.
This is absolutely medical horror, but not in the glossy “evil scientist in a basement” way. The lobotomy sequence is awful, yes, and the aftermath is full of bodily details that make you wince: the drooling, the weight gain, the bib, the shit bucket, the way a transorbital ice pick is treated like a routine office procedure to be done cheap and fast. Mostly, though, the book runs on emotional body shots. The horror lives in every casual decision to talk about Darla like she is furniture, every time a professional prioritizes cost over safety, every shrug when someone suggests dumping her in “a place.” It is not flashy, but it is steady and mean, and by the time a caregiver dies and Darla is left alone again, you feel like someone has been poking you in the ribs for two hundred pages.
This is a book about personhood, sisterhood, and the way caregivers get eaten alive by systems that offer them shit for support. Darla’s terror of vomiting maps easily onto any chronic mental illness: it makes sense internally, ruins her life externally, and gives everyone around her a weapon to use when they are tired. The lobotomy becomes a physical manifestation of what the family has been trying to do from the start: smooth her over, quiet her down, make her convenient. Ellie’s whole arc is built on guilt and resentment, torn between the doctor she becomes, who knows exactly how wrong this all was, and the teenager who once wished her sister would just disappear. The title is doing a lot of work. Darla is treated like a pet, an accessory, a burden that can be handed off, but she never stops being aware enough to notice the difference between love and management. The book sits in your gut like something you should probably throw up and cannot.
A Veritable Household Pet sits in that lane with books like The Bell Jar and The Vegetarian on one side and small press medical horror on the other, but meaner and more explicitly genre. It is not the loudest or flashiest, yet it feels like one of the more distinct takes on “institutional horror”, and it deepens Hampton’s whole project of dragging real world systems into the horror spotlight.
A fucked up, slow burning, quietly vicious medical horror that hits hard where it counts, and one I would recommend to anyone who wants their horror to feel uncomfortably, nauseatingly real.
Read if you crave horror that feels like a fucked up memoir; if you can handle detailed depictions of mental illness, bad psychiatry, and medical procedures; if you love sister dynamics that are tender and vicious at the same time.
Skip if you need fast pacing and big supernatural fireworks; if medical abuse and suicide attempts are hard no subjects; or if you require at least a mildly hopeful, neat ending rather than messy, realistic fallout.
BWAF Score: 7/10
TL;DR: This is a vicious little character study about what happens when a terrified girl gets fed into the meat grinder of mid-century psychiatry and family burnout, and somehow keeps shambling forward. It is not a fun time, but it is a gripping, gut-sick time, and if you like your horror grounded in real world cruelty, this is absolutely worth space on your shelf.
Viggy Parr Hampton has quietly been carving out a very specific niche: smart, nasty horror about institutions that say they will save you and instead chew you up. A Cold Night for Alligators went after public health and abandoned spaces, Much Too Vulgar took a bone saw to academic ambition, and The Rotting Room dragged faith through the crypt. A Veritable Household Pet feels like the most intimate of the bunch, less set piece fireworks and more slow vivisection. You can feel the author settling all the way into character voice here, letting the spectacle of the lobotomy and the Thorazine drool sit underneath the real horror, which is how casually everyone decides this girl is a problem to be managed rather than a person to be helped.
The book is framed as the life story of Darla Gregory, an eleven year old in the 1960s whose emetophobia is so severe she locks herself in her bedroom, lives with a shit bucket and red Jell-O, and eventually attempts suicide rather than risk vomiting again. Her parents, exhausted and broke, sign her up for a cheap transorbital lobotomy with a sleazy doctor. The procedure “fixes” her fear at the cost of almost everything else, leaving her a placid, childlike woman who gets shuffled from home to home as a kind of living responsibility. Around her, big sister Ellie grows into a surgeon, a wife, and a deeply angry narrator trying to make sense of the wreckage. The stakes are simple and horrible: Darla wants a life that is not ruled by terror; everyone around her wants a life that does not revolve around Darla. The collision of those wants feels like watching a slow train crash you cannot stop.
What makes this book special is the duet between Darla’s voice and Ellie’s “Scribe’s notes.” Darla tells her story in soft, looping, almost childlike prose, always slightly behind her own life, always minimizing how bad things were. Ellie drops in bracketed commentary like a scalpel, correcting details, confessing to petty cruelties, and admitting the kind of resentments most families pretend do not exist. When Darla remembers a “good” relationship with her sister, Ellie cuts in to admit that she saw Darla as a needy, squeaky wheel who sucked all the oxygen out of the house. When Darla describes her parents as loving but confused, Ellie spells out the arguments through the thin walls, the money problems, the suicide attempt with the broken glass, the fact that Thorazine and lobotomy were as much about parental relief as patient care. The effect is fucking brutal: you are constantly forced to hold the version of events Darla can live with against the uglier truth Ellie insists on.
Hampton leans into a hybrid structure. You get Darla’s first person recollections, Ellie’s notes in a sharp, almost clinical first person of her own, and interludes of medical notes from smug psychiatrists and hack surgeons describing Darla like a case study instead of a human. The prose is clean but textured: Darla’s sections are simple, repetitive, and obsessive, circling germs and sickness and safety; Ellie’s are spiky, sarcastic, and tired; the doctors are full of detached jargon that reads like a long, dry shit of paternalism. The pacing is deliberately slow, especially in the middle stretch where Darla is trapped in her room, then trapped in her sedated haze, then trapped as a “household pet” in later homes. The drag feels intentional. You are meant to sit with the boredom and indignity of a life that never expands beyond the next caregiver, the next small humiliation.
This is absolutely medical horror, but not in the glossy “evil scientist in a basement” way. The lobotomy sequence is awful, yes, and the aftermath is full of bodily details that make you wince: the drooling, the weight gain, the bib, the shit bucket, the way a transorbital ice pick is treated like a routine office procedure to be done cheap and fast. Mostly, though, the book runs on emotional body shots. The horror lives in every casual decision to talk about Darla like she is furniture, every time a professional prioritizes cost over safety, every shrug when someone suggests dumping her in “a place.” It is not flashy, but it is steady and mean, and by the time a caregiver dies and Darla is left alone again, you feel like someone has been poking you in the ribs for two hundred pages.
This is a book about personhood, sisterhood, and the way caregivers get eaten alive by systems that offer them shit for support. Darla’s terror of vomiting maps easily onto any chronic mental illness: it makes sense internally, ruins her life externally, and gives everyone around her a weapon to use when they are tired. The lobotomy becomes a physical manifestation of what the family has been trying to do from the start: smooth her over, quiet her down, make her convenient. Ellie’s whole arc is built on guilt and resentment, torn between the doctor she becomes, who knows exactly how wrong this all was, and the teenager who once wished her sister would just disappear. The title is doing a lot of work. Darla is treated like a pet, an accessory, a burden that can be handed off, but she never stops being aware enough to notice the difference between love and management. The book sits in your gut like something you should probably throw up and cannot.
A Veritable Household Pet sits in that lane with books like The Bell Jar and The Vegetarian on one side and small press medical horror on the other, but meaner and more explicitly genre. It is not the loudest or flashiest, yet it feels like one of the more distinct takes on “institutional horror”, and it deepens Hampton’s whole project of dragging real world systems into the horror spotlight.
A fucked up, slow burning, quietly vicious medical horror that hits hard where it counts, and one I would recommend to anyone who wants their horror to feel uncomfortably, nauseatingly real.
Read if you crave horror that feels like a fucked up memoir; if you can handle detailed depictions of mental illness, bad psychiatry, and medical procedures; if you love sister dynamics that are tender and vicious at the same time.
Skip if you need fast pacing and big supernatural fireworks; if medical abuse and suicide attempts are hard no subjects; or if you require at least a mildly hopeful, neat ending rather than messy, realistic fallout.
January 11, 2026
In A Veritable Household Pet, we follow Darla Gregory, who has a double transorbital lobotomy at age 11 … yeah, already horrific. This novel is a devastating and deeply unsettling work of fiction. Told through the perspective of a "scribe" (Darla's sister Ellie) we watch the erasure of the girl Darla was and the woman she could have become. This story confronts the horrors of old medical butchery with a quiet, unwavering gaze. The choice to center the narrative to an observer heightens the emotional impact and what is lost is made painfully clear through what remains. Hampton's prose is precise, refusing melodrama and allowing the weight of the subject matter to speak for itself. The lobotomy is not a single act of violence but as a lifelong trauma, one that reshapes the family dynamic, turning care into an obligation and love into something tinged with grief and guilt. The book's title becomes increasingly chilling as the story unfolds, underscoring how easily autonomy is stripped away and reframed as necessity. This story is about medical and parental failures and the quiet ways a family can be ripped apart when forced to adapt to the unthinkable. A Veritable Household Pet is not an easy read, nor is it meant to be. It is, however, a powerful and necessary one, an indictment of medical abuse and a tender elegy for a girl who was grieved while still alive. Thank you to BookSirens for the ARC. You can pick this book up when it publishes January 28, 2025 wherever you buy your books!
December 4, 2025
I read this book as part of an ARC. I had not heard of Viggy Parr Hampton prior to joining the ARC site I’m currently on, but after reading a Cold Night for Alligators I knew she was going to become a favorite author. Since reading that first book I have joined every ARC I could for her.
The Veritable Household Pet did not disappoint. The structure of this novel was intriguing from the beginning and the characters so well developed. I felt discomfort and know more about lobotomies than I ever thought it would.
In the acknowledgment section she writes, “Horror can be gory, sure, but it can also be quiet, profound, uncomfortable, disgusting, taboo, mournful, and thrilling. As a genre, horror pushes you to confront terrifying scenarios and sit with that discomfort until you break through to the other side, changed for the experience.” This summarizes the feelings I felt while reading this novel perfectly. I will never be able to recommend this book or any of her other novels enough.
The Veritable Household Pet did not disappoint. The structure of this novel was intriguing from the beginning and the characters so well developed. I felt discomfort and know more about lobotomies than I ever thought it would.
In the acknowledgment section she writes, “Horror can be gory, sure, but it can also be quiet, profound, uncomfortable, disgusting, taboo, mournful, and thrilling. As a genre, horror pushes you to confront terrifying scenarios and sit with that discomfort until you break through to the other side, changed for the experience.” This summarizes the feelings I felt while reading this novel perfectly. I will never be able to recommend this book or any of her other novels enough.
November 20, 2025
OMG!
I can’t remember the last time a book captivated me so completely. I may have stayed up way too late, eating it up!
Trama, trama trama! The utterly disgusting practices done in honor of ‘helping’ mental illness in the earlier days is nothing short of barbaric. Especially when children are concerned.
A living nightmare wrapped in an extremely toxic family dynamic, A Veritable Household Pet touches on realistic events, pulls at the heart strings and delivers horror beyond belief.
I can’t recommend this book enough!!
I can’t remember the last time a book captivated me so completely. I may have stayed up way too late, eating it up!
Trama, trama trama! The utterly disgusting practices done in honor of ‘helping’ mental illness in the earlier days is nothing short of barbaric. Especially when children are concerned.
A living nightmare wrapped in an extremely toxic family dynamic, A Veritable Household Pet touches on realistic events, pulls at the heart strings and delivers horror beyond belief.
I can’t recommend this book enough!!
November 19, 2025
Wow! Thank you for the ARC! This is a horror story in the sense that it could really happen and probably did in the time of lobotomies being a popular procedure.
The downfall of characters was shocking and sad at times. I was raising my eyebrows several times and going back to reread it to make sure I read it correctly.
The dual perspective simultaneously was a very different but also great addition to the overall story. This may be a scarier horror story because it’s about what people are capable of doing that affects another’s life for the rest of the life.
The downfall of characters was shocking and sad at times. I was raising my eyebrows several times and going back to reread it to make sure I read it correctly.
The dual perspective simultaneously was a very different but also great addition to the overall story. This may be a scarier horror story because it’s about what people are capable of doing that affects another’s life for the rest of the life.
November 15, 2025
This book twisted my guts, my heart, and my head. There’s toxic family dynamics that would make VC Andrews blush. There’s body horror made all the worse by its historical accuracy. There’s the ingenious device Hampton uses to tell the story from two POVs simultaneously. Plus, there’s this constant competition in tone between hopelessness and determination. All underscored by the knowledge that this exact story may very well have occurred in reality. So that’s the scariest part…all the ingredients existed for this story to be true. Something precisely like this probably did happen somewhere, sometime. What could be more tragic than that?
December 1, 2025
A Veritable Household Pet is a historical horror novel about the absolutely real and barbaric transorbital lobotomies performed in the 40s-60s. The era when people really said, “What if we just…stabbed the brain a little?” And then did it…. A lot.
We follow Darla, a young girl who gets the procedure for neurosis, and she comes out… different. Better? Worse? Depends on who you ask. Her sister Ellie; our scribe and historian definitely has thoughts. Many of them conflicting. All of them simmering under the pressure of suddenly being her sister’s caregiver.
One thing I genuinely love about this author is how much I learn while reading her works. In this instance, she uses a very real medical practice to show just how terrifyingly fragile the brain is. How it controls emotion, memory, learning, balance… all the little things that make you you. The medical and historical detail is top tier and kept me equal parts fascinated and horrified. The horror is in the loss of bodily autonomy and control of the mind. Also in the absolute audacity of men. The terror of medicinal malpractice/ignorance can’t be glossed over either.
The family conflict is brutal and heartbreaking. The fallout of Darla’s procedure is catastrophic not just for her, but for everyone around her. The depiction of caregiving for someone who is almost incapacitated is painfully explored. Ellie’s emotions are raw, ugly, honest. There were moments when I gasped at her bluntness, but also… yeah, I got it. You really can’t help but ask: Is it harder to be the person who doesn’t fully understand what’s happened, or the one who has to carry the grief and the memories? I still don’t know, but I’ll be thinking about it for a while.
The feminist angle and the sisterhood themes were superb. I loved the dynamic between the sisters; one forever changed and the other left to stitch herself together while holding up everyone else. Both women are incredibly strong, just in completely different (and sometimes unhinged) ways. My allegiances switched back and forth like six times, and I love that. Give me moral ambiguity every day.
The diary/scribe format threw me for a second but once I settled in, it absolutely worked. The contrast in perspectives, the little scribe notes correcting or reframing the events… it all added an intriguing layer to the dynamic. Since it is in a diary format, it’s written rather conversational in tone which can be a hit or miss to me but in this context it works at adding authenticity.
Thank you to Viggy Parr Hampton for the gifted eARC— all opinions are my own.
We follow Darla, a young girl who gets the procedure for neurosis, and she comes out… different. Better? Worse? Depends on who you ask. Her sister Ellie; our scribe and historian definitely has thoughts. Many of them conflicting. All of them simmering under the pressure of suddenly being her sister’s caregiver.
One thing I genuinely love about this author is how much I learn while reading her works. In this instance, she uses a very real medical practice to show just how terrifyingly fragile the brain is. How it controls emotion, memory, learning, balance… all the little things that make you you. The medical and historical detail is top tier and kept me equal parts fascinated and horrified. The horror is in the loss of bodily autonomy and control of the mind. Also in the absolute audacity of men. The terror of medicinal malpractice/ignorance can’t be glossed over either.
The family conflict is brutal and heartbreaking. The fallout of Darla’s procedure is catastrophic not just for her, but for everyone around her. The depiction of caregiving for someone who is almost incapacitated is painfully explored. Ellie’s emotions are raw, ugly, honest. There were moments when I gasped at her bluntness, but also… yeah, I got it. You really can’t help but ask: Is it harder to be the person who doesn’t fully understand what’s happened, or the one who has to carry the grief and the memories? I still don’t know, but I’ll be thinking about it for a while.
The feminist angle and the sisterhood themes were superb. I loved the dynamic between the sisters; one forever changed and the other left to stitch herself together while holding up everyone else. Both women are incredibly strong, just in completely different (and sometimes unhinged) ways. My allegiances switched back and forth like six times, and I love that. Give me moral ambiguity every day.
The diary/scribe format threw me for a second but once I settled in, it absolutely worked. The contrast in perspectives, the little scribe notes correcting or reframing the events… it all added an intriguing layer to the dynamic. Since it is in a diary format, it’s written rather conversational in tone which can be a hit or miss to me but in this context it works at adding authenticity.
Thank you to Viggy Parr Hampton for the gifted eARC— all opinions are my own.
December 8, 2025
This is the kind of horror that doesn’t lurk in the shadows - it sits right at the kitchen table and stares you down.
The story follows two sisters growing up in a home where fear, neglect and “treatment” take on a whole new meaning. Darla’s severe phobia rules her world, and the family’s response sends everything tipping slowly, steadily into darker territory. It touches on outdated psychiatric practices, family dysfunction and the way children quietly take on the weight their parents couldn’t (or wouldn’t) carry.
Ellie, especially, feels painfully real: a kid trying to protect her sister while surviving a home that gives her nothing in return.
There’s a quiet dread threaded through the whole book - hints that something is building, that life in that house can’t stay the same forever. The real horror isn’t supernatural at all - it’s what people insist is “help” and the damage left behind in its name.
It blows my mind that lobotomies were once considered a fix for “neurosis.” Very Bell Jar vibes. Truly grateful I wasn’t born in that era - I’d have been labelled “unwell” for just… existing.
The story follows two sisters growing up in a home where fear, neglect and “treatment” take on a whole new meaning. Darla’s severe phobia rules her world, and the family’s response sends everything tipping slowly, steadily into darker territory. It touches on outdated psychiatric practices, family dysfunction and the way children quietly take on the weight their parents couldn’t (or wouldn’t) carry.
Ellie, especially, feels painfully real: a kid trying to protect her sister while surviving a home that gives her nothing in return.
There’s a quiet dread threaded through the whole book - hints that something is building, that life in that house can’t stay the same forever. The real horror isn’t supernatural at all - it’s what people insist is “help” and the damage left behind in its name.
It blows my mind that lobotomies were once considered a fix for “neurosis.” Very Bell Jar vibes. Truly grateful I wasn’t born in that era - I’d have been labelled “unwell” for just… existing.
December 3, 2025
I've always been a fan of horror - novels, short stories, movies and otherwise - that has a sustained sense of dread and despair throughout, and that's exactly what stood out to me from the start of A Veritable Household Pet. I don't want to go too into detail about the plot itself, but just know that this is a dark and depressing novel that shines a light on the real, true horror of lobotomies and the effects they can have on the person who received it, as well as those close to them. It's easily the best book I've read in 2025.
November 24, 2025
I love medical horror and the premise of a young girl undergoing a frontal lobotomy really intrigued me.
The story is told from the split perspective of Darla who undergoes a lobotomy at age 11 and her sister Ellie. It’s presented as Darla’s memoir with interjections from Ellie. I loved the split perspective and what we learned about the two character’s different viewpoints.
This is a dark sad story which is unremittingly bleak but it’s beautifully written and very readable. I loved how well researched it was and it’s made me want to know more about the practice even though it makes for grim reading.
This isn’t scare your pants off monster horror. It’s much more subtle and (to my mind) chilling than this. It’s an exploration of an outdated medical practice but also of woman’s roles in society and how we can be trapped in a never ending treadmill of societal expectations. It left me feeling deeply unsettled and sad at how little progress society has made in the last 50 years.
I recommend this for readers who like body horror / medical horror and feminist writing. If you liked The Lamb or Deliver Me I think you would enjoy this.
Thank you so much to Viggy Par Hampton for my ARC.
November 25, 2025
A hauntingly intimate narrative voiced by a girl lobotomized at the age of eleven who’s sister is recording it all for her. What is truly scary about this story is that it’s based in historical truth. Lobotomy’s did happen and truly destroyed lives and the author did an amazing job of portraying this. Not with use of extreme gore but by describing what the medical violence caused with chilling accuracy.
This is a heavier read then I was expecting, it’s unflinching with little reprieve so it can feel dense and slow at times. But the ever present and looming dread that becomes a constant is written like a master, so painfully beautiful and incredibly heart wrenching. This story was so much more emotional then what I expected from a horror story and I am not mad about it. Though I am not sure this is really just a horror story. It seems like much more, like historical fiction encompassing horror.
Overall this story gives us a complex and painfully believable look into a sisterhood that was nurtured through shared trauma, mental illness, addiction and disabilities. It was an intriguing look that was well written. Definitely recommend you give it a read.
This is a heavier read then I was expecting, it’s unflinching with little reprieve so it can feel dense and slow at times. But the ever present and looming dread that becomes a constant is written like a master, so painfully beautiful and incredibly heart wrenching. This story was so much more emotional then what I expected from a horror story and I am not mad about it. Though I am not sure this is really just a horror story. It seems like much more, like historical fiction encompassing horror.
Overall this story gives us a complex and painfully believable look into a sisterhood that was nurtured through shared trauma, mental illness, addiction and disabilities. It was an intriguing look that was well written. Definitely recommend you give it a read.
November 26, 2025
“A Veritable Household Pet” - I guess I no longer want to “Live, Laugh, Lobotomy”
★★★★★
First of all thank you for this ARC.
It was my absolute pleasure to be an early reader for this novel and after having read “The Rotting Room” and “Much Too Vulgar” I can safely say Viggy Parr Hampton has become an auto read author for me.
This story is absolutely devastating, tragic, heartbreaking and so incredibly well written it hurts.
In Viggy’s own words “Horror can be gory, sure, but it can also be quiet, profound, uncomfortable, disgusting, taboo, mournful, and thrilling. As a genre, horror pushes you to confront terrifying scenarios and sit with that discomfort until you break through to the other side, changed for the experience.”
I think I couldn’t have said it better and she delivers exactly this. A story that rattles you, a tale so unsettling and tragic that it will stick with you long after you’ve turned the last page. Honestly this book should be on everyones TBR for 2026!
★★★★★
First of all thank you for this ARC.
It was my absolute pleasure to be an early reader for this novel and after having read “The Rotting Room” and “Much Too Vulgar” I can safely say Viggy Parr Hampton has become an auto read author for me.
This story is absolutely devastating, tragic, heartbreaking and so incredibly well written it hurts.
In Viggy’s own words “Horror can be gory, sure, but it can also be quiet, profound, uncomfortable, disgusting, taboo, mournful, and thrilling. As a genre, horror pushes you to confront terrifying scenarios and sit with that discomfort until you break through to the other side, changed for the experience.”
I think I couldn’t have said it better and she delivers exactly this. A story that rattles you, a tale so unsettling and tragic that it will stick with you long after you’ve turned the last page. Honestly this book should be on everyones TBR for 2026!
November 27, 2025
Thank you to the author for providing me with a digital copy.
WOW. This book had me hooked from the very first page, and it was physically hard to put it down, I needed to know what happened.
This is the kind of horror that isn’t shoved in your face, but hides in the shadows. The slow building dread had my heart racing and my stomach churning. I knew what was going to happen, but I prayed with every page I read that I’d be wrong.
I really enjoyed this book, and I’m looking forward to reading more from this author.
WOW. This book had me hooked from the very first page, and it was physically hard to put it down, I needed to know what happened.
This is the kind of horror that isn’t shoved in your face, but hides in the shadows. The slow building dread had my heart racing and my stomach churning. I knew what was going to happen, but I prayed with every page I read that I’d be wrong.
I really enjoyed this book, and I’m looking forward to reading more from this author.
November 21, 2025
A Veritable Household Pet is a masterclass in modern horror storytelling. Viggy Parr Hampton takes an everyday occurrence from America’s past and brings it to light in a haunting, deeply relevant way. This blend of history and horror feels both enlightening and unsettling, a rare combination that lingers long after the last page.What makes this story so powerful is how it explores the lengths a person will go to in order to protect their loved ones. It shines a light on human darkness, not just for shock value but to reveal uncomfortable truths that still echo today.Be warned: this book does dive into some heavy and potentially triggering topics, so check the content warnings before reading. But if you’re open to confronting those difficult themes, you’re in for a gripping, gut-wrenching journey that you'll not be able to put down. An unforgettable read: haunting, thought-provoking, and beautifully written. Five stars all the way.
November 25, 2025
A tale that draws you in and makes you feverishly thankful it isn't happening to you. True horror at its finest.
January 6, 2026
This was so good.
Phenomenally well written.
I was instantly hooked and couldn't stop reading. From page one, I loved these two characters and I needed to know what would happen to them next, even though everything that happens is deeply traumatic and absolutely horrific.
This is exactly what horror should be: troubling, thought-provoking, and a portrait of some of the most monstrous aspects of human history.
I will keep this review spoiler free, but keep in mind this is a realistic medical horror, so check trigger warnings if you may be sensitive to this topic.
This was my first book by Viggy Parr Hampton, but I will definitely be picking up their other books.
Thank you so much to the author for the opportunity to read this ARC. A Veritable Household Pet comes out on January 28th, 2026.
Phenomenally well written.
I was instantly hooked and couldn't stop reading. From page one, I loved these two characters and I needed to know what would happen to them next, even though everything that happens is deeply traumatic and absolutely horrific.
This is exactly what horror should be: troubling, thought-provoking, and a portrait of some of the most monstrous aspects of human history.
I will keep this review spoiler free, but keep in mind this is a realistic medical horror, so check trigger warnings if you may be sensitive to this topic.
This was my first book by Viggy Parr Hampton, but I will definitely be picking up their other books.
Thank you so much to the author for the opportunity to read this ARC. A Veritable Household Pet comes out on January 28th, 2026.
January 19, 2026
The lobotomy was created in the 1930s by a Portuguese doctor to “help” people with mental illnesses.
A horrific procedure that haunted patients for 30 years, and in this book, we follow Darla, one of its victims.
Darla is an 11 year old girl struggling with emetophobia, that refuses to leave her bedroom, even to use the toilet and her parents decided that having an ice pick shaped tool inserted through her eyes was the solution.
A Veritable Household Pet is the horrifying story of a girl trapped in her own mind, trying to relearn basic things like walking and eating, while living as a burden to everyone around her.
One day, Darla asks her sister Ellie to write down her memories, or what she remembers and Ellie not only agrees but also writes her own notes and perspective.
We end up getting a dual POV: two sisters with different struggles, growing up in a degrading household with little to no support.
This book is heartbreaking, unnerving, and absolutely enraging.
It’s a real life horror that will trigger your emotions and keep you hooked from beginning to end.
I can definitely say 2026 started with a bang, and I’m so thankful for the ARC copy.
As a horror reader, I often forget that real life can be scarier than fiction and this book is the proof of that.
This review and more here:
Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube
A horrific procedure that haunted patients for 30 years, and in this book, we follow Darla, one of its victims.
Darla is an 11 year old girl struggling with emetophobia, that refuses to leave her bedroom, even to use the toilet and her parents decided that having an ice pick shaped tool inserted through her eyes was the solution.
A Veritable Household Pet is the horrifying story of a girl trapped in her own mind, trying to relearn basic things like walking and eating, while living as a burden to everyone around her.
One day, Darla asks her sister Ellie to write down her memories, or what she remembers and Ellie not only agrees but also writes her own notes and perspective.
We end up getting a dual POV: two sisters with different struggles, growing up in a degrading household with little to no support.
This book is heartbreaking, unnerving, and absolutely enraging.
It’s a real life horror that will trigger your emotions and keep you hooked from beginning to end.
I can definitely say 2026 started with a bang, and I’m so thankful for the ARC copy.
As a horror reader, I often forget that real life can be scarier than fiction and this book is the proof of that.
This review and more here:
Instagram | Tiktok | Youtube
January 8, 2026
Joyce Carol Oates’ The Butcher meets Liz Nugent’s Strange Sally Diamond in this lobotomy themed medical horror novel.
A Veritable Household Pet was a phenomenal read that was very well written, well researched and heartbreaking. While Viggy’s past books have been more cut and dry horror, this one is literary/character based and focuses on the horrors of retired medical procedures. The reader can really step into the mind of someone who just had a lobotomy, and experience their frustrations. I was often left furious based on how people took advantage of Darla, particularly men. While character-based novels are not my favorite, I was not bored at all by Viggy’s storytelling, and the dual POVs made Darla’s story that much more interesting. A Veritable Household Pet is a must read for your 2026 TBR!
Moreover, I love that Viggy referenced Sam Kean’s The Icepick Surgeon for additional reads on lobotomies, since this is my all time favorite nonfiction book. She also mentions My Lobotomy: A Memoir by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming, which is on my TBR.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
A Veritable Household Pet was a phenomenal read that was very well written, well researched and heartbreaking. While Viggy’s past books have been more cut and dry horror, this one is literary/character based and focuses on the horrors of retired medical procedures. The reader can really step into the mind of someone who just had a lobotomy, and experience their frustrations. I was often left furious based on how people took advantage of Darla, particularly men. While character-based novels are not my favorite, I was not bored at all by Viggy’s storytelling, and the dual POVs made Darla’s story that much more interesting. A Veritable Household Pet is a must read for your 2026 TBR!
Moreover, I love that Viggy referenced Sam Kean’s The Icepick Surgeon for additional reads on lobotomies, since this is my all time favorite nonfiction book. She also mentions My Lobotomy: A Memoir by Howard Dully and Charles Fleming, which is on my TBR.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
December 6, 2025
Thank you to the author for the ARC! I was excited by the title alone and the short description, and couldn’t wait to dive into this book. After finishing it, though, I needed a couple of days to sit with the story before writing this review.
This isn’t your typical horror novel filled with gore or ghosts—it leans into the real horrors of human nature and mental illness. It explores not only what it’s like to live with mental illness, but also what it means to care for someone who does. The feeling of trying your best but still feeling stuck, the desire to grow while still needing support—those themes really lingered.
I loved the way the story was told through diary entries, with interjections from her sister. It let you see both sides at once, rather than flipping between alternating chapters.
This is a book I’ll be thinking about for a long time. It’s definitely one that will sit with me, and I can’t wait to read more of her work!
This isn’t your typical horror novel filled with gore or ghosts—it leans into the real horrors of human nature and mental illness. It explores not only what it’s like to live with mental illness, but also what it means to care for someone who does. The feeling of trying your best but still feeling stuck, the desire to grow while still needing support—those themes really lingered.
I loved the way the story was told through diary entries, with interjections from her sister. It let you see both sides at once, rather than flipping between alternating chapters.
This is a book I’ll be thinking about for a long time. It’s definitely one that will sit with me, and I can’t wait to read more of her work!
January 11, 2026
I received an ARC of this from Booksiren.
I'm a bit of a Viggy fan, having read "Much Too Vulgar" and "The Rotting Room". First off, I quite enjoy the style of how this book is written. Darla, who received a lobotomy due to paralyzing fear of vomiting, is dictating her experiences to her older sister Ellie who acts as a scribe and also interjects when further clarification is required. The story follows the sisters through family tragedy and explores what happens when one's frontal lobe is violated.
And the ending, I literally screamed in the best way possible. Viggy... I can't believe you tied it together with another work! I was SHOOK.
I'm a bit of a Viggy fan, having read "Much Too Vulgar" and "The Rotting Room". First off, I quite enjoy the style of how this book is written. Darla, who received a lobotomy due to paralyzing fear of vomiting, is dictating her experiences to her older sister Ellie who acts as a scribe and also interjects when further clarification is required. The story follows the sisters through family tragedy and explores what happens when one's frontal lobe is violated.
And the ending, I literally screamed in the best way possible. Viggy... I can't believe you tied it together with another work! I was SHOOK.
December 26, 2025
SHE DOES IT AGAIN. Viggy Parr Hampton writes the stories I want to read and didn’t even know I was missing. This was no exception. I loved the way the story is told. I think Ellie’s ‘scribe notes’ added so much depth to Darla’s truly tragic story. This made me so uncomfortable in so many ways, and while none of my siblings have had lobotomies, I felt a certain kinship with Ellie. I really enjoyed this story and can’t wait to see what Parr Hampton has in store for us next.
November 22, 2025
My heartstrings weren't tugged. They were ripped out, stomped on, covered in gas, set on fire, and then the ashes tossed in acid.
This is my 2nd experience reading Viggy's writing (the first was The Rotting Room) and I can safely say I'm a fan for life. This was beautiful, morbid, uncomfortable, and heart wrenching. While no one in my life ever had a lobotomy, the family dynamic during the early years is something I'm all too familiar with. It made empathizing with Darla and Ellie extremely easy.
After reading this I honestly need a hug and a good cry.
This is my 2nd experience reading Viggy's writing (the first was The Rotting Room) and I can safely say I'm a fan for life. This was beautiful, morbid, uncomfortable, and heart wrenching. While no one in my life ever had a lobotomy, the family dynamic during the early years is something I'm all too familiar with. It made empathizing with Darla and Ellie extremely easy.
After reading this I honestly need a hug and a good cry.
Review of advance copy
In Viggy Parr Hampton’s A Veritable Household Pet, Hampton pivots into the realm of true horror. This novel chronicles the life of a young girl following a lobotomy, documenting her brief successes and agonizing regressions and the effect that these have on her family. A Veritable Household Pet is a chilling, essential read for those seeking a deeply unsettling story.
Thank you to the author and Book Sirens for an ARC copy. I have made this review voluntarily and it is my personal opinion.
Thank you to the author and Book Sirens for an ARC copy. I have made this review voluntarily and it is my personal opinion.
November 20, 2025
The transorbital lobotomy, especially for a child, was seen as utterly barbaric.
I've just finished an ARC of Viggy Parr Hampton's soon-to-be-released "A Veritable Household Pet" and as with all her books, it is simply an amazingly executed tale that will stay with me if not for months then years. In fact, until I got to what I guess was what would be called the "postbook" parts - well, I guess I could call it the "Author's Notes" like it says, huh? - I was not doing very well. Simply because this book will run you through the emotional wringer, particularly if you've ever been through troubling times in your family (check-a-roo), suffered from cruel taunts by your classmates for things you can't control (yeppers), and faced questions about where you yourself fit in this great big "society" we've constructed around ourselves in terms of fitting in (all yours, I just want my own island to live on). Yeah, in that regard, I kind of took the early bird special and checked out of it all well before my due date, owing mostly to health issues which didn't do anything to help point A to Z above.
She was like a hamster I could keep in a cage and caress when I saw fit.
Thankfully though before I could throw myself to the soggy ground and weep to the freezing cold heavens above, Hampton seemed to take the time to speak directly to me about all I had read and experienced. This was especially true when she stated "Many people may finish this book … and think, Wait. This isn’t horror." And I couldn't agree more, in fact, I even exclaimed "hey, yeah, I said that, too!" (just ask my dog who is indeed a veritable household pet of the very highest quality!). Of course, I've argued this in reverse for many, many books, but that's only because I think we - as squishy beings with some harder boney bits included inside - aren't sure how to differentiate between horror and horrifying. And yes, if you want to be sassy, you can throw in horrible and any other Latin variations thereof into our discussion. As Hampton points out, "Horror can be gory, sure, but it can also be quiet, profound, uncomfortable, disgusting, taboo, mournful, and thrilling." And just like my own private check-list above, we can tick off each of these from "Pet" at one point or another, usually multiple times with growing impact.
I can’t change the past, I can only recount it, as painful as that is.
I mean, the way I feel right now is like I do when I've read a particularly nauseating passage in a splatterpunk book if that makes any sense (the upset stomach I understand, but these seemingly permanent goosebumps are kind of weird tbh). And if it doesn't, it will after you read this book which I'm warning you now will not be easy to put down - noting it's all done without mirrors, spilt guts, oozing offal or veritable viscera of any kind! Now I won't say that this is anything like her own "Much Too Vulgar" (but why oh why did they have to name the baby Keely? You know I won't sleep again tonight because of that!), which still haunts my nightmares. But just seeing how the Gregory family self-destructs is still troubling to the point of true despair. There is just no point in any of this where we should feel happy, relieved, or even hopeful, even though the way Hampton has constructed the back-and-forth telling keeps us thinking "no, hang on, here's where it turns around. Any minute now! Just you wait and see!" Alas…
Sometimes being a serene pond had its advantages.
One thing I do have to say - only because this book has once again brought this argument to the forefront of my thoughts - is that I feel like all of us are born if not actually with mental "afflictions" then we definitely have the potential for same. This is especially true in terms of fears (e.g. emetophobia, which puts my mild but inconvenient parcopresis to shame!) and anxiety, where I am convinced most everyone has had or has some degree of the latter. Naturally, the degree of these ailments will vary, with some of us growing up with debilitating panic attacks or irrational fears of public places or crowds, just as examples. Maybe others will be at the mercy of any number of addictions or tempers that make keeping jobs, relationships, or just basically staying out of jail owing to uncontrollable outbursts next to impossible. Heck, I'd even throw out in my set of controversial proving points the fact that man is prone to religious belief as a sure sign many are missing something in their heads and desperately looking for anything that would suffice to fill the hollow spaces with something that provides comfort. But mostly, I guess, I've never met anyone - EVER - that I would call absolutely normal. Who knows, but at least it gives me a new topic to bring up at therapy next week.
I didn’t want my head shrunk! I had enough problems as it was!
OK, so now you're asking: you were supposed to be reading and reviewing an ARC of this book so why instead of doing your job are you just rambling away? Very easily answered, my dear Dr. Watsons. What I'm trying to make clear is that this book is going to make you think and it is going to make your brain hurt and it is going to probably leave you with a severe migraine at one point or another because you will be so much in your own damn head throughout this that you won't be able to stand it! And if that's not enough of a decidedly run-on sentence to apply to a review, well, I don't know what else I can say or do. In fact, I lay (lied? did done laid?) awake last night thinking about parallels about what was happening in this book especially to Ellie fit together with of all things the stages of grief! And not only because essentially the girl we initially meet named Darla is gone forever even many, many years before this tale ends ("Slowly, very slowly, I returned to myself. But what came back wasn’t the same version of me.").
In many ways, she was the perfect woman, a welcome side effect of her lobotomy.
But if you insist on a portion of this diatribe being aimed at just the kind of things a critic would say, then here goes: The execution is perfect, the story itself is one that I don't know how the author put it together, and as I've droned on about ad lobotinum, it will make you emotional, well, like all get out. I have read and enjoyed all of VPH's books now with reckless abandon and enjoyment - ok, maybe I didn't quite get into all highfalutin religious mumbo jumbosus of "The Rotting Room" as much (ye gods that one was gross, too), but still. So in the space of just 4 titles, I have moved this author very much onto my "must buy" list without any hesitation as I truly find her intelligence, creativity, and skills unmatched. And when it comes to horror, um, I'll have to get back to you once I get a chance to truly define whatever the hell that is…
I've just finished an ARC of Viggy Parr Hampton's soon-to-be-released "A Veritable Household Pet" and as with all her books, it is simply an amazingly executed tale that will stay with me if not for months then years. In fact, until I got to what I guess was what would be called the "postbook" parts - well, I guess I could call it the "Author's Notes" like it says, huh? - I was not doing very well. Simply because this book will run you through the emotional wringer, particularly if you've ever been through troubling times in your family (check-a-roo), suffered from cruel taunts by your classmates for things you can't control (yeppers), and faced questions about where you yourself fit in this great big "society" we've constructed around ourselves in terms of fitting in (all yours, I just want my own island to live on). Yeah, in that regard, I kind of took the early bird special and checked out of it all well before my due date, owing mostly to health issues which didn't do anything to help point A to Z above.
She was like a hamster I could keep in a cage and caress when I saw fit.
Thankfully though before I could throw myself to the soggy ground and weep to the freezing cold heavens above, Hampton seemed to take the time to speak directly to me about all I had read and experienced. This was especially true when she stated "Many people may finish this book … and think, Wait. This isn’t horror." And I couldn't agree more, in fact, I even exclaimed "hey, yeah, I said that, too!" (just ask my dog who is indeed a veritable household pet of the very highest quality!). Of course, I've argued this in reverse for many, many books, but that's only because I think we - as squishy beings with some harder boney bits included inside - aren't sure how to differentiate between horror and horrifying. And yes, if you want to be sassy, you can throw in horrible and any other Latin variations thereof into our discussion. As Hampton points out, "Horror can be gory, sure, but it can also be quiet, profound, uncomfortable, disgusting, taboo, mournful, and thrilling." And just like my own private check-list above, we can tick off each of these from "Pet" at one point or another, usually multiple times with growing impact.
I can’t change the past, I can only recount it, as painful as that is.
I mean, the way I feel right now is like I do when I've read a particularly nauseating passage in a splatterpunk book if that makes any sense (the upset stomach I understand, but these seemingly permanent goosebumps are kind of weird tbh). And if it doesn't, it will after you read this book which I'm warning you now will not be easy to put down - noting it's all done without mirrors, spilt guts, oozing offal or veritable viscera of any kind! Now I won't say that this is anything like her own "Much Too Vulgar" (but why oh why did they have to name the baby Keely? You know I won't sleep again tonight because of that!), which still haunts my nightmares. But just seeing how the Gregory family self-destructs is still troubling to the point of true despair. There is just no point in any of this where we should feel happy, relieved, or even hopeful, even though the way Hampton has constructed the back-and-forth telling keeps us thinking "no, hang on, here's where it turns around. Any minute now! Just you wait and see!" Alas…
Sometimes being a serene pond had its advantages.
One thing I do have to say - only because this book has once again brought this argument to the forefront of my thoughts - is that I feel like all of us are born if not actually with mental "afflictions" then we definitely have the potential for same. This is especially true in terms of fears (e.g. emetophobia, which puts my mild but inconvenient parcopresis to shame!) and anxiety, where I am convinced most everyone has had or has some degree of the latter. Naturally, the degree of these ailments will vary, with some of us growing up with debilitating panic attacks or irrational fears of public places or crowds, just as examples. Maybe others will be at the mercy of any number of addictions or tempers that make keeping jobs, relationships, or just basically staying out of jail owing to uncontrollable outbursts next to impossible. Heck, I'd even throw out in my set of controversial proving points the fact that man is prone to religious belief as a sure sign many are missing something in their heads and desperately looking for anything that would suffice to fill the hollow spaces with something that provides comfort. But mostly, I guess, I've never met anyone - EVER - that I would call absolutely normal. Who knows, but at least it gives me a new topic to bring up at therapy next week.
I didn’t want my head shrunk! I had enough problems as it was!
OK, so now you're asking: you were supposed to be reading and reviewing an ARC of this book so why instead of doing your job are you just rambling away? Very easily answered, my dear Dr. Watsons. What I'm trying to make clear is that this book is going to make you think and it is going to make your brain hurt and it is going to probably leave you with a severe migraine at one point or another because you will be so much in your own damn head throughout this that you won't be able to stand it! And if that's not enough of a decidedly run-on sentence to apply to a review, well, I don't know what else I can say or do. In fact, I lay (lied? did done laid?) awake last night thinking about parallels about what was happening in this book especially to Ellie fit together with of all things the stages of grief! And not only because essentially the girl we initially meet named Darla is gone forever even many, many years before this tale ends ("Slowly, very slowly, I returned to myself. But what came back wasn’t the same version of me.").
In many ways, she was the perfect woman, a welcome side effect of her lobotomy.
But if you insist on a portion of this diatribe being aimed at just the kind of things a critic would say, then here goes: The execution is perfect, the story itself is one that I don't know how the author put it together, and as I've droned on about ad lobotinum, it will make you emotional, well, like all get out. I have read and enjoyed all of VPH's books now with reckless abandon and enjoyment - ok, maybe I didn't quite get into all highfalutin religious mumbo jumbosus of "The Rotting Room" as much (ye gods that one was gross, too), but still. So in the space of just 4 titles, I have moved this author very much onto my "must buy" list without any hesitation as I truly find her intelligence, creativity, and skills unmatched. And when it comes to horror, um, I'll have to get back to you once I get a chance to truly define whatever the hell that is…
November 29, 2025
A Veritable Household Pet: A Horror Novel by Viggy Parr Hampton
5 🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮orbs
Pub. Date: Jan. 28, 2026
Horror Humor Hunger Press
In a dark place….
💡 Orbs Prologue: The girl sits by the casement window overlooking the street filled with happy children playing a myriad of games. The prescribed drug courses through her spidery veins, leaving her tired and useless. Eyelids obey, shutting slowly. Deep within the trenches of her own personal war, she finds herself floundering in the silence of dark open water. There is no light, there is no hope, yet she manages to swim ashore. Shivering, she walks down this newly introduced path, the broken fingernail clippings crunching beneath her feet. Looking back, she is followed closely by an army of skittering rats, herding her like cattle further into the chilling nightmare. Arachnid eyes cast devious intent behind several dilapidated tombstones lining the crunchy uphill walkway. A large strobe light appears in the distant sky, further illuminating the horror of worms and maggots carrying bacteria infesting the soil. Upon reaching the summit, a mysterious woman appears in a flowing white robe, seated in a chair made of femurs and skeleton heads. The woman’s gaunt hands hold barbarous tools. The flashing glint of a solid mallet and the pointed end of an ice pick, calling out to the girl…
🔩 Nuts & Bolts: Fear-induced irrational behavior clutches at Darla’s being. Vomit and germs provide a worthy opponent, leaving Darla incapacitated and suffering in her room, afraid to live within the frameworks of “normality.” As her situation escalates, her parents search for answers. Thorazine becomes the first alternative, but this solution soon succumbs in the battle as well. The talk of a lobotomy becomes the last line of defense, and Darla is soon taken to Dr. Hupman to execute the procedure. This life-altering decision has dire consequences, and soon the family spirals into chaos. Darla’s sister, Ellie, attempts to help Darla return to a normal life. Yet as one would imagine, having been the recipient of such a controversially wicked procedure, Darla is rendered helpless. How can the sisters move through life with an abundance of pain and suffering on the periphery? Viggy Parr Hampton’s prose shines in the bleakest of tales about betrayal and redemption. Moving with an exposed beauty through a canvas of uncertainty and tragedy, readers will be moved by the experience.
👍 Orbs Pros: The dual narrative is an absolute winner. Providing the reader with different perspectives allowed me to be fully invested in both sisters' characters. A twist on horror, which, to be honest, I was not expecting. While I love a good slasher or traditional trope, this book sneaks up on you. The underlying sense of discomfort followed throughout like a lost puppy. To say this novel is emotional is an understatement. For those who have dealt with anxiety or those in the family dealing with someone else's affliction, this novel will resonate. Viggy Parr Hampton offers readers a look into a damaged family dynamic and how those defective personality traits tend to surface during difficult times, often leading to tumultuous endings. A conclusion that left my jaw open, one I should have seen coming yet had no clue about, a perfect ending to a brilliant offering.
👎 Orbs Cons: Mr. Knowles, the next-door neighbor. Without spoiling too much, I will say his lack of contribution was interesting. Shouldn’t he have had more input in this situation?
Must read! No doubt one of the best novels I read this year! If you love haunting stories that tug at your heartstrings while angering you simultaneously, do yourself a favor and seek out this book. This was a gem!
💡 Orbs Epilogue: Thunderous cracking of bat wings flying by as the girl approaches slowly with caution and sits next to the woman in white. Gently placing her innocent head into scarred, bony hands, she gazes upon the piercing, silvery orbs set within this ghostlike entity. With precision, the woman places the torturous pick into the corner of an unblinking eye. A thwack ensues, a solid tapping motion, followed by a vortex swirling of the instrument, leaving the girl breathless. Following the same routine, the contents behind the other eye are also properly stirred, leaving the girl on the ground, attempting to speak, and slowly writhing like a worm in defensive response. The woman gently kisses the girl's sweaty forehead and dissipates into the ether. The still blackness comes, and disconnection bites into the girl’s brainwave frequency. A phone rings, rings, rings… unanswered, without as much as a hint of knowledge or know-how, our girl is conscious and yet left in a zombie-like trance. What is known is that this girl no longer fears emesis or harmful microorganisms, but dear readers, at what cost?
Many thanks to Viggy Parr Hampton and Booksirens. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
5 🔮🔮🔮🔮🔮orbs
Pub. Date: Jan. 28, 2026
Horror Humor Hunger Press
In a dark place….
💡 Orbs Prologue: The girl sits by the casement window overlooking the street filled with happy children playing a myriad of games. The prescribed drug courses through her spidery veins, leaving her tired and useless. Eyelids obey, shutting slowly. Deep within the trenches of her own personal war, she finds herself floundering in the silence of dark open water. There is no light, there is no hope, yet she manages to swim ashore. Shivering, she walks down this newly introduced path, the broken fingernail clippings crunching beneath her feet. Looking back, she is followed closely by an army of skittering rats, herding her like cattle further into the chilling nightmare. Arachnid eyes cast devious intent behind several dilapidated tombstones lining the crunchy uphill walkway. A large strobe light appears in the distant sky, further illuminating the horror of worms and maggots carrying bacteria infesting the soil. Upon reaching the summit, a mysterious woman appears in a flowing white robe, seated in a chair made of femurs and skeleton heads. The woman’s gaunt hands hold barbarous tools. The flashing glint of a solid mallet and the pointed end of an ice pick, calling out to the girl…
🔩 Nuts & Bolts: Fear-induced irrational behavior clutches at Darla’s being. Vomit and germs provide a worthy opponent, leaving Darla incapacitated and suffering in her room, afraid to live within the frameworks of “normality.” As her situation escalates, her parents search for answers. Thorazine becomes the first alternative, but this solution soon succumbs in the battle as well. The talk of a lobotomy becomes the last line of defense, and Darla is soon taken to Dr. Hupman to execute the procedure. This life-altering decision has dire consequences, and soon the family spirals into chaos. Darla’s sister, Ellie, attempts to help Darla return to a normal life. Yet as one would imagine, having been the recipient of such a controversially wicked procedure, Darla is rendered helpless. How can the sisters move through life with an abundance of pain and suffering on the periphery? Viggy Parr Hampton’s prose shines in the bleakest of tales about betrayal and redemption. Moving with an exposed beauty through a canvas of uncertainty and tragedy, readers will be moved by the experience.
👍 Orbs Pros: The dual narrative is an absolute winner. Providing the reader with different perspectives allowed me to be fully invested in both sisters' characters. A twist on horror, which, to be honest, I was not expecting. While I love a good slasher or traditional trope, this book sneaks up on you. The underlying sense of discomfort followed throughout like a lost puppy. To say this novel is emotional is an understatement. For those who have dealt with anxiety or those in the family dealing with someone else's affliction, this novel will resonate. Viggy Parr Hampton offers readers a look into a damaged family dynamic and how those defective personality traits tend to surface during difficult times, often leading to tumultuous endings. A conclusion that left my jaw open, one I should have seen coming yet had no clue about, a perfect ending to a brilliant offering.
👎 Orbs Cons: Mr. Knowles, the next-door neighbor. Without spoiling too much, I will say his lack of contribution was interesting. Shouldn’t he have had more input in this situation?
Must read! No doubt one of the best novels I read this year! If you love haunting stories that tug at your heartstrings while angering you simultaneously, do yourself a favor and seek out this book. This was a gem!
💡 Orbs Epilogue: Thunderous cracking of bat wings flying by as the girl approaches slowly with caution and sits next to the woman in white. Gently placing her innocent head into scarred, bony hands, she gazes upon the piercing, silvery orbs set within this ghostlike entity. With precision, the woman places the torturous pick into the corner of an unblinking eye. A thwack ensues, a solid tapping motion, followed by a vortex swirling of the instrument, leaving the girl breathless. Following the same routine, the contents behind the other eye are also properly stirred, leaving the girl on the ground, attempting to speak, and slowly writhing like a worm in defensive response. The woman gently kisses the girl's sweaty forehead and dissipates into the ether. The still blackness comes, and disconnection bites into the girl’s brainwave frequency. A phone rings, rings, rings… unanswered, without as much as a hint of knowledge or know-how, our girl is conscious and yet left in a zombie-like trance. What is known is that this girl no longer fears emesis or harmful microorganisms, but dear readers, at what cost?
Many thanks to Viggy Parr Hampton and Booksirens. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
January 22, 2026
4.5 ⭐️
Veritable Household Pet is told through the transcribed words of Darla Gregory, with her sister Ellie acting as her scribe. Ellie also steps in with notes and commentary, adding context, clarification, and sometimes quiet disagreement. That structure works incredibly well, turning the story into a layered conversation rather than a straightforward account. Darla speaks, and Ellie fills in the spaces where memory, denial, or trauma blur the edges.
Darla is living with severe paranoia and mental illness that leads her to lock herself in her room by her own choice, driven by fears she can’t escape. Set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the story confronts the very real reality of lobotomies being used as treatment, especially for families without money or options. Desperate and broke, the Gregory family finds a doctor willing to perform the procedure. Darla survives, but she’s never the same, and that loss shapes everything that follows.
We follow Darla and Ellie from childhood into early adulthood and then into middle age, watching the consequences ripple outward. Their father kills himself after being unable to cope with what’s happened to his daughter. Their mother descends into alcoholism and pill abuse and is headed toward death regardless—Ellie just speeds up the inevitable. The girls are taken in by their neighbor, Mrs. Knowles, who raises them as her goddaughters in a home that offers care but is still marked by absence. Her two grown sons are gone from the picture entirely, another quiet void that lingers in the background.
Ellie carries much of the emotional weight of the story. She’s trying to do right by her sister in the absence of functional parents, even though she does have someone caring for both of them, all while pushing herself academically and trying to secure the best future possible. As Darla navigates puberty and adulthood in her altered state, Ellie is forced to grow up too fast, balancing responsibility, guilt, ambition, and love in ways that feel painfully real.
The ending is tragic and deeply heartbreaking. Without giving anything away, it feels like the only ending that could belong to the Gregory sisters, even though it hurts to get there.
What truly stood out to me was the author’s afterward. Viggy Parr Hampton clearly understands that horror doesn’t only exist in monsters, killers, or things lurking in the dark. It lives in systems that fail people, in medical practices that permanently alter lives, and in the paralysis that comes from being placed in impossible situations. Though this story is fictional, the history behind it isn’t, and it’s hard not to think about the families who lived with the aftermath of this barbaric procedure.
This is quiet, devastating horror—the kind rooted in reality, grief, and irreversible choices.
Thank you to Viggy Parr Hampton and BookSirens for the advanced copy. This review is voluntary and reflects my honest opinion.
Veritable Household Pet is told through the transcribed words of Darla Gregory, with her sister Ellie acting as her scribe. Ellie also steps in with notes and commentary, adding context, clarification, and sometimes quiet disagreement. That structure works incredibly well, turning the story into a layered conversation rather than a straightforward account. Darla speaks, and Ellie fills in the spaces where memory, denial, or trauma blur the edges.
Darla is living with severe paranoia and mental illness that leads her to lock herself in her room by her own choice, driven by fears she can’t escape. Set in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the story confronts the very real reality of lobotomies being used as treatment, especially for families without money or options. Desperate and broke, the Gregory family finds a doctor willing to perform the procedure. Darla survives, but she’s never the same, and that loss shapes everything that follows.
We follow Darla and Ellie from childhood into early adulthood and then into middle age, watching the consequences ripple outward. Their father kills himself after being unable to cope with what’s happened to his daughter. Their mother descends into alcoholism and pill abuse and is headed toward death regardless—Ellie just speeds up the inevitable. The girls are taken in by their neighbor, Mrs. Knowles, who raises them as her goddaughters in a home that offers care but is still marked by absence. Her two grown sons are gone from the picture entirely, another quiet void that lingers in the background.
Ellie carries much of the emotional weight of the story. She’s trying to do right by her sister in the absence of functional parents, even though she does have someone caring for both of them, all while pushing herself academically and trying to secure the best future possible. As Darla navigates puberty and adulthood in her altered state, Ellie is forced to grow up too fast, balancing responsibility, guilt, ambition, and love in ways that feel painfully real.
The ending is tragic and deeply heartbreaking. Without giving anything away, it feels like the only ending that could belong to the Gregory sisters, even though it hurts to get there.
What truly stood out to me was the author’s afterward. Viggy Parr Hampton clearly understands that horror doesn’t only exist in monsters, killers, or things lurking in the dark. It lives in systems that fail people, in medical practices that permanently alter lives, and in the paralysis that comes from being placed in impossible situations. Though this story is fictional, the history behind it isn’t, and it’s hard not to think about the families who lived with the aftermath of this barbaric procedure.
This is quiet, devastating horror—the kind rooted in reality, grief, and irreversible choices.
Thank you to Viggy Parr Hampton and BookSirens for the advanced copy. This review is voluntary and reflects my honest opinion.
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