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Hedgehog
Not yet published
Expected 9 Mar 27280 pages, Paperback
Expected publication March 9, 2027
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 61 reviews
August 13, 2026
Okayyyy, I LOVED this one!! 😭🦔
I received Hedgehog as an ARC through NetGalley, and I’m so glad I got the chance to read it because this one completely sucked me in!
There was just something about this book that had me hooked. It was creepy, unsettling and so damn addictive — the kind of book where you keep telling yourself “just one more chapter” and suddenly you’re flying through it.
I loved the atmosphere and the way the story slowly gets under your skin. There were moments where I genuinely had that feeling of something is VERY wrong here, and I was absolutely here for it.
The characters, tension and twists kept me invested right to the end. I also loved how unpredictable it felt — I genuinely wasn’t sure where things were going, which is exactly what I want from a thriller.
Definitely one I’d recommend if you like your thrillers dark, creepy and a little fucked up. 🦔🩸
Maggie Koons, you got me with this one! 4 ⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
I received Hedgehog as an ARC through NetGalley, and I’m so glad I got the chance to read it because this one completely sucked me in!
There was just something about this book that had me hooked. It was creepy, unsettling and so damn addictive — the kind of book where you keep telling yourself “just one more chapter” and suddenly you’re flying through it.
I loved the atmosphere and the way the story slowly gets under your skin. There were moments where I genuinely had that feeling of something is VERY wrong here, and I was absolutely here for it.
The characters, tension and twists kept me invested right to the end. I also loved how unpredictable it felt — I genuinely wasn’t sure where things were going, which is exactly what I want from a thriller.
Definitely one I’d recommend if you like your thrillers dark, creepy and a little fucked up. 🦔🩸
Maggie Koons, you got me with this one! 4 ⭐️
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
4.5 I’m sorry, but I loved this and I think all the low ratings are because there is animal cruelty in the book, but how do you not realize that content when the cover is simply “Hedgehog” with blood dripping? So yes, there is animal cruelty, but that’s not the point of the story, and the intention and degree of it show Riley’s increasing emotional spiral. There are two FMCs and we follow their separate stories. They are both messy and falling apart. Riley is obsessive and rejected, endlessly scrolling through her ex-girlfriend’s social media. She also has a fixation on GoreTube where users upload disturbing videos, like an underworld of YouTube. She has family and friend support, but it doesn’t matter to her, and I cringed every time she made a choice. I didn’t trust her at all.
Irina is our other FMC, who had a haunted childhood and has a pretty nihilistic view of life. She’s lonely and lost, but doesn’t put in much effort. She stashes herself away in her father’s attic playing video games. She’s honestly just trying to sort herself out and feel something, and I felt really bad for her, her history, and where her story leads.
I was glued to this story. It’s weird girl horror for sure. I highly recommend this if you can handle animal abuse, self-harm, drugs, and addiction.
Thanks to NetGalley and CLASH Books. Pub date March 9, 2027.
Irina is our other FMC, who had a haunted childhood and has a pretty nihilistic view of life. She’s lonely and lost, but doesn’t put in much effort. She stashes herself away in her father’s attic playing video games. She’s honestly just trying to sort herself out and feel something, and I felt really bad for her, her history, and where her story leads.
I was glued to this story. It’s weird girl horror for sure. I highly recommend this if you can handle animal abuse, self-harm, drugs, and addiction.
Thanks to NetGalley and CLASH Books. Pub date March 9, 2027.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
DISCLAIMER: This book features graphic depictions of animal cruelty and self-harm. Read at your own discretion.
Hedgehog had so much potential.
The story follows two young women, Riley and Irina, as they drift through life. Riley is suffering an emotional breakdown after breaking up with the love of her life and turns to alcohol, gore videos, and violence as a coping mechanism. While Irina is a sheltered woman who works a dead-end job at an empty gym, living with her dad and spending her days playing video games--the shadow of her mother's crime looming over her.
Eventually the appearance of a camgirl named Amy changes the trajectory of their lives forever.
Despite the rather visceral first chapter featuring the titular hedgehog's death, I held out hope that there was a good story in here somewhere. Maggie Koons writes Gen Z nihilism extraordinarily well. She captures these two girls descent into self-destruction perfectly, and offers up amazing insights into modern-day consumerism and doomscrolling.
However, I think Hedgehog loses itself in its graphic depictions of animal violence and gore that it starts to feel like sensationalism rather than disturbing think-piece on young society today. Koons leans a little too far into the whole "GoreTube" aesthetic. A few chapters felt shocking just for the sake of being shocking.
The pacing and character development could've also used a bit of work. I engaged more with Irina's chapters than I did Riley's, and this could've easily have been a 150 page novella. It drags along to an ending that's rather disappointing and extremely anti-climatic. Not to mention the blurb is misleading. Their paths don't "cross" until the last 10% of the book.
I think Maggie Koons has interesting ideas to put onto paper. Her depictions of self-destruction, nihilism, and easily accessible gore are some of the best I've ever read. They're just lost in a muddled story that really needed more time to bake. I'd be interested in more work by the author in the future, however.
*Thank you to Netgalley and CLASH for providing me an ARC copy of this book. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.*
Hedgehog had so much potential.
The story follows two young women, Riley and Irina, as they drift through life. Riley is suffering an emotional breakdown after breaking up with the love of her life and turns to alcohol, gore videos, and violence as a coping mechanism. While Irina is a sheltered woman who works a dead-end job at an empty gym, living with her dad and spending her days playing video games--the shadow of her mother's crime looming over her.
Eventually the appearance of a camgirl named Amy changes the trajectory of their lives forever.
Despite the rather visceral first chapter featuring the titular hedgehog's death, I held out hope that there was a good story in here somewhere. Maggie Koons writes Gen Z nihilism extraordinarily well. She captures these two girls descent into self-destruction perfectly, and offers up amazing insights into modern-day consumerism and doomscrolling.
However, I think Hedgehog loses itself in its graphic depictions of animal violence and gore that it starts to feel like sensationalism rather than disturbing think-piece on young society today. Koons leans a little too far into the whole "GoreTube" aesthetic. A few chapters felt shocking just for the sake of being shocking.
The pacing and character development could've also used a bit of work. I engaged more with Irina's chapters than I did Riley's, and this could've easily have been a 150 page novella. It drags along to an ending that's rather disappointing and extremely anti-climatic. Not to mention the blurb is misleading. Their paths don't "cross" until the last 10% of the book.
I think Maggie Koons has interesting ideas to put onto paper. Her depictions of self-destruction, nihilism, and easily accessible gore are some of the best I've ever read. They're just lost in a muddled story that really needed more time to bake. I'd be interested in more work by the author in the future, however.
*Thank you to Netgalley and CLASH for providing me an ARC copy of this book. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.*
August 23, 2026
Hedgehog is touted as a “merciless crucible of unrelenting depravity”, but as someone who grew up in the era when gore websites and questionable videos ran rampant on the internet, this falls a bit flat.
First, I’ll talk about the book purely in a craft sense. Koons does an excellent job of making her dual storylines feel like they’re truly from different perspectives; Riley and Irina have different prose styles, different ways of talking, different internal monologues, and in a time where I’m pretty sick of dual POV books, this executes it excellently.
Our protagonists, Riley and Irina, also walk two different sides of the line that make someone a morally gray character. Irina is more sympathetic, as she’s causing no harm to anyone but herself, and while Riley is easily more reprehensible, it’s also undeniable that she’s an extremely unwell young woman and her actions only cement this fact. By having these two protagonists opposite each other, it throws their good and bad qualities into even sharper relief than if they were portrayed individually. I also really enjoyed that the venn diagram of their lives only barely eclipsed, keeping them as two ultimately separate but intertwined characters none-the-less.
I also quite liked the ambiguous endings once I had time to sit with them; initially, I hit the ending with the speed of a derailed train into the side of a building and was left blinking in confusion at the author’s note at the end. But after a few days, I think the lack of clarity leaves the girls feeling very real, and their future actions up to our imagination.
All of these are positives, but I did find myself feeling quite disconnected from the book; not because of the characters, but because of the central conceit of the website GoreTube.
I’m not sure how old Koons is, or what circles she ran in during the 2000s, but as someone with unfettered access to the internet from the moment I was able to sit in the chair in our family’s guest bedroom and navigate to Netscape, GoreTube felt incongruous with the modern day setting it’s placed in.
I recall spending far too much time on 4chan and SomethingAwful, or when videos like “Meatspin” or “2 Girls 1 Cup” were shared via links in AIM or MSN Messenger. Before there was LiveLeak, there was Rotten.com, which was THE shock site for the late 90s and early 00s. I don’t mention these to try and taut my street cred, but rather to point out the time period that this site is incredibly important to how prolific it was able to become.
Shock sites are far more rare these days than they used to be, and it’s because of how over policed the internet now is. The wild west of the internet days were when I was in high school, truly an “anything goes” environment if I’ve ever seen one. LiveLeak, the most eponymous modern day shock site, has been down since 2021. These things just don’t exist anymore, and by having GoreTube in what appears, as far as I can tell, to be a modern day world with cell phones and influencers and Twitch streaming just feels….well, wrong. The internet just isn’t that gritty place of our memories anymore, and that’s probably a good thing, but it left me feeling the entire book like this was being written by someone who “wasn’t there back in the day”, which I hate to say because that’s also probably a good thing.
But maybe Koons did experience this unique time in internet history and has attempted to translate it into the current world of 2026 to make it easier for audiences to understand, and I don’t think she’s done a bad job. I’m just never going to be able to suspend my disbelief that a streaming website for animal mutilation exists in the modern day.
My other critique is that I think the “horror” elements of this book were oversold; don’t get me wrong, the animal mutilation wasn’t a frolic through the flowers, but the self harm was very minimal, and it absolutely fell short of “a merciless crucible of unrelenting depravity”. This doesn’t even rank in my top 5 disturbing books of the year.
That being said, I’d recommend this book quite highly to anyone who’s newer to the horror genre and who wasn’t spending an absolutely inadvisable time on /b/ back in the day.
[This ARC was provided by CLASH Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
First, I’ll talk about the book purely in a craft sense. Koons does an excellent job of making her dual storylines feel like they’re truly from different perspectives; Riley and Irina have different prose styles, different ways of talking, different internal monologues, and in a time where I’m pretty sick of dual POV books, this executes it excellently.
Our protagonists, Riley and Irina, also walk two different sides of the line that make someone a morally gray character. Irina is more sympathetic, as she’s causing no harm to anyone but herself, and while Riley is easily more reprehensible, it’s also undeniable that she’s an extremely unwell young woman and her actions only cement this fact. By having these two protagonists opposite each other, it throws their good and bad qualities into even sharper relief than if they were portrayed individually. I also really enjoyed that the venn diagram of their lives only barely eclipsed, keeping them as two ultimately separate but intertwined characters none-the-less.
I also quite liked the ambiguous endings once I had time to sit with them; initially, I hit the ending with the speed of a derailed train into the side of a building and was left blinking in confusion at the author’s note at the end. But after a few days, I think the lack of clarity leaves the girls feeling very real, and their future actions up to our imagination.
All of these are positives, but I did find myself feeling quite disconnected from the book; not because of the characters, but because of the central conceit of the website GoreTube.
I’m not sure how old Koons is, or what circles she ran in during the 2000s, but as someone with unfettered access to the internet from the moment I was able to sit in the chair in our family’s guest bedroom and navigate to Netscape, GoreTube felt incongruous with the modern day setting it’s placed in.
I recall spending far too much time on 4chan and SomethingAwful, or when videos like “Meatspin” or “2 Girls 1 Cup” were shared via links in AIM or MSN Messenger. Before there was LiveLeak, there was Rotten.com, which was THE shock site for the late 90s and early 00s. I don’t mention these to try and taut my street cred, but rather to point out the time period that this site is incredibly important to how prolific it was able to become.
Shock sites are far more rare these days than they used to be, and it’s because of how over policed the internet now is. The wild west of the internet days were when I was in high school, truly an “anything goes” environment if I’ve ever seen one. LiveLeak, the most eponymous modern day shock site, has been down since 2021. These things just don’t exist anymore, and by having GoreTube in what appears, as far as I can tell, to be a modern day world with cell phones and influencers and Twitch streaming just feels….well, wrong. The internet just isn’t that gritty place of our memories anymore, and that’s probably a good thing, but it left me feeling the entire book like this was being written by someone who “wasn’t there back in the day”, which I hate to say because that’s also probably a good thing.
But maybe Koons did experience this unique time in internet history and has attempted to translate it into the current world of 2026 to make it easier for audiences to understand, and I don’t think she’s done a bad job. I’m just never going to be able to suspend my disbelief that a streaming website for animal mutilation exists in the modern day.
My other critique is that I think the “horror” elements of this book were oversold; don’t get me wrong, the animal mutilation wasn’t a frolic through the flowers, but the self harm was very minimal, and it absolutely fell short of “a merciless crucible of unrelenting depravity”. This doesn’t even rank in my top 5 disturbing books of the year.
That being said, I’d recommend this book quite highly to anyone who’s newer to the horror genre and who wasn’t spending an absolutely inadvisable time on /b/ back in the day.
[This ARC was provided by CLASH Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Hedgehog by Maggie Koons is probably one of the most vile books I've ever read. The story follows Riley and Irina, two girls who's lives are supposed to interconnect during the course of the story, according to the description. I'd say this book focuses less on the two girls' lives intersecting, and more on what the author could write that would have the most shock value. Honestly, this book really reads like the author went to a real "GoreTube"-esque and just wrote transcriptions from the videos that featured animal abuse. And don't get me wrong, I love gore and messed up stories, however there is a right and wrong way to do it. For example, Bat Eater Among Other Names For Cora Zeng by Kylie Lee Baker has some nasty, graphic descriptions. What makes it different (and infinitely better) is that the gore has a compelling story behind it, and the story justifies the grossness. Thankfully, only one perspective was focused on grotesquely murdering animals, however the other perspective isn't that much better. The other perspective instead focuses on Irina who has a destructive relationship with a cocaine and self harm addicted cam girl. The self harm is portrayed in a horrible light, with (spoilers in this sentence only) Irina at the end cutting herself and feels "[her] brain [light] up." The biggest slap in the face reading this book was how bad the ending is. I won't go into details, but the only thing that kept me going was hoping that the ending would at least be satisfying. It wasn't. It was such a cop out ending that I had to put my e-reader down and take a walk before reviewing it. This book needs heavy trigger warning for animal abuse, self harm, and drug and alcohol use, at the very least. That being said, I do not recommend this book, and instead recommend everyone stay as far away from it as possible.
September 25, 2026
2.25 ★
yeah, guys. i just don’t know about this one. did i read the synopsis, see “her animal murders keep escalating until her past and present collide” and still sent the request on netgalley anyways? yes. yes, i did and you know what? that’s on me.
i don’t really know what i expected, but as a lover of weird girl lit fic and horror, i thought it could still work for me. i found parts of the story to be interesting and thought it would all come together at some point, but the ending felt rushed and lacked resolution. excluding the violence, i’d say the story was okay.
so yeah, tw: animal violence and self harm.
thank you to clash books and netgalley for the e-arc 🤍
yeah, guys. i just don’t know about this one. did i read the synopsis, see “her animal murders keep escalating until her past and present collide” and still sent the request on netgalley anyways? yes. yes, i did and you know what? that’s on me.
i don’t really know what i expected, but as a lover of weird girl lit fic and horror, i thought it could still work for me. i found parts of the story to be interesting and thought it would all come together at some point, but the ending felt rushed and lacked resolution. excluding the violence, i’d say the story was okay.
so yeah, tw: animal violence and self harm.
thank you to clash books and netgalley for the e-arc 🤍
Read
September 14, 2026Horrifying indeed
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
-ˏˋ. ARC Review ˊˎ-
📖 Title: Hedgehog
✒️ Author: Maggie Koons
🗓️ Release Day: 9 March 2027
🎧 Format: e-book
📄 Page Count: 280
📌 Genre(s): Horror
⭐ Star Rating: (3) ⭐⭐⭐
•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••
This was... okay.
I was very intrigued to start with, I want my horror to be uncomfortable and gritty and this just wasn't it. We start with the murder of Riley's ex-girlfriend's hedgehog, Maple. It's a bit awful, it's brutal and uncomfortable as most animal deaths are. But, for a novel so heavily marketing itself on the animal death - it's pretty minimal after this.
There's a small cat scene and then a scene with a dog towards the end that's a bit vivid - but everything else in between is like "OMG I'm drunk again, oh and I killed 13 rats and an opossum last night, haha, I filmed it for this website and I'm gaining a following but also I hate influencers, eurgh.'
Felt like the entire schtick of the novel just became a passing mention.
I have to be honest, this might be one of the most contemporary horror novels I've ever read. The horror is supposed to be psychological - I guess - because as previously mentioned, the animal murders just kind of disintegrate somewhere in between the consistent vodka drinking, coke sniffing, self harming worship, but the psychological aspect isn't there either.
There is nothing of substance to this novel at all beyond the eerily endearing cover art. Riley is annoying and boring because of how edgy she thinks she is. Irina was okay, I liked her best out of the two I suppose, but she's still nothing more than her mommy issues and introverted personality.
I also felt like the synopsis was quite misleading. Contextually, I would assume that the animals would play a bigger part than they did, that we would delve into Riley's psyche but that barely happened. I would have also assumed based on the phrase -
'She meets a masochistic drug-addicted camgirl, who gets her involved with the vicious video-sharing website, GoreTube. There is where Riley and Irina cross paths digitally, setting off a series of events threatening to reveal both of their dark secrets.'
- at no point to Riley and Irina actually interact - so they don't cross paths at all. Riley sees Irina's videos, but Irina only interacts with GoreTube a couple of times and not very deeply at all - the website is the only correlation.
Last but not least - mostly because this irritated me the most - I put in the time and effort to read this book, and continue to read it because I wanted to see where it all went, how it ended.
Well reader, I'll tell you.
It ended in the most obnoxious way any novel can end. With nothing definitive happening. The old 'I'm too lazy to write a real ending so I'll be vague and you can use your imagination'
As a reader, I don't require an author to spell everything out for me, however, the one thing I cannot stand is when a novel ends in the most pathetic way. "Not with a bang, but with a whimper" as I believe the saying goes.
Basically, you read it and get pretty much no payoff. There's no ending, there's no psychological definition to any of it really, the characters are mediocre and boring. The author uses the word 'bitch' to refer to the other female characters 23 separate times. I'll let you sit with that. She also found is necessary to make Irina's dad a homophobe, which is an understandable choice for a plot point. Having him call his own daughter a 'faggot' though seemed a little unnecessary - I understand needing the conflict to move the plot forward but there's already a very clear, very terse subject between Irina and her father that would have worked just as well if not better for it.
Ultimately, I was very much looking forward to this - it was right up my alley. But it did not deliver and that's so incredibly disappointing.
Thanks NetGalley and publishers for the ARC.
📖 Title: Hedgehog
✒️ Author: Maggie Koons
🗓️ Release Day: 9 March 2027
🎧 Format: e-book
📄 Page Count: 280
📌 Genre(s): Horror
⭐ Star Rating: (3) ⭐⭐⭐
•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••
This was... okay.
I was very intrigued to start with, I want my horror to be uncomfortable and gritty and this just wasn't it. We start with the murder of Riley's ex-girlfriend's hedgehog, Maple. It's a bit awful, it's brutal and uncomfortable as most animal deaths are. But, for a novel so heavily marketing itself on the animal death - it's pretty minimal after this.
There's a small cat scene and then a scene with a dog towards the end that's a bit vivid - but everything else in between is like "OMG I'm drunk again, oh and I killed 13 rats and an opossum last night, haha, I filmed it for this website and I'm gaining a following but also I hate influencers, eurgh.'
Felt like the entire schtick of the novel just became a passing mention.
I have to be honest, this might be one of the most contemporary horror novels I've ever read. The horror is supposed to be psychological - I guess - because as previously mentioned, the animal murders just kind of disintegrate somewhere in between the consistent vodka drinking, coke sniffing, self harming worship, but the psychological aspect isn't there either.
There is nothing of substance to this novel at all beyond the eerily endearing cover art. Riley is annoying and boring because of how edgy she thinks she is. Irina was okay, I liked her best out of the two I suppose, but she's still nothing more than her mommy issues and introverted personality.
I also felt like the synopsis was quite misleading. Contextually, I would assume that the animals would play a bigger part than they did, that we would delve into Riley's psyche but that barely happened. I would have also assumed based on the phrase -
'She meets a masochistic drug-addicted camgirl, who gets her involved with the vicious video-sharing website, GoreTube. There is where Riley and Irina cross paths digitally, setting off a series of events threatening to reveal both of their dark secrets.'
- at no point to Riley and Irina actually interact - so they don't cross paths at all. Riley sees Irina's videos, but Irina only interacts with GoreTube a couple of times and not very deeply at all - the website is the only correlation.
Last but not least - mostly because this irritated me the most - I put in the time and effort to read this book, and continue to read it because I wanted to see where it all went, how it ended.
Well reader, I'll tell you.
It ended in the most obnoxious way any novel can end. With nothing definitive happening. The old 'I'm too lazy to write a real ending so I'll be vague and you can use your imagination'
As a reader, I don't require an author to spell everything out for me, however, the one thing I cannot stand is when a novel ends in the most pathetic way. "Not with a bang, but with a whimper" as I believe the saying goes.
Basically, you read it and get pretty much no payoff. There's no ending, there's no psychological definition to any of it really, the characters are mediocre and boring. The author uses the word 'bitch' to refer to the other female characters 23 separate times. I'll let you sit with that. She also found is necessary to make Irina's dad a homophobe, which is an understandable choice for a plot point. Having him call his own daughter a 'faggot' though seemed a little unnecessary - I understand needing the conflict to move the plot forward but there's already a very clear, very terse subject between Irina and her father that would have worked just as well if not better for it.
Ultimately, I was very much looking forward to this - it was right up my alley. But it did not deliver and that's so incredibly disappointing.
Thanks NetGalley and publishers for the ARC.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I can take gore. Animal cruelty turns out to be my limit, and this book found it in the first chapter.
That needs saying before anything else, both as a warning and as context for the rating, because there is a difference between a book that fails and a book that is not for you. This is the second one. Horror is outside what I read, I knew roughly what I was walking into, and it was still more than I could sit with. Everything below is about the craft.
Riley is in San Francisco, drinking through a breakup and writing influencer newsletters, and after she kills her ex-girlfriend's hedgehog she discovers something she then has to keep chasing. Irina is in Philadelphia, gaming, living in the shadow of a family tragedy, and falls in with a camgirl who pulls her toward a gore-sharing site. They never meet. Their lives cross only through a screen.
The dual point of view is the reason to read this. I have grown genuinely tired of the structure and Koons does it properly. Riley and Irina do not write the same, do not talk the same, and do not think the same, and the two voices are distinguishable on any page you open at random. Irina is the more sympathetic of the two by a distance, largely because the only person she is damaging is herself, and hers were the chapters I looked forward to. What she is dealing with, the difficulty of meeting anyone, the trauma sitting underneath it untouched, has a recognisable shape.
Riley is the harder proposition and the book earns her. She opens on behaviour so far outside anything I could relate to that I had to stop and start again, and what follows does not explain her so much as demonstrate, repeatedly, how unwell she is. She is reprehensible and she is also a very sick young woman, and Koons holds both without asking you to excuse either. Setting the two of them against each other is what makes it work. Each throws the other into relief in a way neither would manage alone, and I liked that their lives barely overlap. They stay separate and connected at once, which is a hard balance and Koons keeps it.
It is also a genuine throwback to the internet of the late nineties and early two thousands, ICQ and Limewire and the era when clicking through to something you should not was as transgressive as most people got. The period feel is convincing without being nostalgic about it.
Where it comes apart is the plot. The unease is sustained the whole way through, which is not nothing, but the pacing does not serve the premise and the ending resolves into something the book had not been building toward. It has a great deal to say and does not seem certain what it wants to say, and I suspect the horror elements had a plan behind them that never quite joined up. One-dimensional is the fair word for the shape of it.
The characters are strong, the structure works, the execution of the dual narrative is better than most, and the plot and the ending do not repay the atmosphere. Not for me, and not the same thing as not good.
A content note, and I mean this one: substantial and escalating animal cruelty throughout, plus gore, addiction and sexual content.
I received this ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
That needs saying before anything else, both as a warning and as context for the rating, because there is a difference between a book that fails and a book that is not for you. This is the second one. Horror is outside what I read, I knew roughly what I was walking into, and it was still more than I could sit with. Everything below is about the craft.
Riley is in San Francisco, drinking through a breakup and writing influencer newsletters, and after she kills her ex-girlfriend's hedgehog she discovers something she then has to keep chasing. Irina is in Philadelphia, gaming, living in the shadow of a family tragedy, and falls in with a camgirl who pulls her toward a gore-sharing site. They never meet. Their lives cross only through a screen.
The dual point of view is the reason to read this. I have grown genuinely tired of the structure and Koons does it properly. Riley and Irina do not write the same, do not talk the same, and do not think the same, and the two voices are distinguishable on any page you open at random. Irina is the more sympathetic of the two by a distance, largely because the only person she is damaging is herself, and hers were the chapters I looked forward to. What she is dealing with, the difficulty of meeting anyone, the trauma sitting underneath it untouched, has a recognisable shape.
Riley is the harder proposition and the book earns her. She opens on behaviour so far outside anything I could relate to that I had to stop and start again, and what follows does not explain her so much as demonstrate, repeatedly, how unwell she is. She is reprehensible and she is also a very sick young woman, and Koons holds both without asking you to excuse either. Setting the two of them against each other is what makes it work. Each throws the other into relief in a way neither would manage alone, and I liked that their lives barely overlap. They stay separate and connected at once, which is a hard balance and Koons keeps it.
It is also a genuine throwback to the internet of the late nineties and early two thousands, ICQ and Limewire and the era when clicking through to something you should not was as transgressive as most people got. The period feel is convincing without being nostalgic about it.
Where it comes apart is the plot. The unease is sustained the whole way through, which is not nothing, but the pacing does not serve the premise and the ending resolves into something the book had not been building toward. It has a great deal to say and does not seem certain what it wants to say, and I suspect the horror elements had a plan behind them that never quite joined up. One-dimensional is the fair word for the shape of it.
The characters are strong, the structure works, the execution of the dual narrative is better than most, and the plot and the ending do not repay the atmosphere. Not for me, and not the same thing as not good.
A content note, and I mean this one: substantial and escalating animal cruelty throughout, plus gore, addiction and sexual content.
I received this ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
October 1, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and Clash Books for the e-ARC!
I knew going into this book that it might not 100% be my vibe between the animal cruelty and the general fact that I don't always love horror books (see: Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, and the way everyone else loved that book), but I do love weird girl fic and I felt like it had so much potential that I decided to read it anyway. It unfortunately does not deliver at all on this potential.
To start with the good, the writing was descriptive enough that I had visceral, disgusted reactions when discussing the animal cruelty. The first scene like this is in the very first chapter, which made me decide to put the book down for a couple weeks and read other things, before eventually deciding to come back to it. Maybe I'm extra sensitive as someone who has owned a pet hedgehog but these scenes were truly disgustingly written- which is of course the intention of the author. Unfortunately, to move immediately into the bad, the scenes read significantly more like being for shock value than for any true purpose, which really threw me off.
Another thing this book unfortunately didn't do well in my opinion was the dual POV. It took me a while to distinguish between the two characters, sometimes they seemed too similar and made it difficult to remember who was who and what they were doing. To me, they didn't read as distinct enough. Additionally, the intersection these characters have, described as "cross[ing] paths digitally, setting off a series of events threatening to reveal both of their dark secrets" frankly just doesn't happen. As a result, the end of this novel was extremely rushed, to the point it kind of felt like it just ends. I was genuinely shocked to turn the page and see the acknowledgements. I really don't feel like I'm taking anything of meaning or substance from this book. Additionally, there's no real development to the characters in my opinion. There was a lot of potential to do something interesting and special with this story, but with the limited plot and character development that there is, this should've been at most a novella. There's simply too many pages in this book for so little of substance to happen and for there to be such a lack of character development.
This book also didn't deliver for me at the grammatical and prose level. I do think that Koons depicts nihilism relatively well, and that the writing style was at least engaging enough to keep me reading, but it also just wasn't the best. This is a bit of a nitpick, but I swear at least once per page there's a sentence that starts with "But". I don't know why but it really started to bother me once I noticed it.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book, and if you do decide to pick it up, please check the TW beforehand. There isn't a payoff to the gore and violence, so I guess I'd recommend it if you just like reading fucked up descriptions of animal cruelty and self-harm?
I knew going into this book that it might not 100% be my vibe between the animal cruelty and the general fact that I don't always love horror books (see: Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, and the way everyone else loved that book), but I do love weird girl fic and I felt like it had so much potential that I decided to read it anyway. It unfortunately does not deliver at all on this potential.
To start with the good, the writing was descriptive enough that I had visceral, disgusted reactions when discussing the animal cruelty. The first scene like this is in the very first chapter, which made me decide to put the book down for a couple weeks and read other things, before eventually deciding to come back to it. Maybe I'm extra sensitive as someone who has owned a pet hedgehog but these scenes were truly disgustingly written- which is of course the intention of the author. Unfortunately, to move immediately into the bad, the scenes read significantly more like being for shock value than for any true purpose, which really threw me off.
Another thing this book unfortunately didn't do well in my opinion was the dual POV. It took me a while to distinguish between the two characters, sometimes they seemed too similar and made it difficult to remember who was who and what they were doing. To me, they didn't read as distinct enough. Additionally, the intersection these characters have, described as "cross[ing] paths digitally, setting off a series of events threatening to reveal both of their dark secrets" frankly just doesn't happen. As a result, the end of this novel was extremely rushed, to the point it kind of felt like it just ends. I was genuinely shocked to turn the page and see the acknowledgements. I really don't feel like I'm taking anything of meaning or substance from this book. Additionally, there's no real development to the characters in my opinion. There was a lot of potential to do something interesting and special with this story, but with the limited plot and character development that there is, this should've been at most a novella. There's simply too many pages in this book for so little of substance to happen and for there to be such a lack of character development.
This book also didn't deliver for me at the grammatical and prose level. I do think that Koons depicts nihilism relatively well, and that the writing style was at least engaging enough to keep me reading, but it also just wasn't the best. This is a bit of a nitpick, but I swear at least once per page there's a sentence that starts with "But". I don't know why but it really started to bother me once I noticed it.
Overall, I wouldn't recommend this book, and if you do decide to pick it up, please check the TW beforehand. There isn't a payoff to the gore and violence, so I guess I'd recommend it if you just like reading fucked up descriptions of animal cruelty and self-harm?
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Hedgehog by Maggie Koons
I couldn’t put this book down. And honestly, that might be the best way to describe Hedgehog: it is deeply uncomfortable, wildly messy, and populated almost entirely by people making absolutely terrible decisions—and somehow I was completely invested in watching every single one of them implode.
Koons is fantastic at writing flawed characters. Everyone in this book absolutely sucks, in the most interesting ways. Riley and Irina are both deeply troubled, lonely, complicated young women who cope with their pain in very different—and increasingly destructive—ways. Add in the supporting characters, and the whole book feels like watching multiple human car wrecks unfolding simultaneously. You know you should probably look away, but instead you’re sitting there thinking, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” while immediately turning the page to see what they’ll do next.
I particularly enjoyed the dual POV structure and the way the two stories gradually begin to orbit one another through the darker corners of the internet. There’s an interesting exploration here of loneliness, obsession, trauma, self-destruction, and the ways people can construct entirely different versions of themselves online. The GoreTube element also adds a genuinely unsettling layer to the story, particularly in the way it examines the desire for attention, connection, and increasingly extreme forms of validation.
My biggest criticism is that I sometimes found Riley and Irina too similar. Their stories and emotional landscapes blurred together for me more than they should have, and I occasionally found myself having to remind myself whose perspective I was reading. I also think the ending could have landed a little harder given how much unease and tension the book builds along the way.
But despite those reservations, I was glued to this book. It is strange, disturbing, uncomfortable, and unapologetically bleak—and sometimes that's exactly the kind of fucked-up read I'm in the mood for.
Please pay very close attention to the content warnings: animal abuse and death, self-harm, drug and alcohol use, and other disturbing material are significant parts of the story. This absolutely will not be for everyone, and the animal cruelty in particular is intense.
For me, though? I like a fucked-up read, and Hedgehog certainly delivered one. Maggie Koons is an author I'll be keeping an eye on.
I couldn’t put this book down. And honestly, that might be the best way to describe Hedgehog: it is deeply uncomfortable, wildly messy, and populated almost entirely by people making absolutely terrible decisions—and somehow I was completely invested in watching every single one of them implode.
Koons is fantastic at writing flawed characters. Everyone in this book absolutely sucks, in the most interesting ways. Riley and Irina are both deeply troubled, lonely, complicated young women who cope with their pain in very different—and increasingly destructive—ways. Add in the supporting characters, and the whole book feels like watching multiple human car wrecks unfolding simultaneously. You know you should probably look away, but instead you’re sitting there thinking, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” while immediately turning the page to see what they’ll do next.
I particularly enjoyed the dual POV structure and the way the two stories gradually begin to orbit one another through the darker corners of the internet. There’s an interesting exploration here of loneliness, obsession, trauma, self-destruction, and the ways people can construct entirely different versions of themselves online. The GoreTube element also adds a genuinely unsettling layer to the story, particularly in the way it examines the desire for attention, connection, and increasingly extreme forms of validation.
My biggest criticism is that I sometimes found Riley and Irina too similar. Their stories and emotional landscapes blurred together for me more than they should have, and I occasionally found myself having to remind myself whose perspective I was reading. I also think the ending could have landed a little harder given how much unease and tension the book builds along the way.
But despite those reservations, I was glued to this book. It is strange, disturbing, uncomfortable, and unapologetically bleak—and sometimes that's exactly the kind of fucked-up read I'm in the mood for.
Please pay very close attention to the content warnings: animal abuse and death, self-harm, drug and alcohol use, and other disturbing material are significant parts of the story. This absolutely will not be for everyone, and the animal cruelty in particular is intense.
For me, though? I like a fucked-up read, and Hedgehog certainly delivered one. Maggie Koons is an author I'll be keeping an eye on.
September 8, 2026
Thank you NetGalley & publishers for the digital ARC!
I will say I figured this book wasn't going to reel me in within the first 50 pages, but I stayed with it until the end to see if it would change my mind. Having read the description and knowing there would be extensive animal abuse and self-harm, I didn't shy away even though I knew I would be irked at times. I read horror to be disturbed after all, isn't that the point? Unfortunately, the book itself was very...bland, and it just made the grotesque scenes all the more loathsome.
I did enjoy the dual perspective. Most dual POV books I've read have the MCs lives intertwining quickly, but Riley and Irina had little to no personal interaction. Despite this, their stories were twisted around one another through the internet and GoreTube, and the author was able to deliver on their message of the internet being a public space where privacy should not be expected. This overall message of the book was probably the only reason I stayed with the novel, as the pacing itself felt quite tedious.
The book starts with a not-so-beloved hedgehog being murdered by Riley, their owner. Riley learns that they like the thrill of the kill and slowly begins to seek out animals to have that thrill again. From the start, we quickly see that Riley is an alcoholic and really doesn't do anything other than drink and kill off a few more animals. There is no substance to her chapters, nothing of note, just "and I did another shot, then I was drunk. Let's get some work done, I'll drink some more, oh and I'm now considering killing the (animal)". Irina's chapters were split between reliving her past and seeing Amy, and I found myself bored quickly and wondering where any of this was supposed to go.
Overall, I found that the horror was solely done through shock factor of Riley's sudden kills. I felt like I was dragging myself through her chapters to get to anything of interest. Irina's decline through her relationship with Amy felt more cohesive, but it hit its climax a little over halfway through the book and then stagnated for the remaining chapters. To top it off, the ending was lackluster, and I'd be lying if I said I expected or wanted more from this book.
I will say I figured this book wasn't going to reel me in within the first 50 pages, but I stayed with it until the end to see if it would change my mind. Having read the description and knowing there would be extensive animal abuse and self-harm, I didn't shy away even though I knew I would be irked at times. I read horror to be disturbed after all, isn't that the point? Unfortunately, the book itself was very...bland, and it just made the grotesque scenes all the more loathsome.
I did enjoy the dual perspective. Most dual POV books I've read have the MCs lives intertwining quickly, but Riley and Irina had little to no personal interaction. Despite this, their stories were twisted around one another through the internet and GoreTube, and the author was able to deliver on their message of the internet being a public space where privacy should not be expected. This overall message of the book was probably the only reason I stayed with the novel, as the pacing itself felt quite tedious.
The book starts with a not-so-beloved hedgehog being murdered by Riley, their owner. Riley learns that they like the thrill of the kill and slowly begins to seek out animals to have that thrill again. From the start, we quickly see that Riley is an alcoholic and really doesn't do anything other than drink and kill off a few more animals. There is no substance to her chapters, nothing of note, just "and I did another shot, then I was drunk. Let's get some work done, I'll drink some more, oh and I'm now considering killing the (animal)". Irina's chapters were split between reliving her past and seeing Amy, and I found myself bored quickly and wondering where any of this was supposed to go.
Overall, I found that the horror was solely done through shock factor of Riley's sudden kills. I felt like I was dragging myself through her chapters to get to anything of interest. Irina's decline through her relationship with Amy felt more cohesive, but it hit its climax a little over halfway through the book and then stagnated for the remaining chapters. To top it off, the ending was lackluster, and I'd be lying if I said I expected or wanted more from this book.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Hedgehog is a novel about two queer girls on different sides of the US brought together by a violent video sharing website. Riley is failing to get over her ex-girlfriend, which is only exacerbated when she kills said ex-girlfriend's hedgehog. Suddenly, alongside drinking and watching GoreTube, she has a new hobby: filming animal murders. Meanwhile, gym worker and gamer Irina meets a camgirl who posts on GoreTube. Both Riley and Irina discover that you're not so isolated on the internet after all.
This is a difficult novel to categorise. It is described as horror, but it feels like it is just the animal killing and self-harm that gives it that label. I would describe it as a cross between a queer weird girl story and the bit in the American Psycho film where Patrick Bateman is told to feed a cat into an ATM. If you're used to the kind of famously disturbing novels like Bret Easton Ellis and Dennis Cooper, then Hedgehog isn't going to be too much of a shock, but if you're expecting it to be a simple queer horror story, you perhaps need to read the blurb again and consider if it is for you.
As someone who is very interested by online culture and the dark side of the internet, I like how the book explores that and how it is both the online and offline worlds that lead the protagonists deeper down dark rabbit holes. I do feel that it could've had a bit more follow through on the plot elements, as there wasn't enough space later on to explore what actually happened and what that meant for the characters. In particular, Riley's animal killing felt like it was meant to be a major focus of the book, but it also didn't quite feel like the book fully explored it. There was a lot of time early on in the book that felt like any "weird girl" type book and I found these parts dragged a bit as I was waiting for something to actually happen.
As I said, I didn't find this to really be a horror book, which I was expecting, but I liked how it explored ideas of sex, violence, and pleasure centred around queer women and the internet.
This is a difficult novel to categorise. It is described as horror, but it feels like it is just the animal killing and self-harm that gives it that label. I would describe it as a cross between a queer weird girl story and the bit in the American Psycho film where Patrick Bateman is told to feed a cat into an ATM. If you're used to the kind of famously disturbing novels like Bret Easton Ellis and Dennis Cooper, then Hedgehog isn't going to be too much of a shock, but if you're expecting it to be a simple queer horror story, you perhaps need to read the blurb again and consider if it is for you.
As someone who is very interested by online culture and the dark side of the internet, I like how the book explores that and how it is both the online and offline worlds that lead the protagonists deeper down dark rabbit holes. I do feel that it could've had a bit more follow through on the plot elements, as there wasn't enough space later on to explore what actually happened and what that meant for the characters. In particular, Riley's animal killing felt like it was meant to be a major focus of the book, but it also didn't quite feel like the book fully explored it. There was a lot of time early on in the book that felt like any "weird girl" type book and I found these parts dragged a bit as I was waiting for something to actually happen.
As I said, I didn't find this to really be a horror book, which I was expecting, but I liked how it explored ideas of sex, violence, and pleasure centred around queer women and the internet.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I liked this one. It’s disturbing, and honestly fucked up, but I was invested the entire time. (CHECK your trigger warnings, please)
The story follows Riley and Irina, two women living very different lives but both dealing with loneliness, grief, and their own personal issues. Riley is obsessed with her ex-girlfriend and spends way too much time scrolling through her social media and going down the rabbit hole of GoreTube, a site where people post disturbing videos. Irina is much more isolated and has a pretty bleak outlook on life after a difficult childhood. She spends most of her time hiding away in her father’s attic, playing video games and trying to figure out what she actually wants from life.
I felt bad for Irina, especially knowing what she’d been through. Riley, on the other hand, had me questioning pretty much every decision she made. She has people who care about her, but she’s so stuck in her own head that she keeps making things worse. I never really knew what she was going to do next.
Koons is really good at writing messed-up characters. They’re flawed, complicated, and morally corrupt. These characters weren’t exactly good people, to put it kindly. It’s definitely not a comfortable read, and everyone makes questionable choices, but I was genuinely curious to see just how much worse things could get.
** Please check the content warnings before reading this. ** There is animal cruelty and death, self-harm, drug and alcohol use, and some other pretty disturbing material. The animal cruelty in particular is difficult, so I wouldn’t recommend going into this without knowing what’s coming.**
Thank you so much, CLASH Books, Maggie Koons & NetGalley, for the #gifted earc. All opinions are my own.
The story follows Riley and Irina, two women living very different lives but both dealing with loneliness, grief, and their own personal issues. Riley is obsessed with her ex-girlfriend and spends way too much time scrolling through her social media and going down the rabbit hole of GoreTube, a site where people post disturbing videos. Irina is much more isolated and has a pretty bleak outlook on life after a difficult childhood. She spends most of her time hiding away in her father’s attic, playing video games and trying to figure out what she actually wants from life.
I felt bad for Irina, especially knowing what she’d been through. Riley, on the other hand, had me questioning pretty much every decision she made. She has people who care about her, but she’s so stuck in her own head that she keeps making things worse. I never really knew what she was going to do next.
Koons is really good at writing messed-up characters. They’re flawed, complicated, and morally corrupt. These characters weren’t exactly good people, to put it kindly. It’s definitely not a comfortable read, and everyone makes questionable choices, but I was genuinely curious to see just how much worse things could get.
** Please check the content warnings before reading this. ** There is animal cruelty and death, self-harm, drug and alcohol use, and some other pretty disturbing material. The animal cruelty in particular is difficult, so I wouldn’t recommend going into this without knowing what’s coming.**
Thank you so much, CLASH Books, Maggie Koons & NetGalley, for the #gifted earc. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I'm DNF'ing at 15%
Let me just say that I did grab this book without fully understanding the plot synopsis which is my bad! It literally says Riley's animal murders keep escalating after the accidentally on purpose kills her ex girlfriend's hedgehog. Like, what did I think was going to happen?
I read the hedgehog scene and it was really hard for me to handle, but I decided to push on. It was my fault that I grabbed a book that wasn't exactly to my taste so I wanted something constructive to say with my feedback. And I will say I found Irina's chapters to be interesting and I liked her as a character, I was tempted to just read her chapters honestly. However Riley was someone I really struggled with. And of course there was the hedgehog thing but there was more. I just found her to be so annoyingly bitter about her breakup with her ex. Riley couldn't go more than 2 seconds without thinking of her ex and calling her a bitch. Like oh my god, I'm bored, it's giving femcel. Maybe she changes as the book goes on but that was my experience up to the point that I read.
I read another review from someone who said they're a pretty regular splatterpunk reader and they struggled with this one and recommended those who are sensitive to animal violence to pass. You don't have to tell me twice, I will take that advice and put this book down before I leave too disturbed and upset.
My sincerest apologies to the author on this one, I was not the target audience here and I should have realized that before I picked up the book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an opportunity to read an advance DRC, all opinions are my own.
Let me just say that I did grab this book without fully understanding the plot synopsis which is my bad! It literally says Riley's animal murders keep escalating after the accidentally on purpose kills her ex girlfriend's hedgehog. Like, what did I think was going to happen?
I read the hedgehog scene and it was really hard for me to handle, but I decided to push on. It was my fault that I grabbed a book that wasn't exactly to my taste so I wanted something constructive to say with my feedback. And I will say I found Irina's chapters to be interesting and I liked her as a character, I was tempted to just read her chapters honestly. However Riley was someone I really struggled with. And of course there was the hedgehog thing but there was more. I just found her to be so annoyingly bitter about her breakup with her ex. Riley couldn't go more than 2 seconds without thinking of her ex and calling her a bitch. Like oh my god, I'm bored, it's giving femcel. Maybe she changes as the book goes on but that was my experience up to the point that I read.
I read another review from someone who said they're a pretty regular splatterpunk reader and they struggled with this one and recommended those who are sensitive to animal violence to pass. You don't have to tell me twice, I will take that advice and put this book down before I leave too disturbed and upset.
My sincerest apologies to the author on this one, I was not the target audience here and I should have realized that before I picked up the book.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an opportunity to read an advance DRC, all opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC of the book for an honest review.
Hedgehog by Maggie Koons is a tough book to review. First of all, it needs trigger warnings for animal deaths and self-harm. Animal deaths were made clear on the description on Netgalley, but I can't find a book description on Goodreads or Fable yet. Self-harm could be the violence that is alluded to, but it is a big trigger to some and it needs to be spelled out somewhere, either in the description or in the beginning pages of the book.
Second of all, not much happens. I'm not sure there is enough character growth for the good or the bad for me. All the characters are flawed, which is fine, but I didn't feel any connection to any of them. I didn't care about either of the main characters and the only part that was fun was when their stories overlapped for that one chapter each and you saw the incident from both sides. I was promised "gripping parallel storylines" and "pleasure-filled downfall" for the characters. I didn't get either and I don't think the main characters did themselves."Queer horror" was delivered on and I appreciate that part.
I'd give this 2.5 stars. I only finished this novel because I was reviewing it and I wanted to see what happened. It felt very flat and meh. I didn't hate the book, but I didn't like it either. It is a lot of telling, not showing or immersing the reader into the world. With a little more substance, this could be a better book.
Would I recommend? No, not in this form.
Hedgehog by Maggie Koons is a tough book to review. First of all, it needs trigger warnings for animal deaths and self-harm. Animal deaths were made clear on the description on Netgalley, but I can't find a book description on Goodreads or Fable yet. Self-harm could be the violence that is alluded to, but it is a big trigger to some and it needs to be spelled out somewhere, either in the description or in the beginning pages of the book.
Second of all, not much happens. I'm not sure there is enough character growth for the good or the bad for me. All the characters are flawed, which is fine, but I didn't feel any connection to any of them. I didn't care about either of the main characters and the only part that was fun was when their stories overlapped for that one chapter each and you saw the incident from both sides. I was promised "gripping parallel storylines" and "pleasure-filled downfall" for the characters. I didn't get either and I don't think the main characters did themselves."Queer horror" was delivered on and I appreciate that part.
I'd give this 2.5 stars. I only finished this novel because I was reviewing it and I wanted to see what happened. It felt very flat and meh. I didn't hate the book, but I didn't like it either. It is a lot of telling, not showing or immersing the reader into the world. With a little more substance, this could be a better book.
Would I recommend? No, not in this form.
August 24, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC!
‘Hedgehog’ is a book that simultaneously has a lot to say, but also seems to not quite know what it wants to say at the same time. It feels like it had a plan in mind for the horror elements, but it just didn’t quite connect all the dots in the right way.
I think the first thing for me to note off the bat is that the animal abuse makes sense. Is it gratuitous? Yes. Is it horrific? Also yes. Is it there for a reason? Well…yes, it is trying to be there for one. It’s a horror novel. It’s part of what the genre is there for, and while it’s awful, some people do these things and it is indeed horrific. In no way will that ever be an endorsement, of course, but it is notable and called out explicitly by the author.
Irina and Riley don’t strike me as particularly interesting characters. The horror was drawn almost exclusively from the animal cruelty, and it just didn’t work well for me. I expected more of a twist? An escalation? I’m not 100% sure what I anticipated, but I just wanted a little bit more.
I do think the narrative could have done with a little more work as well. There’s some good bones here, but the humour balance is skewed, and it feels a bit disparate. We also don’t get given too much about the mystery of the mother- I just would have liked to have a little bit more as a whole.
With that said, there’s a clear descent into madness here that I think is well-done. There is a lot to be said for a character slowly losing their mask of sanity, and I think the author does this fairly well.
‘Hedgehog’ is a book that simultaneously has a lot to say, but also seems to not quite know what it wants to say at the same time. It feels like it had a plan in mind for the horror elements, but it just didn’t quite connect all the dots in the right way.
I think the first thing for me to note off the bat is that the animal abuse makes sense. Is it gratuitous? Yes. Is it horrific? Also yes. Is it there for a reason? Well…yes, it is trying to be there for one. It’s a horror novel. It’s part of what the genre is there for, and while it’s awful, some people do these things and it is indeed horrific. In no way will that ever be an endorsement, of course, but it is notable and called out explicitly by the author.
Irina and Riley don’t strike me as particularly interesting characters. The horror was drawn almost exclusively from the animal cruelty, and it just didn’t work well for me. I expected more of a twist? An escalation? I’m not 100% sure what I anticipated, but I just wanted a little bit more.
I do think the narrative could have done with a little more work as well. There’s some good bones here, but the humour balance is skewed, and it feels a bit disparate. We also don’t get given too much about the mystery of the mother- I just would have liked to have a little bit more as a whole.
With that said, there’s a clear descent into madness here that I think is well-done. There is a lot to be said for a character slowly losing their mask of sanity, and I think the author does this fairly well.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Wow, y'all. This one really wasn't for me.
I was intrigued by the premise. It's not something I usually read, but with a description like this: "Told through gripping parallel story-lines, Hedgehog is a book about the dangers of isolation and its intersection with the Internet. In this transgressive queer horror novel, sex and violence lead to the same pleasure-filled downfall" how could I not want to try it out? And to be fair, I blazed through it (I was done within 24 hours). I enjoyed the writing style - each POV character had a distinct outlook and style in how they processed the world, which came through clearly in the writing. And was it transgressive, queer, horror, sex and violence? Also yes. It was like a glorious oncoming train that was going to wreck me (and our characters) that I could not put down.
But that's where I had trouble with it. The violence. So much of it in this book felt gratuitous to me. While at first I could see it servicing the plot, after awhile I felt like I was being bludgeoned in the heart with it all. I've learned that while I can handle violence in novels, animal violence is something that I cannot get behind, even if it's "for the plot". This is on me - it's right there in the description of the book. I should have stayed away knowing that, but...the rest of the premise....
You may like this book for all of the other qualities, as I mentioned. I just could not get past the animal violence. Thank you to NetGalley and Clash books for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.
I was intrigued by the premise. It's not something I usually read, but with a description like this: "Told through gripping parallel story-lines, Hedgehog is a book about the dangers of isolation and its intersection with the Internet. In this transgressive queer horror novel, sex and violence lead to the same pleasure-filled downfall" how could I not want to try it out? And to be fair, I blazed through it (I was done within 24 hours). I enjoyed the writing style - each POV character had a distinct outlook and style in how they processed the world, which came through clearly in the writing. And was it transgressive, queer, horror, sex and violence? Also yes. It was like a glorious oncoming train that was going to wreck me (and our characters) that I could not put down.
But that's where I had trouble with it. The violence. So much of it in this book felt gratuitous to me. While at first I could see it servicing the plot, after awhile I felt like I was being bludgeoned in the heart with it all. I've learned that while I can handle violence in novels, animal violence is something that I cannot get behind, even if it's "for the plot". This is on me - it's right there in the description of the book. I should have stayed away knowing that, but...the rest of the premise....
You may like this book for all of the other qualities, as I mentioned. I just could not get past the animal violence. Thank you to NetGalley and Clash books for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
2,75⭐
I usually love queer horror books, there's a lot we can imbed as metaphors from the queer experience in the horror genre, it's really a sight to be held when done right and to the right audience.
Right at the beginning, there's a comment made about this girl where the protagonist doesn't know if this pretty girl is bisexual in any meaningful way, and honestly, I didn't like it. What does that even mean, how can you quantify someone's sexuality and judge it meaningful? It felt a borderline biphobic and it didn't make the story any favors.
With that out of the way. I actually enjoyed the writing here, I think it went perfectly with the genre and with the main characters crumbling mind, a terrible place to be in, honestly.
It's a violent book and it's certainly not for everyone and I'm one of them. Animal cruelty is a hard limit for me, it's not something I can ever look past and it's pollutes my reading experience, much like what happened here. Those acts had me repeatedly recoiling in disgust and horror (aha), although I do believe that's a normal reaction and probably expected by the author, I simply didn't enjoy it.
There's an audience of this book out there, plenty of readers enjoy this type of horror and unhinged, psychotic characters, and I hope it finds them.
Thank you to Netgalley and CLASH Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
I usually love queer horror books, there's a lot we can imbed as metaphors from the queer experience in the horror genre, it's really a sight to be held when done right and to the right audience.
Right at the beginning, there's a comment made about this girl where the protagonist doesn't know if this pretty girl is bisexual in any meaningful way, and honestly, I didn't like it. What does that even mean, how can you quantify someone's sexuality and judge it meaningful? It felt a borderline biphobic and it didn't make the story any favors.
With that out of the way. I actually enjoyed the writing here, I think it went perfectly with the genre and with the main characters crumbling mind, a terrible place to be in, honestly.
It's a violent book and it's certainly not for everyone and I'm one of them. Animal cruelty is a hard limit for me, it's not something I can ever look past and it's pollutes my reading experience, much like what happened here. Those acts had me repeatedly recoiling in disgust and horror (aha), although I do believe that's a normal reaction and probably expected by the author, I simply didn't enjoy it.
There's an audience of this book out there, plenty of readers enjoy this type of horror and unhinged, psychotic characters, and I hope it finds them.
Thank you to Netgalley and CLASH Books for providing me with this ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Riley is in San Francisco, working as a writer of influencer recaps for a PR firm owned by her college friend. She is also drinking on the constant after a break up. Her ex has moved on, and she left Riley with their hedgehog. Riley kills it, and this ignites in her a need to kill more animals.
Irina lives in Philly, working a dead end job at a gym with a creepy owner, and plays video games. As the story develops, we learn of a horrible tragedy from her childhood. She meets a camgirl who introduces her to GoreTube, a video sharing site of the nefarious and inappropriate type.
The blurb of this book says an intersection between Riley and Irina via GoreTube sets off a series of events threatening to reveal both of their dark secrets. That “intersection” is about the same as the intersection between me, the review writer, and whoever might read this review. I really couldn’t see that as sparking any series of events that wasn’t already in motion.
The plot had so much room to really do something, but it didn’t. I knew this was splatterpunk-ish and had animal cruelty. I didn’t realize the basis of the “horror” was just ongoing animal cruelty.
The masturbation, throughout, just because, added nothing.
I really thought the hedgehog, the literal namesake of the book, was going to do something. A turning point. Instead this book was just gross and outlandish for the sake of it.
Animal cruelty runs rampant, reader beware.
Irina lives in Philly, working a dead end job at a gym with a creepy owner, and plays video games. As the story develops, we learn of a horrible tragedy from her childhood. She meets a camgirl who introduces her to GoreTube, a video sharing site of the nefarious and inappropriate type.
The blurb of this book says an intersection between Riley and Irina via GoreTube sets off a series of events threatening to reveal both of their dark secrets. That “intersection” is about the same as the intersection between me, the review writer, and whoever might read this review. I really couldn’t see that as sparking any series of events that wasn’t already in motion.
The plot had so much room to really do something, but it didn’t. I knew this was splatterpunk-ish and had animal cruelty. I didn’t realize the basis of the “horror” was just ongoing animal cruelty.
The masturbation, throughout, just because, added nothing.
I really thought the hedgehog, the literal namesake of the book, was going to do something. A turning point. Instead this book was just gross and outlandish for the sake of it.
Animal cruelty runs rampant, reader beware.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
(ARC was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)
Disaster lesbians connected through media and happenstance.
It didn't immediately grab me (maybe it was just IRL stuff affecting my reading) but I liked it more and more as I continued reading. I was fully engrossed by the middle. It definitely stands out from the other books I've read with a structure that alternates between two character POVs. There's almost no rehashing the same events from a different perspective.
I was happy to not see a single sanitized queer character in sight! There are likeably flawed characters and unlikeably flawed characters. Chronically online queers hasn't been overdone for me yet and I found the specifics here to be exciting. Both protagonists had a freshness to them.
One of the universal truths of the book is that the Internet simultaneously makes us isolated and anonymous while sometimes also making us intimately connected in surprising ways and unable to stay anonymous.
If the synopsis sounds up your alley, I recommend it. I'm sure some people won't be able to move past the subject matter than involves violence to animals. Some of the descriptions definitely got to me more than they would have if the violence was done to humans (I'm a cliche!).
I would read this author again.
Disaster lesbians connected through media and happenstance.
It didn't immediately grab me (maybe it was just IRL stuff affecting my reading) but I liked it more and more as I continued reading. I was fully engrossed by the middle. It definitely stands out from the other books I've read with a structure that alternates between two character POVs. There's almost no rehashing the same events from a different perspective.
I was happy to not see a single sanitized queer character in sight! There are likeably flawed characters and unlikeably flawed characters. Chronically online queers hasn't been overdone for me yet and I found the specifics here to be exciting. Both protagonists had a freshness to them.
One of the universal truths of the book is that the Internet simultaneously makes us isolated and anonymous while sometimes also making us intimately connected in surprising ways and unable to stay anonymous.
If the synopsis sounds up your alley, I recommend it. I'm sure some people won't be able to move past the subject matter than involves violence to animals. Some of the descriptions definitely got to me more than they would have if the violence was done to humans (I'm a cliche!).
I would read this author again.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I received the eARC of this book through NetGalley
I would first like to start off by saying this synopsis made me believe I would enjoy this book. And by enjoy I mean that it is a sub genre that I have read in the past and overall liked the story presented. However, there was no such story here. The book felt unfinished the story shocking just for shock sake there was no real premise, and the writing wasn’t good. I felt like I was reading a highschoolers blog post they had hidden somewhere. I wanted so much for the book to be good, but it fell flat. The “Gore“ moments that were there felt flat and not thought through. The characters didn’t feel fully developed or thought through. Overall, the book itself didn’t feel thought through. The characters were meant to be chronically online, but the references were dated or felt like they were just thrown in to prove a point but didn’t actually fit in overall the whole thing felt messy and not in a good way. I love a morally great character and unlikable narrator, but I didn’t feel myself connecting with either one because they didn’t feel like real people. I feel like all the pieces to a good book were there. It just didn’t come out the way the author may be intended.
I would first like to start off by saying this synopsis made me believe I would enjoy this book. And by enjoy I mean that it is a sub genre that I have read in the past and overall liked the story presented. However, there was no such story here. The book felt unfinished the story shocking just for shock sake there was no real premise, and the writing wasn’t good. I felt like I was reading a highschoolers blog post they had hidden somewhere. I wanted so much for the book to be good, but it fell flat. The “Gore“ moments that were there felt flat and not thought through. The characters didn’t feel fully developed or thought through. Overall, the book itself didn’t feel thought through. The characters were meant to be chronically online, but the references were dated or felt like they were just thrown in to prove a point but didn’t actually fit in overall the whole thing felt messy and not in a good way. I love a morally great character and unlikable narrator, but I didn’t feel myself connecting with either one because they didn’t feel like real people. I feel like all the pieces to a good book were there. It just didn’t come out the way the author may be intended.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
TW: Blood, a lot of animal abuse, self harm.
My boyfriend and I were coparents for a hedgehog prior to moving to California, of course I was going to read a book with a title like this.
This was a fast read for me, which may be the best part of the novel. I struggled to keep in mind that sometimes insufferable, terrible characters are the whole point of the novel and it's done intentionally. I had to keep reminding myself of this pact because Riley is blatantly evil. I thought I could look past the animal abuse and keep things objective, that's asking a lot.
A didn't find a point to the gore beyond gore for the shock value of it all and nothing else. The author's bio goes on to mention how much of an animal lover she is, and that weirdly makes it worse for me.
Writing isn't bad, the flow of the plot isn't bad. Subject matter is inherently polarizing and I didn't see a point to it. This book isn't special with or without the gore. If you're sensitive at all to any of the triggering subjects, avoid reading this. If you think you can stomach it, maybe you'll think the book is okay.
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to receive this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
My boyfriend and I were coparents for a hedgehog prior to moving to California, of course I was going to read a book with a title like this.
This was a fast read for me, which may be the best part of the novel. I struggled to keep in mind that sometimes insufferable, terrible characters are the whole point of the novel and it's done intentionally. I had to keep reminding myself of this pact because Riley is blatantly evil. I thought I could look past the animal abuse and keep things objective, that's asking a lot.
A didn't find a point to the gore beyond gore for the shock value of it all and nothing else. The author's bio goes on to mention how much of an animal lover she is, and that weirdly makes it worse for me.
Writing isn't bad, the flow of the plot isn't bad. Subject matter is inherently polarizing and I didn't see a point to it. This book isn't special with or without the gore. If you're sensitive at all to any of the triggering subjects, avoid reading this. If you think you can stomach it, maybe you'll think the book is okay.
Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to receive this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
August 7, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC of this book.
I found this disappointing. I can deal with difficult to read topics but this really felt like it was intended to be edgy without much substance behind the provocative subject matter.
First off, this novel really needed to start with some trigger warnings. Riley’s brutal murder of animals throughout the book was difficult to read and even worse to picture. It felt like this could have been really interesting way to explore Riley’s psyche but instead it was basically like “oh I just killed these poor innocent animals and uploaded the video online hehe it got some views.” Again, with the graphic depictions of self harm and drug use by a character who seemed to be only half formed? It really did feel like the author was just trying to be provocative without good reason.
The actual writing was fine but the characterisation, pacing and plot were really lacking. It all felt a bit juvenile to me, particularly the many many times Riley thought of her ex as a bitch.
I wouldn’t read this again nor would I recommend it.
I found this disappointing. I can deal with difficult to read topics but this really felt like it was intended to be edgy without much substance behind the provocative subject matter.
First off, this novel really needed to start with some trigger warnings. Riley’s brutal murder of animals throughout the book was difficult to read and even worse to picture. It felt like this could have been really interesting way to explore Riley’s psyche but instead it was basically like “oh I just killed these poor innocent animals and uploaded the video online hehe it got some views.” Again, with the graphic depictions of self harm and drug use by a character who seemed to be only half formed? It really did feel like the author was just trying to be provocative without good reason.
The actual writing was fine but the characterisation, pacing and plot were really lacking. It all felt a bit juvenile to me, particularly the many many times Riley thought of her ex as a bitch.
I wouldn’t read this again nor would I recommend it.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you netgalley, the publisher & the author for this advanced reader copy - I absolutely loved this! I spent quite a while thinking of a way to describe this book but I simply couldn’t. Two women find ways on the internet to keep themselves entertained, that are so out of the ordinary, I regularly questioned why I was still reading.
Regardless of the weirdness and gore, I did really enjoy this book and felt compelled to keep reading, we’ll call it morbid curiosity… the writing was brilliant and the characters were incredibly realistic, I could picture them within the first few chapters.
This is the exact book that fits into the category of ‘weird girl horror’. Some of the graphic descriptions were a bit much for me but that’s because I’m quite squeamish. There was not really much of a plot but that’s something I enjoy in a book - I love a character led story! I found Riley, Jane & Amy unbearable and had a soft spot for Irina!
If you’re looking for a weird girl horror to start off the spooky season, this is the one!!
Regardless of the weirdness and gore, I did really enjoy this book and felt compelled to keep reading, we’ll call it morbid curiosity… the writing was brilliant and the characters were incredibly realistic, I could picture them within the first few chapters.
This is the exact book that fits into the category of ‘weird girl horror’. Some of the graphic descriptions were a bit much for me but that’s because I’m quite squeamish. There was not really much of a plot but that’s something I enjoy in a book - I love a character led story! I found Riley, Jane & Amy unbearable and had a soft spot for Irina!
If you’re looking for a weird girl horror to start off the spooky season, this is the one!!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
This one is very clearly not for the weak. I don't know why but I expected the animal killing to lead to the murder of humans (which would've been easier to stomach tbh). I also kind of thought Riley and Irina would meet at some point (they only cross each other online).
The tension is done very well, I felt uncomfortable throughout the whole book and I kept wondering where it would go. The characters are writting immaculately and feel the perfect bit off the entire time. I'm glad there's more internet regulation now then there was before.
As I'm letting this book marinate I can think up a lot of hypotheticals about why people did the things they did, but the book didn't really hint to any of them except for the obvious breakup and family issues. But maybe that's what it's trying to say, some things just happen and don't need to be explained.
Personally, I would've loved a little more plot.
Do not read if you can't stomach animal abuse. Also a massive TW for selfharm.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The tension is done very well, I felt uncomfortable throughout the whole book and I kept wondering where it would go. The characters are writting immaculately and feel the perfect bit off the entire time. I'm glad there's more internet regulation now then there was before.
As I'm letting this book marinate I can think up a lot of hypotheticals about why people did the things they did, but the book didn't really hint to any of them except for the obvious breakup and family issues. But maybe that's what it's trying to say, some things just happen and don't need to be explained.
Personally, I would've loved a little more plot.
Do not read if you can't stomach animal abuse. Also a massive TW for selfharm.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
thought i‘d try something different but this is definitely not one to go for if you’re not a big horror reader! extremely unpleasant, which is the point of course, but my main issue with hedgehog isn’t even all of the gory descriptions of animals being killed, but the fact that these scenes never really seem to lead anywhere. granted, i only very rarely enjoy such detailed descriptions of violence in novels so i‘m also not the target audience, but i really didn’t like how the majority of this book just tries to create shock value at the expense of any substance. i do think there could’ve been some potential here, especially with common themes around self-destruction in both POVs, but neither riley or irina felt particularly fleshed out to me as characters. the parts inbetween gruesome scenes of animal murders and self-harm were extremely bland and i feel like the story could’ve been a lot shorter. the ending was also super anti-climactic, so i‘m afraid this one really didn‘t work for me.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
3 stars
First of all, thank you & Netgalley so much for sending me a copy of this book.
“Hedgehog” is a book that follows two women. One posts on a website, and one finds that website. Quick heads up; this book mentions and describes a LOT of animal abuse.
It took me a long time to find out the correlation between the two characters. The flaws of both girls are heavily described and we learn to like the characters despite their flaws. I tend to go into books blind (I wished for this book a bit ago and got it weeks after) but I was happy to look at the reviews before starting this book, I would’ve put it down otherwise. I am, just like the author, an animal lover. So the mention of animal abuse was hard to read about (especially since I often read with a cat on my lap).
The book is about gore and the bad parts of life and finding love alongside it. It’s a book I find very hard to review. So sorry for not doing well.
First of all, thank you & Netgalley so much for sending me a copy of this book.
“Hedgehog” is a book that follows two women. One posts on a website, and one finds that website. Quick heads up; this book mentions and describes a LOT of animal abuse.
It took me a long time to find out the correlation between the two characters. The flaws of both girls are heavily described and we learn to like the characters despite their flaws. I tend to go into books blind (I wished for this book a bit ago and got it weeks after) but I was happy to look at the reviews before starting this book, I would’ve put it down otherwise. I am, just like the author, an animal lover. So the mention of animal abuse was hard to read about (especially since I often read with a cat on my lap).
The book is about gore and the bad parts of life and finding love alongside it. It’s a book I find very hard to review. So sorry for not doing well.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you NetGalley and CLASH Books for the advanced copy for review.
Hedgehog was definitely a unique read, but unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. I went into this expecting something dark and disturbing, but some of the content crossed the line from unsettling into uncomfortable in a way that made it difficult for me to enjoy the story.
I did think the idea of following two separate characters whose stories eventually connect through the darker side of the internet was interesting. However, I struggled to connect with either of the main characters, and the graphic content sometimes felt like it was there more for shock value than to move the story forward.
I can appreciate that this book is meant to push boundaries, and I think readers who enjoy really extreme or transgressive horror may have a completely different experience with it. For me, though, it was just too much and not a book I particularly enjoyed.
Hedgehog was definitely a unique read, but unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. I went into this expecting something dark and disturbing, but some of the content crossed the line from unsettling into uncomfortable in a way that made it difficult for me to enjoy the story.
I did think the idea of following two separate characters whose stories eventually connect through the darker side of the internet was interesting. However, I struggled to connect with either of the main characters, and the graphic content sometimes felt like it was there more for shock value than to move the story forward.
I can appreciate that this book is meant to push boundaries, and I think readers who enjoy really extreme or transgressive horror may have a completely different experience with it. For me, though, it was just too much and not a book I particularly enjoyed.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Early on, Riley's mention of exposing herself to her animal, while meant to be lighthearted, was an odd start. I wasn't a fan of the way she talked about the hedgehog in general, but I'm an owner of several small animals and love them dearly, so maybe I'm biased in the opposite direction. I knew from the description there would be, well, a deceased animal, but the scene was too graphic for me, and I found Riley's voice grating.
Unfortunately, I had to DNF this for my own sake. The talk about animal abuse was way too graphic, and while I'm sure there are horror readers who won't mind that for the sake of plot, I would rather read about blood and gore in just about any other medium than involving sweet animals. I think the summary/marketing needs to make it very clear how heavily this features animal abuse; I should have read more carefully, otherwise I wouldn't have requested this.
Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC
Unfortunately, I had to DNF this for my own sake. The talk about animal abuse was way too graphic, and while I'm sure there are horror readers who won't mind that for the sake of plot, I would rather read about blood and gore in just about any other medium than involving sweet animals. I think the summary/marketing needs to make it very clear how heavily this features animal abuse; I should have read more carefully, otherwise I wouldn't have requested this.
Thank you to Net Galley for the ARC
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