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Entomophobia
One mistake can change your life, and Meri has made a lot of them. She married an abusive husband and stayed with him for ten years before she finally left. She moved back in with her mom and dated a guy who turned out to be an alcoholic. Now, just when she thinks things can't get any worse, she gets caught shoplifting. And not just by any security guard: by something supernatural, something that wants to do more than just calling the cops. Something out of her childhood nightmares. Now, Meri has a severe phobia, a psychotic ex-husband, an overbearing mother, an alcoholic ex-boyfriend, a daughter caught in the crossfire of a bitter divorce...and a curse. Will she become the thing she fears most?
187 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 14, 2022
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51 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 26, 2022
I found this a near-perfect novel of Horror and Urban Fantasy, totally both entertaining and engrossing. Full of deeply realized characterizations right along with subtly intensifying Horror, building to a nightmarish denouement, ENTOMOPHOBIA is preciously a Page-Turner par excellence.
The protagonist, in first person viewpoint, is most definitely in the role of Feckless Hero (ine). But Meri is not one-dimensional, simply fulfilling a role in which Nature, Man, and Fate seem to thwart her at every turn. Ultimately, she reveals herself as emotionally and mentally strong [though an entirety of pain and agony and suffering in the crucible of emotional and physical abuse and psychological disorder are required so that she eventually can break out the chrysalis and become the Butterfly she intends].
The author superbly treats PTSD and crippling Phobias, a very real situation. As both these psychological issues are unfolded through the protagonist's experience (while secondary characters simultaneously demonstrate other issues, such as alcoholism and Narcissism and "keeping up surface appearances at the expense of compassion and generosity"), readers "live" vicariously with all the emotional roller-coaster rides that encompasses.
The protagonist, in first person viewpoint, is most definitely in the role of Feckless Hero (ine). But Meri is not one-dimensional, simply fulfilling a role in which Nature, Man, and Fate seem to thwart her at every turn. Ultimately, she reveals herself as emotionally and mentally strong [though an entirety of pain and agony and suffering in the crucible of emotional and physical abuse and psychological disorder are required so that she eventually can break out the chrysalis and become the Butterfly she intends].
The author superbly treats PTSD and crippling Phobias, a very real situation. As both these psychological issues are unfolded through the protagonist's experience (while secondary characters simultaneously demonstrate other issues, such as alcoholism and Narcissism and "keeping up surface appearances at the expense of compassion and generosity"), readers "live" vicariously with all the emotional roller-coaster rides that encompasses.
January 20, 2022
Weirder than you think.
You could be forgiven for expecting a modern riff on the Kafka classic with this story. You'd be wrong though. Instead, this is more of an intensely personal horror of a woman desperately trying to claw back control of a life that has spun away from her.
With fae curses and skin centipedes and attack cicadas.
Gore hounds won't be sated, but there is plenty of messed up within these pages. Most of it in the realm of the interpersonal, to be honest. Its a strange tale, but very grounded all the same. and a heck of a ride
You could be forgiven for expecting a modern riff on the Kafka classic with this story. You'd be wrong though. Instead, this is more of an intensely personal horror of a woman desperately trying to claw back control of a life that has spun away from her.
With fae curses and skin centipedes and attack cicadas.
Gore hounds won't be sated, but there is plenty of messed up within these pages. Most of it in the realm of the interpersonal, to be honest. Its a strange tale, but very grounded all the same. and a heck of a ride
July 2, 2025
Wish there was an option to award Zero stars. The premise involves a thoroughly unlikeable narrator, Meri who continually moans about her abusive ex, her on-again-off-again alcoholic ex-boyfriend, her crippling fear of bugs, and virtually everything else in life. After a stint at shop-lifting art supplies results in a faerie curse that blossoms into a series of non-sensical bug-related episodes, Meri sets out to end this dilemma with the assistance of some well-meaning, but clueless cohorts. The writing is illogical, rambling, and filled with glaring errors. Characters are often engaged in illegal, screaming, physical confrontations more at place in a trashy trailer park with a resolution that includes a unicorn, killer wasps, a shape-shifting cat, and a faerie queen with a penchant for bad boys. While these elements may sound like part of a zany fun read, in reality, this was a painful-albeit- mercifully short read.
dropped
September 22, 2022Dropped @ page 20-ish.
This is just way too amateurish for me stylistically. It feels like reading something that didn't perform well on /r/nosleep.
This is just way too amateurish for me stylistically. It feels like reading something that didn't perform well on /r/nosleep.
December 23, 2022
“I gave Aisle 8 a wide berth, as I usually did, because that’s where the rubber bugs were kept in among the rest of the toys. I was so numb even my phobia seemed dull, hazy, like background noise instead of the soundtrack to my life.”
Meredith suffers from a severe insect phobia, which her abusive ex-husband Adam preyed on by plaguing her with rubber bugs. Now, dealing with divorce proceedings, Meredith is unable to hold a job due to her PTSD. As Adam threatens to have her declared an unfit mother, ensuring she’ll lose custody of their young daughter, Meredith engages the wrath of supernatural being who makes all of Meredith’s nightmares come true.
Despite her struggles with her phobias, poverty, self harm, and PTSD, Meredith does her best to provide for herself and her daughter, which nicely sets up her satisfying character arc. Meredith has a support system in her best friend, ex-boyfriend, and a new friend, yet she actively seeks a solution for her frightening predicament. Her love of art provides a firm foundation for the story. The body horror elements of the story are wonderfully weird. I can’t wait to see what Hans serves up next.
Meredith suffers from a severe insect phobia, which her abusive ex-husband Adam preyed on by plaguing her with rubber bugs. Now, dealing with divorce proceedings, Meredith is unable to hold a job due to her PTSD. As Adam threatens to have her declared an unfit mother, ensuring she’ll lose custody of their young daughter, Meredith engages the wrath of supernatural being who makes all of Meredith’s nightmares come true.
Despite her struggles with her phobias, poverty, self harm, and PTSD, Meredith does her best to provide for herself and her daughter, which nicely sets up her satisfying character arc. Meredith has a support system in her best friend, ex-boyfriend, and a new friend, yet she actively seeks a solution for her frightening predicament. Her love of art provides a firm foundation for the story. The body horror elements of the story are wonderfully weird. I can’t wait to see what Hans serves up next.
June 27, 2024
Entomophobia is the kind of horror/dark fantasy that really gets under your skin, bursting with originality and emotion. I'd have burned through it a single day rather than two if work hadn't intervened.
It kicks off by taking you through one of the darkest days in single-mother Meri's life: battling anxiety and depression and fighting the manipulations of her toxic, physically abusive ex-husband (who just won their custody battle) and also of her overly judgmental mother, all while trying to keep her art career afloat and to bond with her young daughter Magda who is the brightest light of her often-overhwelming life.
And that's before the curse hits that threatens to drive this woman with a Post-Traumatic Stress and severe fear of insects into a permanent breakdown.
You keenly feel Meri's mounting fears for her daughter under an abusive narcissist's roof, and for herself as her plans unravel, not to mention her ratcheting terror of the highly original and twisted manifestations of her curse devised by Hans, and every emotion in between, every step of the downward spiral.
[I won't spoil the source of the curse, which for me came as a marvelous surprise and flavored the story with wonder and fear in almost equal measure.]
And while main character Meredith could be frustrating in the risky and morally dubious choices she makes that bring a pit of dread to your stomach all on their own, even before things get supernatural--like shoplifting, or inviting her alcoholic ex-boyfriend Dan back into her life--Hans writes her struggles with such compassion and insight that you understand why and how she talks herself into each choice. She's doing her best under pressure, and her actions flows so seamlessly, relentlessly, driven by desperation and circumstances outside her control.
Frankly Meri often does try to ask for help from more reliable options, and I respect and appreciate her more for it, but they either cannot (her wonderful best friend Layla with a demanding schedule, a true beacon of joy in this dread-filled tale) or will not (her icy mother) accommodate her.
True to form for me reading horror like this, e.g. Rose Madder by Stephen King, Meri's ex-husband Adam is the combination of vicious and self-absolving of any accountability that filled me with dark wishes for his downfall, an impulse I'd try much harder to squash rather than indulge in if he weren't fictional.
Part of what made the story so compelling was that it wasn't just the evil ex-husband who seemed headed for doom, however, and there was no question Meri and her circle could not emerge unscathed...if they emerged from the climactic confrontation at all. I was fighting back tears in the nail-biter of a penultimate chapter as the stakes got more intense and the odds more dire, hardly daring to hope for the endurance of Meri and those closest to her.
This would be a five-star read for its unexpected turns and the sheer emotional investment in its characters, if I didn't use stars to indicate joyful exhilaration as opposed to more objectively. When I found some of the addiction and abuse angles wrung more brooding thoughts and emotions from me that lingered after the book closed, it's because they were done so skillfully.
When a story enthralls with terror and desperate hope, don't retreat...BOOST THE SIGNAL!
It kicks off by taking you through one of the darkest days in single-mother Meri's life: battling anxiety and depression and fighting the manipulations of her toxic, physically abusive ex-husband (who just won their custody battle) and also of her overly judgmental mother, all while trying to keep her art career afloat and to bond with her young daughter Magda who is the brightest light of her often-overhwelming life.
And that's before the curse hits that threatens to drive this woman with a Post-Traumatic Stress and severe fear of insects into a permanent breakdown.
You keenly feel Meri's mounting fears for her daughter under an abusive narcissist's roof, and for herself as her plans unravel, not to mention her ratcheting terror of the highly original and twisted manifestations of her curse devised by Hans, and every emotion in between, every step of the downward spiral.
[I won't spoil the source of the curse, which for me came as a marvelous surprise and flavored the story with wonder and fear in almost equal measure.]
And while main character Meredith could be frustrating in the risky and morally dubious choices she makes that bring a pit of dread to your stomach all on their own, even before things get supernatural--like shoplifting, or inviting her alcoholic ex-boyfriend Dan back into her life--Hans writes her struggles with such compassion and insight that you understand why and how she talks herself into each choice. She's doing her best under pressure, and her actions flows so seamlessly, relentlessly, driven by desperation and circumstances outside her control.
Frankly Meri often does try to ask for help from more reliable options, and I respect and appreciate her more for it, but they either cannot (her wonderful best friend Layla with a demanding schedule, a true beacon of joy in this dread-filled tale) or will not (her icy mother) accommodate her.
True to form for me reading horror like this, e.g. Rose Madder by Stephen King, Meri's ex-husband Adam is the combination of vicious and self-absolving of any accountability that filled me with dark wishes for his downfall, an impulse I'd try much harder to squash rather than indulge in if he weren't fictional.
Part of what made the story so compelling was that it wasn't just the evil ex-husband who seemed headed for doom, however, and there was no question Meri and her circle could not emerge unscathed...if they emerged from the climactic confrontation at all. I was fighting back tears in the nail-biter of a penultimate chapter as the stakes got more intense and the odds more dire, hardly daring to hope for the endurance of Meri and those closest to her.
This would be a five-star read for its unexpected turns and the sheer emotional investment in its characters, if I didn't use stars to indicate joyful exhilaration as opposed to more objectively. When I found some of the addiction and abuse angles wrung more brooding thoughts and emotions from me that lingered after the book closed, it's because they were done so skillfully.
When a story enthralls with terror and desperate hope, don't retreat...BOOST THE SIGNAL!
January 30, 2022
Note: This is a review I received as an ARC as a Patreon supporter of the author.
DON'T START READING THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO FINISH IT BECAUSE ONCE YOU START YOU WILL BE HOOKED!
Seriously, I "one more chaptered" myself until 1am on a day I should have been sleeping. A typical author would have created a character with entomphobia and just thrown bugs at them. Or perhaps borrowed a bit of Kafka. Ms. Hans incorporates that fear of insects with a fae curse, personal tragedy, and a heaping helping of body horror. What really sells this is the combination of supernatural horror and the interpersonal difficulties which ground the story and makes the supernatural elements that much more believable.
Highest recommendations.
DON'T START READING THIS UNLESS YOU HAVE A CHANCE TO FINISH IT BECAUSE ONCE YOU START YOU WILL BE HOOKED!
Seriously, I "one more chaptered" myself until 1am on a day I should have been sleeping. A typical author would have created a character with entomphobia and just thrown bugs at them. Or perhaps borrowed a bit of Kafka. Ms. Hans incorporates that fear of insects with a fae curse, personal tragedy, and a heaping helping of body horror. What really sells this is the combination of supernatural horror and the interpersonal difficulties which ground the story and makes the supernatural elements that much more believable.
Highest recommendations.
January 15, 2023
A very unique plot. I liked the deeper messages and moral issues here.
I have to say, I was getting very emotional during the times Adam was seeming to get the upper hand in making Meredith look crazy. I like it when a book can stir up a real emotion in me as then I know I’m invested.
I liked the vindication, without spoiling I will leave it there. I’ll also mention the book comes full circle in justice and moral.
Very quick read, I didn’t find this amateurish at all, just written in more modern, fast pace dialogue that is easy to follow. Great shake up to my book collection!
I have to say, I was getting very emotional during the times Adam was seeming to get the upper hand in making Meredith look crazy. I like it when a book can stir up a real emotion in me as then I know I’m invested.
I liked the vindication, without spoiling I will leave it there. I’ll also mention the book comes full circle in justice and moral.
Very quick read, I didn’t find this amateurish at all, just written in more modern, fast pace dialogue that is easy to follow. Great shake up to my book collection!
February 28, 2022
Her life has not been easy, she spent down 10pm years with an abusive husband before finally leaving. She then moves in with her mother and her next boyfriend is an alcoholic. Her life can not seem to be getting better but it is about to get worse when she is caught shoplifting. What will happen now? How will she cope? Will her life ever get better? See if it will
September 28, 2023
3.7 this was fun in an "American chillers for adults" way. all the normal beats of your standard Jonathan Rand novel happen here, but this one also has body horror and abuse. I didn't love it, but it had a lot of heart. it is lovingly made and published independently, so please check it out 💜
June 3, 2022
This was a great read. A horror fantasy, set against an all-too-realistic background of human trauma. It threw a few curveballs which kept me guessing, and I read it far more quickly than I expected because it was so engrossing.
August 20, 2023
Sarah did an excellent job crafting a story about a toxic divorce and living your worst fears. A horror filled page turner that you will enjoy.
June 18, 2025
This was Wild! I did not expect where this was going, but I had fun with the story. some parts were rough because of my severe fear of bugs/insects myself but I did enjoy this!
June 23, 2022
THIS HAD MY SKIN CRAWLING!
For Meredith (Meri) everything is spiralling out of control, from losing custody of her daughter to her abusive ex-husband, to a curse that is slowly turning her into her worst nightmare, an insect.
If conversations about nits/head lice have you itching, this will make your skin crawl.
This Novel may appear to be inspired but kafka but it’s not, more like the urban legend where spiders flood out of a pimple.
The gruesome details are elegantly written just tethering on the boarder of eww.
For Meredith (Meri) everything is spiralling out of control, from losing custody of her daughter to her abusive ex-husband, to a curse that is slowly turning her into her worst nightmare, an insect.
If conversations about nits/head lice have you itching, this will make your skin crawl.
This Novel may appear to be inspired but kafka but it’s not, more like the urban legend where spiders flood out of a pimple.
The gruesome details are elegantly written just tethering on the boarder of eww.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews