A Light Most Hateful

By: Hailey Piper

Narrated by: Jeremy Carlisle Parker

Length: 10 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Mona Awad’s Bunny meets Stranger Things when a summer storm sweeps through a sleepy town, unleashing a monstrous power that threatens to bend reality, from the Bram Stoker Award–winning author of Queen of Teeth.

Three years after running away from home, Olivia is stuck with a dead-end job in nowhere town Chapel Hill, Pennsylvania. At least she has her best friend, Sunflower.

Olivia figures she’ll die in Chapel Hill, if not from boredom, then the summer night storm which crashes into town with a mind-bending monster in tow.

If Olivia’s going to escape Chapel Hill and someday reconcile with her parents, she’ll need to dodge residents enslaved by the storm’s otherworldly powers and find Sunflower.

But as the night strains friendships and reality itself, Olivia suspects the storm, and its monster, may have its eyes on Sunflower and everything she loves.

Including Olivia.

©2023 Hailey Piper (P)2023 Blackstone Publishing

There are some issues...

First and Foremost, this book is under the wrong labels. It is Cosmic Horror and Body Horror, not a thriller or mystery.
It can be considered a Mystery, in that you spend a good deal of time trying to puzzle out what exactly the author is trying to say. There were many times, where the descriptions of things just seemed like random words were smashed together by a high schooler, trying to sound as if they could use more than "just", "very", as adjectives. I didn't take notes, because I was listening while driving, so I can't give exact lines from the book.
Now, that I've shit on this book a little, I'll add two up-sides, and sprinkle on a little more shit at the end.
The idea behind the plot is brilliant.
The Narrator does a fantastic job, getting the novel out.
If you're going to give your characters names like Hazabeth, Sunflower, and Christmas, don't use those long names in every sentence of the chapter. It got to the point where I think if you tallied the words in this novel, those three would hold the top spots.

Longing and Worry

The story is good and it is well written, but the main (pov) character seems to experience only the emotions of longing or worry. Perpetual wet blanket. And I know that’s not unrealistic (there are people out there like that) it just makes for a tedious read over 10hrs.

No character building

This story provided very little character building/character relationships prior to jumping into what seems like a bizarre, fever dream. We’re supposed to believe in all these amazing outstanding character traits, but there’s been nothing other than 10 minutes of build up to show who they really are. The storyline moved very quickly through a lot of really weird hoops. I would return it if I hadn’t listened too far to get my credit back. Will probably not finish.

Engrossing story beautifully performed by Jeremy Carlisle Parker

I feel I benefited a lot from going into this fairly cold with no spoilers, just having devoured the second in Piper’s “Worm and His Kings” series, so will be light here - suffice it to say it’s cosmic horror, sure, but with characters I really fell in love with and a second half that, well…felt like something straight out of Leonora Carrington. You won’t be disappointed.

Fantasy nonsense, mostly.

This is one of those "what did I just read" type books. Not quite as awful as Bunny, but I still couldn't tell you much about what was going on. It was too much fantasy nonsense to feel any horror. The writing is ridiculous for a lot of the scenes in this book, so it didn't even work for me as background noise while doing other things.

I bought this because Hailey Piper is often held up as some kind of icon or poster child of LGBTQ+ rep in horror. I think it's important to hear different voices, and see different views. But this book was frankly not good at all, and I feel like buying it just to prop up an LGBTQ+ voice is not doing anyone any favors.

This is the first of Piper's books that I thought looked interesting, and it's the last one I am going to buy. There are so many LGBTQ+ authors telling great stories, with much better writing, that don't have a rainbow badge as their only selling point.

The idea is ok but the weighting is terrible

The way the author writes makes it really hard to get through this book. The idea seems lifted from an old twilight zone. And rather than add to it, the author clutters it with verbose stanzas and prose.