** I received the request to review through Netgalley.**

I love Horror. This is not my first Hunter Shea Horror that I have read. Regardless of how different storylines are, his books are dark and for as an avid Horror reader well worth the time spent reading it.

First of all, a warning of sorts; this horror is not just dark but it has elements that can be difficult for some people to read (there is possible cannibalism, etc). I will leave it at that.

‘Misfits’ is about a group of friends from lower-income families and bad families or bad environments at home, who have come together when their friend gets raped. This group of friends decides to get revenge/retribution for it.

I was pleasantly surprised by the plot. There are deaths, blood. Families destroyed. The plot was very well built, kept me guessing until the end. The suspense and Mystery were slowly revealed. That being said I had to take breaks in between because of how dark it was. But still, I do not regret continuing to read it.

I absolutely loved that this actually had some kind of HEA. Yes, there were a lot of deaths but there was a somewhat happy ending. It is a ‘Somewhat happy ending’ because the survivors went through hell and lost most of the friends and family to get to safety.

Climax, WOW! That is all I am going to say. I was riveted to those last couple of chapters.

I wanted a Horror. I got one. I will recommend this to hardcore horror fans who can take the blood and gore.

A fast, entertaining story with incredible characters. It's a horror story for (brave) teens and adults alike, although some scenes are too gory if you ask me. What I love the most is that there is no clear villain, but rather a clash of interest between two groups. It makes you rethink whether fear and the desire to destroy is nothing more than simple ignorance fueled by revenge. The ending left me speechless. Very, very good.
Full review (Sept-7): https://tintanocturna.blogspot.com/2020/09/resena-review-misfits.html

Well, if you're looking for flowery prose and romantic ghosts and crumbling castles, this is not the horror for you. If, however, you want an in-your-face, action packed, blood and gore, filth and fear piece of creeptastic terror, look no further.

The five protagonists of this book were all well fleshed out, and I think probably every reader could relate to at least one of them. The Melon Heads are horrifyingly grotesque and VICIOUS.
The setting merges a dark and terrible forest with the seemingly safe and sound world of suburbia, and when those two worlds collide, watch out!

If you want to be scared and also maybe want to throw up in your mouth a little, grab a copy of Hunter Shea's Misfits.

I received a free electronic copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

.

Maybe you don't generally believe in "urban legends," or myths, or fantasy. Try MISFITS: see if it doesn't make a believer out of you. From Chapter 1, MISFITS absolutely terrified me. I'm not reassured living surrounded by woods, either, but as demonstrated in this novel, "Monsters" come out to play in communities, too--not only in dense forest.


MISFITS is really brutal; in fact, I'd label this extreme horror. There's also sexual violence, child/adolescent abuse, sociopathy, bullying, poetic justice, strong undiluted friendship, "first love," xenophobia, and a gore level over the top. Nonetheless, and despite the also-over-the-top fear factor [could I take any more?], I loved it. I will reread it, after the shock wears off.

Misfits is a 'creature feature' horror novel following a group of friends who want to seek revenge on the filth that raped their friend. By using the help of the rumoured 'Melon heads', they want the criminal to suffer.

I've never read a Hunter Shea book before, so this was quite a new and different experience. I liked the straightforward writing, and the gory, death scenes. The imagery was vivid, a sign of good writing. I liked the pacing too, the beginning was a little hard to get through, but soon the action picked up and it was actually terrifying.

I recommend this book to anyone looking for a grunge, nostalgic 90s story about a group of friends and mysterious creatures who live in the dark. It was entertaining!

Thank you to Netgalley and Flame Tree Press for the Arc! I really appreciate it :)

Another fun b-movie monster story from the master of such things, Hunter Shea.
I'd never heard of Melon Heads before, but I'm glad to be introduced to these freaks. They were terrifying, disfigured woods-people.
As for the "Misfits". All things begin with good intentions....
A lot of hard lives going on here for these unfortunate teens, and they only get exponentially harder once they meet the monsters on Dracula Drive.

If you dig creature-features, 90s nostalgia, and fun horror, pick this one up!

I give MISFITS 4 stars!

Misfits is the latest novel from Hunter Shea and within this book you will find a great homage to classic cannibalistic mutants, Hunter Shea, has never been one to shy away from blood, guts and gore and this latest novel is no different, but he writes in such a atmospheric way you cannot help but keep reading.
Within the pages of this book, we are introduced to the Melon heads a mythical group of deformed cannibalistic creatures who will grab and take you if you dare to walk along the edges of the forest and Dracula Drive, at least that’s what the local children tell themselves. So when 7 year old Chris gets taken there on the Christmas morning of 1977 by his mean big brother Dylan he is understandably nervous, Can he be brave or will the Melon heads get him?
Jump forward to 1993 and we are introduced to a group of adolescent friends (our main characters, Mick, Chuck, Vent, Heidi and Marnie ), each one of them are coping with their own dysfunctional families and lives which has helped them become friends, So when Marnie is raped they decide to exact their revenge hopefully by using the Melon heads, if they can find them.
I won’t say anymore as I don’t want to give anymore away, but if you loved the hills have eyes and B movies this will definitely appeal to you.

This was a fun read, but also fairly predictable. The rape (not a spoiler, is in all the synopses and happens almost immediately) is extremely graphic and horrible, and never really feels necessary. The premise is what brought me, and I got exactly what I signed up for, but I'm not sure I could recommend it to anyone.

Thanks so much to #NetGalley and #FlameTreePress for an advanced readers copy of #Misfits. All opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book. The characters felt real and the story was spooky! The only drawback was I would have liked to see more about how the big heads came to be.

I would recommend this book to any scary story lovers aged 13 and up.

Another creepy throw back to the past from Hunter Shea. This horror book has all the hits for me, the past, the kids on the fringe, the monsters and all of their history and just an all out gore fest! Great book, highly recommend to all fans of gore horror genre. I don't know how Mr. Shea sleeps at night with all these stories, but I'm glad he's able to put them to paper!

Hunter Shea is on a roll.
He's found a stride and while always a prolific writer, the last little bit just feels like a groove has been found and he's gleefully releasing new books.
Recently, we've seen the arrival of the devastating 'Creature' and the throw-back fun of 'Slash.'

Now, along comes 'Misfits,' a book loosely based on an old urban legend.

What I liked: If the opening chapter doesn't hook you, then this book isn't for you. There's a street, Dracula Street, where kids don't play. Things live in the bushes around it.

Chapter one is a sacrifical chapter to show you just how horrible these things are. Told with a flare that would be usually saved for a horror movie, we get an early emotional punch before Shea moves us to the 90's and we get introduced to a rag tag bunch of outcasts.

Shea has a way of keeping tension high, even with some mundane moments, but much like renting a B movie years ago, I kept waiting for the kills.

What I didn't like: The previous line sums it up for me. I found I never connected with any of the characters to a degree that I really rooted or cared for them. I kept waiting for the kills to come and didn't really care who was reduced to bloody pulp.

Why you should buy this: Hunter is delivering some great horror for fans both old and new. This one never eases up and as the story unfolds, Hunter infuses this with some great nostalgia.

Overall, this was a really fun story, and the author afterword was great. Fans of Shea could definitely give this a go.

*this review will feature on Kendall Reviews**

Remember when Stephen King said his novels were like a Big Mac with fries or some such comparison? I love Chik-fil-a and my favorite is a chicken sandwich and waffle fries. It’s a compliment for me to say my first Hunter Shea read was a quick read and a “quick feed”. Excellent coming of age novel with brutal and tender moments too numerous to mention. Needless to say this won’t be my last read of Hunter’s works. Highly recommended.

This year, I finally got around to reading some Hunter Shea. I started with Creature, which I had a personal connection with, thanks to the lead character suffering from Ehlers Danlos Disease like myself. I loved that book and was spurred to read more of Shea. Though I wasn’t as enthralled with the title I followed it up with (Slash), I had learned I liked Shea’s writing and wanted to continue exploring his worlds.

Enter Misfits. When I heard about it dealing in Melon Heads, I figured I was getting into some sort of a story about a town suddenly flooded by deformed monstrosities too hungry to hide in the woods any longer. Though that didn’t end up being the plot here, I still had the right idea of what to expect (more or less) from the Melon Heads. They’re ugly inbreds that have no problem eating people.

As fun as my story prediction could have been, I’m glad Shea had a different idea for this. What I imagined would have been on the level of Slash - a creature feature of just gruesome murder. Honestly, I’m not much for that. So to learn that Shea had a more intelligent design for Misfits was a happy discovery. Here’s your synopsis:

“During the height of the 90s grunge era, five high school friends living on the fringe are driven to the breaking point. When one of their friends is brutally raped by a drunk townie, they decide to take matters into their own hands. Deep in the woods of Milbury, Connecticut, there lives the legend of the Melon Heads, a race of creatures that shun human interaction and prey on those who dare to wander down Dracula Drive. Maybe this night, one band of misfits can help the other. Or maybe some legends are meant to be feared for a reason.”

The way the story begins is rough, as to be expected. But it also gives the book an immediate emotional leverage on the reader, similar to the way I connected with Creature. It is in these designs that Shea shows his powerful force in fiction, blurring the lines of what is possible and what’s imaginary, all while keeping that ardent passion alive. You immediately care about these characters - this group of misfit stoner kids - and what they are willing to do to protect and avenge their friend. Then there’s the unexpected humanity of the Melon Heads to take into consideration; though violent cannibals, they have a fierce protection and loyalty to their own, finding ways to use us in their secretive survival. I can’t go into detail on that remark, but trust me when I say these aren’t one-dimensional monsters at play. Though simpleminded, they’re also intelligent in a guerilla-warfare sort of way.

I found that I loved this book from the prologue and onward. During those final fifty or so pages, I kept trying to guess how Shea would conclude things - I just couldn’t figure it out! I was betting on Shea to surprise me, and luckily he did not disappoint. The ending is unexpected and oddly charming in a horrific sort of way. And possibly best of all, it leaves a sequel invitation. Shea even promises more to come in his Acknowledgments. You can count me in!

Misfits is as wild and gruesome as it is emotionally turbulent and deeply satisfying. It sinks its claws into you right from the start and never lets go!

What do you get when you cross ubran legends, an assault on a teenage girl by a middle aged man, breaking the rules of a society you're seeking help from?
Misfits.
A really weird, kinda off the wall take on revenge. Hunter Shea's books do need a tiny bit of disbelief, because they're designed that way, but they're really good, often schlocky, interesting horror stories with a few themes to keep you thinking long after you're done.

I received an ARC of #Misfits by Hunter Shea from Flame Tree Press through #NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Due to be released September 8, of 2020, Misfits by Hunter Shea is a story that takes place in Milbury, Connecticut, and like a lot of towns, this one also has one of those legends to scare children. These legendary creatures, called the Melon Heads, live in the woods down Dracula Drive.

The main plot and characters are a group of teenager growing up in the 90s, and after the rape of one there's, they want to make the man pay.

While I have read three other books penned by Hunter Shea, this one was a disappointment. And, yes, I could identify with this group of teenagers, and the flashbacks of the music, and the awful teen years, the story itself didn't draw me in. There was nothing that made me have to know what was going to happen. But there were some gruesome deaths, surprising ones also, and although not 'too' (there is blood, and a lot of it,) graphic, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone under 16, and those teenagers must be mature enough to read about rape. It's a main plot line so it is revisited throughout.

For a horror novel, Misfits is an okay story, not really scary, more violent and semi-gruesome deaths, but it moved along at an okay pace, although for me it was lacking feeling, so it has earned 2 stars from me.

After a teenage girl is raped, her friends decide on their own justice for the middle-aged rapist. They drag him out to Dracula Drive where the Melon Heads live. The Melon Heads have long been an urban legend told to the kids of town - a band of mutants that feast on anything and anyone that crosses their path. But Mick and Marnie know the truth. They know there is a man who lives in a cabin in the woods who helps out the Melon Heads, and who can help the teens get swift justice. Unfortunately, the kids disobey the rules and accidentally kill one of the Melon Heads. Now the band of feral mutants are out to get them - and no one close to them is safe.

Count on Hunter Shea to make that seemingly deserted area of suburbia suddenly terrifying. I love a good urban legend, and this is one. The Melon Heads are society's cast offs - years ago, children born deformed were taken out to the woods and left. Only instead of them dying, they lived and multiplied. Staying to they part of the woods, only kids dared to venture close as part of a dare. But the legends are real and don't piss off the Melon Heads - they are stealthy and savage.

This has to be one of the more brutal Shea books I've read starting off with a vicious rape and following it up later with some nasty death scenes. Not quite one of his creature features - I mean the Melon Heads are human, kind of - but every bit as entertaining as them.

There’s something terrifying in the woods that has existed for generations. Now, a small group of stoner friends discover the age old secret, and survival from pure visceral evil becomes all too real.
Author Hunter Shea conceives a literary horror show located in a deep, dark and wooded territory. His creation of one-hundred-percent cannibal monsters are known as Melon Heads. These misfits are deformed inbred backwood creatures that have assembled their own terrifying community within the forest. Shea definitely pulls no punches when it comes to full on ravenous deformed Melon action. I loved the 90’s pop culture references sprinkled throughout the pages along with his “in your face” plot twists and eye for detail. At times during this novel I found myself re-reading portions of the book thinking...wait, did that just really happened? This book will definitely satisfy any gore hound and keep the reader on their toes.
Ergo, when driving down Dracula Drive be cautious and hope the Mellon Head guardian is doing his job by not biting the hand that feeds them. All you horror-loving maniacs, relish this unpredictable fun ride specializing in B-Movie backwood terror.

You know how it feels when you discover the urban legend that terrified you as a child is actually real? Mick, Marnie, Chuck, Heidi and Vent do. Everyone who lives in Milbury, Connecticut know better than to step foot on Dracula Drive.

“Dare to walk,
Down Dracula Drive,
In day or night,
You won’t survive.
They wait in trees,
And hide below,
Hungry for people,
Too blind to know.”

After one of them is brutally raped, they all want payback. It’s time to find out if Melon Heads are simply the stuff of legends or if there really are cannibals living in the forest. It’s going to get bloody!

“What do we have to lose … besides everything?”

This book was a lot darker than I was expecting. With sexual assault as the precursor for all of the bloody, bone crunching, insides are now your outsides action, I was initially torn. If I didn’t already have some trust in its author I probably wouldn’t have even attempted this book.

I’m always wary of how sexual assault is going to be portrayed within horror. It’s certainly not sugar coated in ‘Misfits’ so this could easily trigger some readers. However, while the physical and psychological impacts of this trauma are undeniable, the character whose assault becomes the catalyst for everything that comes later is portrayed as resilient.

Usually I cheer on the squishy demise of horror characters. Sure, there were a few lambs to the slaughter whose bloodshed felt like poetic justice, but I really liked the five stoners and was invested in their survival. They quickly became real to me and the fact that they were all underdogs endeared them to me as much as their friendship and individual personalities.

“Aw, you called me a freak. That’s the nicest thing you ever said to me.”

I had planned on cheering on any Melon Head eviscerations or limb extractions I witnessed. Unexpectedly, my curiosity overrode my bloodlust. I wanted to spend time with them to learn more about their history and way of life.

Prior to this book I’d never heard the Melon Head urban legend and spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking that was the name of a band from my childhood. Over halfway through the book I finally enlisted Google’s help. They were Blind Melon, not Melon Head, dufus!

This was definitely not the B grade horror I had hoped for. It was actually better. It’s probably going to take me a while to forgive the author for the way the story unfolded for one of my favourite characters but kudos to them for making me care that much about someone I only met this week.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

Content warnings include alcoholism, child abuse, death by suicide, domestic violence and sexual assault. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Flame Tree Press for the opportunity to read this book.

I usually shy away from comparing one author to another but what is most on my mind is that this has some similarities to a few Edward Lee books I've read, except that Misfits is 100 times more terrifying and 100 times less nauseating than those. It also has realistic characters that I actually cared about. I mean seriously I want these people to be OK! I loved everything about this book, from the time period, to the deep and abiding friendships among these 5 high school age kids who would literally lay down their lives for each other if necessary. I suppose that is exactly why they find themselves on a ghastly collision course with horror on Dracula Drive.

"Dare to walk down Dracula Drive,
In day or night, you won't survive.
They wait in trees and hide below,
Hungry for people too blind to know."

I do not scare easily, but from the first mere glimpse of Dracula Drive at the beginning of the book I had the most eerie feeling like someone just walked over my grave. As the story went on I was almost afraid to turn the page, but before I knew it I was reading faster and faster almost like I needed to escape the book before the melon heads could get me.

Why is it always so hard to write reviews for five star reads?

I read The Misfits in one sitting, the moment I finished that opening chapter I knew I wasn't going to put this book down.
I don't even know where to begin.

Let's start with the Melon Heads- Holy shit they were terrifying. Movies like The Hills Have Eyes scare the bejesus out of me and that's exactly what we have here, only these dwell in the woods surrounding a small town.
You know what else makes my pulse pound? Home invasions.
Hunter Shea has combined both in a non stop brutally violent horror story that had me enraptured the whole way through.
I have this weird thing about not putting down a book whilst one of the characters is in imminent peril, well this entire novel consists of that tension.

What makes The Misfits even scarier and gives it real depth is the relationship between the cast of characters. The bonds of real friendship and the 'never leave a man behind' attitude of a group of teens half neglected by their parents was so endearing, I cared about the fate of each and every one of them.

As you'll know from the synopsis the story begins with rape, the event itself is sudden and over quickly. It's a necessary basis for the revenge plot that ensues and the aftermath is continuously referred to, but if like me it's the psychological build up that turns you away from such stories I would say its a manageable evil.

I couldn't find a single fault with this novel if I tried, hands down best I've read of my 50 titles so far this year.

Written in third from the POVs of five friends, The Misfits is a stomach churning terrifier of a book. I highly recommend to horror fans- quite possibly my favourite Flame Tree Press release yet.