Daphne, by Josh Malerman

Short Take: The Basketball (and Murder) Diaries.

(*I voluntarily read and reviewed an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.*)

Hello Duckies, and welcome to Spooky Season! The air just starting to turn a little crisp, I’m seeing Halloween trinkets in all the stores, and every eatery is advertising Pumpkin Spice Everything. So it’s a perfect time to load up on some yummy horror novels, and oh my beloved nerdlings, do I have a pumpkin-spice-flavored delight for you!

Samhattan is a medium-sized city, with a fantastic girls’ high school basketball team, and a cemetery smack-dab in the heart of downtown. It probably goes without saying that the latter is a grassy metaphor for the various ugly skeletons the town has tried (unsuccessfully) to bury over the decades.

Namely, the truth about Daphne. To the girls on the team, she’s an urban legend, a seven-foot-tall outcast who was bullied literally to death, and whose vengeful spirit can be summoned by speaking her name. And duckies, you’ll never guess which topic randomly surfaces during a sleepover…

Kit Lamb is the star player on the Samhattan High team, able to face every opponent but one: her own mind. She’s been dealing with anxiety and panic attacks, and despite making a perfect game-winning shot in the final second of the Big Game, she can only focus on her obsessive, intrusive thoughts of Daphne. And while it’s not uncommon for teenage girls to work themselves into hysteria for seemingly small reasons, it IS uncommon for several girls from one team to be savagely murdered in their own bedrooms.

My beloved Nerdlings, I feel like we’ve seen this story before, usually accompanied by a Ouija board or seance scene. But the beauty of Daphne isn’t the somewhat trite “evil entity is summoned by teenagers” plot, no, it’s in the devilishly clever way Mr. Malerman tells the story. He takes the familiar road and turns it in a completely different direction, to where it almost feels at times like he’s telling the tale backwards. Yes, I know how that sounds, but trying to explain it would just be a) a giant wall of text and b) full of spoilers, so that’s all I’m going to say on that one.

I also really enjoyed the characters. The author sends a wink to 1980’s high school bully cliches while focusing on the teens of today, who are so much more self-aware and emotionally intelligent than previous generations. I loved that even though we were focusing on high school girls, boys aren’t really in the picture. These are girls who will Do The Thing, not just serve as trophies for the boys who Do The Thing, nor is there some big romantic subplot. The wildest thing of all, to me, is that I hadn’t even really noticed the absence of a storyline that’s practically mandatory until I sat down to write up this review - the story is just that complete without it.

My only complaint is that at times, it felt like Kit’s journals sucked up too much oxygen in the room. I think that society as a whole would benefit from accepting that even teenagers can suffer from anxiety and depression (and a whole bunch of other mental health issues). Mr. Malerman is attempting to normalize these discussions, which is an important goal, but it felt like a lot of the journal entries dragged just a few beats too long, slowing the action whenever it started picking up.

But overall, this is the perfect start to Spooky Season.

The Nerd’s Rating: FOUR HAPPY NEURONS (and a whole bunch of buttery popcorn, bring on the scary movies!)

I never thought I'd identify with a book about a vengeful ghost, but "Daphne" surprised me!

Daphne died years ago; some say she killed herself, and others say she was murdered by community members out for revenge. Everybody knows about her, but no one wants to talk about her or what happened to her. Even thinking about her can be lethal. Kit, the main character, and her basketball teammates talk about Daphne the night before their big game. Thinking about Daphne becomes almost viral, and then the killings begin.

What the plot description doesn't tell you is that Daphne's revenge killings aren't the only horrific part of the book. Kit's anxiety and panic were what struck me is most terrifying given how real they were. Kit believes thinking something will make it true, performs compulsive acts to relieve her anxiety, and has overwhelming panic attacks about things others may not consider troubling. Daphne and her legend amplify Kit's anxiety exponentially. Sure, this book has a body count that is typical of horror novels, but the realistic portrayal of anxiety and its impact upon a person's life are what make the book special.

I did find much of the information about basketball repetitive, but that could have been because I'm not a sports fan.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for sending this book for my honest review. All opinions are my own.

I think Daphne by Josh Malerman is not only unlike any horror novel I've ever read, but unlike any book I've read period. Daphne is about a high school girls' basketball team that is tormented by the ghost of a woman named Daphne after a winning game. I think Daphne is an amazing addition to the slasher genre, not just because of the unique horror aspect but because of Malerman's vivid descriptions of the main character's struggle with anxiety. I have never read a novel that went so deep into the main character's internal monologue in such a compelling and truthful way. Malerman's love of basketball was also present throughout. The format of the novel (no chapters!) took some getting used to, but once I did, I couldn't stop reading. My main complaint would be that I felt the novel ended rather abruptly. I do feel that it would be difficult for the main characters to explain away things at the end of the events of this novel, which is why I was hoping for a last chapter or an epilogue to see what became of them (is there a sequel in store?). Overall, though, this was a compelling work of horror. This was my first experience with Josh Malerman's work, but it's safe to say that I am hooked.

The writing style was a little weird and took some time to get used to. I knew that this was a story involving basketball players but I wasn’t quite prepared for all of the basketball talk. I really liked the discussion about anxiety and how it truly impacts people. This felt very YA to me which I guess it is in a way. I liked the urban legend around Daphne too but I think the writing style made the story more confusing than it needed to be.

Daphne by Josh Malerman is a perfect spooky season read. Add an urban legend, girl’s basketball team, and a serial killer and boom! You’ve got yourself a book I struggled to put down. But for some reason this book isn’t a 5 star book. I didn’t care for the writing style and some parts of the book felt unnecessary to the plot. I also didn’t fully understand the ending. This was a 3,5 star book for me.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Josh Malerman does it again! A perfect spooky season read! I regard Bird Box as being the book that got me into horror in general, so I always look forward to reading Josh Malerman. He is the master of atmosphere and setting.
In Daphne, his newest book releasing on September 20th, we follow a High School Girl’s Basketball team in Samhattan, Michigan. The girls start disappearing one by one and the remaining girls on the team believe the culprit to be Daphne. Daphne is a seven foot tall local ghost story legend that used to be on the basketball team but was tragically murdered.
This story is the perfect blend of current day horror/crime and directing local horror legends. I tend to get bored of slashers because it is constant physical brutality, but Malerman is able to blend the psychological horror with the slasher elements beautifully.
Malerman’s writing is clear and intentional, and all the characters are distinct and easily distinguishable. He does a great job of describing the setting so that it almost feels like an additional character.
I rated this book a 4.5 stars out of 5 and am so glad I got to kick off my spooky season reading with this novel. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this Advanced Readers Copy. I’d definitely recommend picking this thriller up! Hitting shelves September 20th.

Does it make me a bad person if my favorite parts of this book are the death scenes? They were grisly, engrossing and seriously creepy. I love the solid kill count too, which further added to the tension because you never know who's going to be next while also grappling with hope that someone actually makes it out alive.

There's plenty about this book that I really enjoyed:

- The urban legend and constant wondering of 'is it real?'
- A whodunit that kept me guessing
- Totally unpredictable reveals
- Fast-paced and quick read
- The vagueness of it all

I also love how Daphne is, quoting the author, a "correspondence" with mental illness told through the lens of a psychological horror novel and a love letter to the genre. My only gripe was the writing style, which made the story confusing and hard to take in at times. It reminded me of My Heart Is A Chainsaw and kept me from fully enjoying what's actually a pretty brilliant book.

Can we have a third Bird Box novel though, pretty please?

𝘿𝙖𝙥𝙝𝙣𝙚 by Josh Malerman which publishes on 9/20 by @delreybooks was a complete let down and B-O-R-I-N-G! Why didn't I just DNF this one!? I am regretting wasting the time. I was excited for it, and it sounded like the perfect spooky season book, but it was anything but that.

It could have been a great one, but the author spent WAYYYY too much time on basketball (BORING!) Please do not go on and on about basketball in a book that is suppose to be a horror/spooky read. I wanted to fall asleep at times. This one just dragged on, my gut was to DNF, but like I stated above-I feel guilty when I DNF an ARC, so I continued on and was overly disappointed.

Also, this should be labeled as a YA book, because it is, definitely should not be labeled or targeted for adult readers. Anyway, enough of me complaining about this one, my overall verdict is SKIP THIS ONE! On to the next!

Felt like someone trying to copy the style of Stephen Graham Jones in a way, and not just because of the basketball. And boy was there a lot of basketball here. Much more basketball than horror I’d say.
This book was slow and unmoving. The diaries were annoyingly long. Guess it just didn’t work for me.

Rating: 1.5
I don't think this author is for me. I've only read two of his books but I don't think I'm interested in reading any more. I don't like the writing, I don't care about any of the characters and the story itself is mediocre at best.

The female embodiment of revenge and horror walking the streets is a great take. The way this story shows how an urban legend can either be just a part of the story or completely false are a real strong point.

Kit’s Jolly Journal entries really added to the feel of the story, the If Then feeling she describes is one I know way too well. Trying to find meaning in the pattern that you create in your head. Her feelings when first listening to the NIN album are 100% relatable.

The slasher/boogeyman vibe is very alive in this book!

The final stretch of the book is so stressful!Absolutely loved it and I’ve already recommended it to some friends!

Josh Malerman is one of those auto-buy authors for me, a place that used to be reserved for Stephen King and Jo Nesbo. They're still there, of course, but my list of must-read authors has expanded, and I'm not even a little mad about it. Inspection and Pearl are two of my top favorite books in recent years, and when I saw Daphne announced, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

From the publisher via Goodreads: It’s the last summer for Kit Lamb: The last summer before college. The last summer with her high school basketball team, and with Dana, her best friend. The last summer before her life begins.

But the night before the big game, one of the players tells a ghost story about Daphne, a girl who went to their school many years ago and died under mysterious circumstances. Some say she was murdered, others that she died by her own hand. And some say that Daphne is a murderer herself. They also say that Daphne is still out there, obsessed with revenge, and will appear to kill again anytime someone thinks about her.

After Kit hears the story, her teammates vanish, one by one, and Kit begins to suspect that the stories about Daphne are real . . . and to fear that her own mind is conjuring the killer. Now it’s a race against time as Kit searches for the truth behind the legend and learns to face her own fears—before the summer of her life becomes the last summer of her life.

Mixing a nostalgic coming-of-age story and an instantly iconic female villain with an innovative new vision of classic horror, Daphne is an unforgettable thriller as only Josh Malerman could imagine it.

I loved this book.

Kit's voice was so authentic and engrossing. Sometimes, it's difficult to nail a kid's voice, especially in journal format, but Malerman did an excellent job with these intrinsic moments, examining anxiety and raising the tension several notches. As someone who played AAU basketball through the end of high school, my favorite parts of the book were centered around Kit's relationship with her team. When you play with the same group of people for a long time, you develop an energy. Traditions. Rituals. Asking the rim a question felt so incredibly reminiscent of my childhood it almost stole my breath. It really added to the nostalgia written throughout the story, and I couldn't stop turning the pages.

On top of that, Daphne has the same eerie quality that Stephen King's It has. There's an evil, an underbelly, to the town. Collectively, people forget, but the kids believe. I loved the dichotomy of the real-world anxiety and the unspoken fear manifesting as Daphne. Just--so spot on.

TLDR: Do yourself a favor and smash the add the cart button. Daphne is a layered read with fierce heart and undeniable terror.

Huge thanks to Del Rey and NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for honest review consideration.

Totally kept my lights on as I read this! I love a good old Urban Legend story! When Kit's friends who all play on the basketball team together, start getting killed, things get weird.
Rumor is, its the urban legend Daphne who is, well a ghost, and is out for revenge.

Daphne scared the crap out of me. It had all the familiarity of stories like Carrie and some of John Saul's early work. Well done Josh!! It was fantastic!

Daphne is such a fun small-town thriller! You don’t really know what exactly is going on right off the bar, however the more that is unraveled, the more chilling this story becomes! A must read for this spooky season! 🎃

Kit doesn't know who is doing it but someone is killing members of her high school basketball team. Of course the urban legend is that the villain is Daphne, a ghost seeking revenge for the way she was treated while she was alive, This gets gory in spots and there's perhaps too much basketball but it does have all the right elements for a horror novel that might be the progeny of Carrie. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For horror fans.

WOW. To say I was impressed by this is an understatement. Malerman has fully dived into the world of slashers now with Daphne.

Centered around the current Samhatten basketball team, a group of girls is stalked by Daphne, a 7ft tall woman dressed in all denim and KISS makeup. The name sounds familiar, like something they heard as children but were told never to speak of again. But why?

Not gonna lie, the concept of Daphne gives Bye Bye Man vibes. If you say her name or even think of her, she’ll come for you. However, this concept is 1000x better than that movie. Daphne, while Michael Myers-esque in the fact she has no lines, carries an unsettling and horrifying presence throughout the whole book. She’s a refreshing take on a slasher killer, with a backstory that will truly horrify you. The kills in this book are truly baffling to read. There were multiple parts that i had to re-read cause I could not believe what happened. It was horrifying and kept me entertained the whole way through.

However, this book is more than just kills! I really enjoyed the main character Kit and her discussions on mental health throughout the book. You can tell that it’s a subject close to Malerman and he portrays anxiety very well throughout this. Overall, I was very impressed with this and Malerman needs to write more slashers!

Thank you so much to NetGalley for the digital ARC I received. My review is all my own personal thoughts and I truly enjoyed every second of Daphne.

This book had me sleeping with the lights on for a few nights! Loved the concept, but unfortunately it started to drag and got repetitive in the middle, and the end wasn’t as satisfying as I’d hoped. Definitely worth a read, especially if you’re a basketball fan and looking for a creepy read reminiscent of the Bloody Mary urban legend. My first Josh Malerman, but won’t be my last. Looking forward to picking up some of his other titles.
3.75 stars rounded up.
Many thanks to Random House and NetGalley for sharing this E-book in exchange for my honest review!

This horror novel got under my skin in all the right ways. The way that Malerman slowly sets up a plausible and creepy urban legend, and then slowly stokes the tension and dread is deft and continuously on point. As the basketball team goes from disbelief, to nervousness, to outright terror as they are picked off one by one by Daphne (a ghost? a corporeal killer? something else altogether?), the fear and horror elements click into place and it makes for deeply disturbing reading. But the other aspect of this book that worked even better for me was how Malerman captures not only the general teenage anxiety of growing up and moving into the unknown, he also manages to make anxiety a metaphor through Daphne that never feels hokey, and is earnest and relatable. Our main character Kit already has an anxiety disorder before she starts to believe that Daphne is coming to kill her and her friends, and I thought that it was portrayed in a way that felt very, very familiar. The coming of age themes fit in well with the horror and psychological suspense, and it makes for a multi-faceted read.

DAPHNE screwed with me. It's scary, it's bittersweet, it's a great horror read that horror fans should check out this Halloween season. Or sooner!

Daphne once again proves how great a story teller and writer Malerman can be. Blending YA tropes of a teen girls basketball team coming to terms of dealing with life issues as well as mental health issues. He weaves in an urban legend into the small town of Samhattan. Flipping between the narrative and journal entries by the lead character Kit feeds more into the claustrophobic dread & anxiety of the story.

Kit is having a pretty good senior year of high school. She's a star on the Samhattan high school basketball team., until a sleepover and a ghost story about Daphne send her anxiety into overdrive. You see if you think about Daphne she will appear and kill you. Nice story to share right?
As you might expect soon members of the basketball team are dying and Kit knows who is responsible, Daphne. I don't want to say too much and give anything away but at times I was glued to the pages and at times I was lost. Kit is a terrific character and her struggles with her mental health we're extremely realistic. I'm still not sure after a week if I truly understood the author’s message. Was this a supernatural story or one about the horror that can exist within your mind? Whatever it was, it managed to leave me feeling anxious and confused the whole time. A story that will leave you thinking about, well everything that happened. Do try not to think about Daphne though. We know that doesn’t end well at all. 3.5 stars.