To dismiss this sci-fi thriller as just a gay trauma tragedy is a huge disservice. There is a dystopian sci-fi thriller that happens to have a couple gay characters and an asexual character, and that is tangential to the plot. A Hollywood horror screenwriter is told to kill off two gay characters by “the board” because that is what will make profits, when he refuses the intimidation and threats to harm/kill begin. To tell more would be major spoiler, but just know the writing it witty and sardonic when it needs to be and terrifically horrific when it needs to be. This should scare the bejeezus out of anyone concerned with AI and intelligent robotics.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. The build-up in the first half was creepy and had me hooked, but lost some momentum around the 65% mark. Still, the characters were well-done and I was invested in Misha's emotional arc.


I received an e-arc for an honest review.

I am speechless. This is definitely going to be one of my top reads not only of the year, but ever. The audiobook had the perfect balance of crawl up your spine creepies and empathetic characters that had me tearing up. I absolutely loved the concept of this story and Misha. He was so enthralling and his person was so captivating. Misha's battle between giving 'the world' what they want while suppressing his person, or staying true to himself was beautiful. The Oscar's speech had my crying in the shower. The representation of this book was so on point. And as someone who likes to stay true to what they love year round vs. following a societal 'trend', I greatly empathized with this story. So many tears and air punches for joy. This is a must read for EVERYONE. Chuck, you are an official auto-buy author. Thank you so much Tor, Netgalley, and Macmillan for the eARC and ALC. This book deserves all of the praise!

A huge thank you to Tor Nightfire and NetGalley for the eARC!

In a world where art is on the brink of extinction thanks to the emergence and development of artificial intelligence, there has never been a timelier novel than Chuck Tingle’s Bury Your Gays. Write what you know. This is often the advice given to any burgeoning writer on the cusp of something great. For Misha Byrne, he’s written what he knows, damn good and well. His TV series Travelers is up for award consideration, yet the production company is calling for one thing. To kill off the gay leads or let them live straight. Their reasoning? The predictive cost-benefit analysis algorithm says so. While Misha is quick to fight this idea, threats begin to emerge in the unlikeliest of forms demanding that Misha bury his gays.

Blurring the lines of fact and fiction, Tingle takes us on an entertaining ride through his fictional version of Hollywood, although I’m not fully convinced there isn’t more truth than not. The inspiration for the fictional shows Tingle crafts feels like a fun game of “I Spy,” calling to mind media such as Supernatural, The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Truman Show. Misha Byrne (Misha Collins x David Byrne?) has gained what many deem as commercial success for his writing abilities, his shows and movies always balancing between the status quo and featuring a welcome change of underrepresented leads. However, this external struggle of being forced to suppress his original idea is mirrored through his inner strife as a gay man still working through his own trauma. There’s a brilliant form of characterization that Tingle utilizes to give life to Misha, someone who is rallying against those working to keep him down.

And the arrival of very real threats to Misha and his friends is quite terrifying indeed, providing a meta twist on the haunting qualities of your own creations, your own proverbial ghosts. Just imagine if 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a smidge darker, the limits of violence nonexistent. In fact, Misha’s creation (or I guess Tingle’s) of Mrs. Why, an shadowy female figure with great power, generated serious moments of fear that were palpable on the page. Yes, Bury Your Gays reads as a horror novel for these haunting creations and the violence enacted, but moreover, Tingle institutes an existential state of dread regarding our very real world through this novel. The presence of AI is all too large and all too consuming in a society that’s obsessed with capitalism and monetization.

Speaking of timeliness, there has never been a better moment to pick up a book that shares an invigorating narrative of authenticity such as this. Misha’s internal struggles, which are exacerbated by the very real threats around him, tap into a deeper philosophy of acceptance and vulnerability. Reading Bury Your Gays harkened the same message as Jane Schoenbrun’s latest movie, I Saw the TV Glow: “There is still time.” There is still time to find yourself, there is still time to make peace with your past, and there is still time to live authentically. Chuck Tingle’s greatest missive is that “love is real,” the idea that hinges upon opening yourself to the possibility of joy and acceptance through authenticity. The ways in which Misha’s boyfriend Zeke and best friend Tara are depicted in this story embody of this idea. These main relationships in proximity to Misha don’t need to thrive off dysfunction or trauma to read as noteworthy. They simply are through the merits of their goodness, of their love. Bury Your Gays indeed proves that love is real even in the face of the bleak, seemingly uncaring world around us for these very reasons.

A refreshing dive into the meta form of horror, Bury Your Gays walks a fine line of delivering deep-seated dread while still imparting tones of hope. As with Camp Damascus, Chuck Tingle argues the greatest evils come in the form of suppression of self, a life lived in a valley of rejection. Utilizing horror in this way feels like the perfect opportunity for despair, yet Tingle never leaves us in a state of darkness. After all, love is real.

This was incredible. I couldn’t have imagined this book being any more amazing than it already is. It’s legit perfect. I appreciated the queer representation and how they handled queer issues. I also loved the horror aspect to it. It was a interesting read for sure.

AHHHHHHH! One of my highly anticipated reads just rolled down the line. I am so thankful to Macmillan Audio, Tor Nightfire, Chuck Tingle, and Netgalley for granting me advanced audio and digital access to this out-of-this-world monster-horror before it hits shelves on July 9, 2024. PLUS this audiobook had a FULL CAST of some of my favorite authors and creators including CJ Leede, Stephen Graham Jones, Liz Kerin, and T. Kingfisher… Full casts on audiobooks always make the experience more fun.

Misha is a burnt-out writer in Hollywood, creating queer horror narratives for the big screen, and he’s finally made it big after receiving an Oscar nomination. But lo and behold, the executives on set are set on having his queer characters killed off in the upcoming season finale… Totally not okay with this, Misha bucks the system and refuses to go their way, which ends up stabbing him in the back, as all of his horror characters have seemingly come to life to haunt him and take his life and sanity out from his grasp.

This one was fun and thrilling, and the cast just made it so spectacular to listen to from multiple different angles, like I was really on-set behind the camera watching this trainwreck in action. Live laugh love, and Chuck Tingle. Period.

The first thing you need to understand: this book is camp. If you're expecting a very serious plot, with lots of realism, look elsewhere. However, I truly enjoyed this book and am discovering that I do quite like camp, when done well, and I think this is a pretty good example. Bury Your Gays is about queerness in media - queer trauma and queer joy - and the machine of capitalism (<spoiler>literally</spoiler>) and I loved everything this wanted to be. A highly self-aware narrator who is super familiar with tropes? Check. An asexual character who is everything my asexual heart ever hoped for? CHECK. Campy villains who also somehow manage to be pretty creepy and ultimately horrifying? Check! A message that is relevant and meaningful? Yep!

I think the one drawback to this book is the flashbacks; while they're important for understanding Misha and his past, and where the horror films he writes come from, they also slow down the story at points. I think a number of things could have been inferred, or never delved into fully, in order to keep the story moving along. However, I understand what the author was doing by including them (because this book is all about what sort of queer stories are allowed to be told!), so while I think they slowed things down, I understand and can appreciate why they are there.

This is such a vibrant story, very sharp, very meta, both angry and joyful, and ultimately made me feel very seen. Tingle is definitely an author whose horror I will keep seeking out! Thank you to NetGalley for the eARC; all opinions are my own.

YAAAAAS! I loved this book and the only thing that I felt was missing was more book! I really liked the underlaying themes as well of acceptance, coming out, and standing up for yourself.

So I think this was a masterpiece of a book.

I gave *Camp Damascus* a good review, but (as I said in the review) that was in no small part out of affection for the author as a person. It wasn’t bad, by any stretch, but I didn’t think it was all that great either. It had a bit too much of the classic Tingler in it to make it work as a serious book, in my opinion.

None of those complaints apply to *Bury Your Gays*. This was, I say again, a masterpiece.

The protagonist, Misha, is a Hollywood screenwriter who mostly does queer horror. He’s doing well enough to make a living; the stuff he writes is broadly well-reviewed and modestly commercially successful, but with a hard core of dedicated fans who love it. And he’s on the rise; he just got an Oscar nomination. But then he’s in a meeting with a studio exec to talk about an X Files-esque series he writes. He’s been building towards the two (female) agent leads getting together as the season finale, but the studio exec says that’s not going to work. He has a choice: abandon them finally confessing their feelings for each other … or have them do it, but they need to die at the end of the episode, as per the long-standing Hollywood trope of killing off gay characters. It’s not that the studio exec is a homophobe or anything, Misha is assured; it’s just what the algorithms say will sell the best.

As he wrestles with the decision of what to do - give the studio what they want, or stay true to himself and burn down his career - things get more interesting when monsters from various movies he’s written start showing up threatening his life and those he loves.

The story is very well crafted - it’s a master class of tension-building. Misha has to deal with his career choices, his own personal demons (he’s “Los Angeles out,” not “Montana out”), and more literal demons. His past is addressed as well; there are flashbacks to what it was like growing up in Montana knowing he was gay, and all the trauma he had to deal with. There were a few emotional stomach-punches along the way, and an excellent reversal of a climax that I should have seen coming but am kind of glad I didn’t.

Beyond the obvious, it touches on a bunch of other themes, both timeless and topical. AI in Hollywood; MeToo; the tension between movies as art and movies as business; corporations happy to celebrate Pride as long as it’s profitable; a recognition of conflicting pressure on gay people to come out against their own desire for privacy.

Putting on my /r/Fantasy Moderator hat for a moment: we frequently get threads where someone asks for a book featuring someone like them themselves. This could be a queer person, a person of color, a disabled person, or anything else. About the only version of this we don’t see is “I’m looking for a book with a cishet white male protagonist,” for obvious reasons. And almost without fail, someone will ask why it matters. Why can’t people just enjoy a book and not worry about the color or orientation or whatever of the protagonist?

The answer is that representation matters. Reading a book where you can see yourself in the protagonist matters. It matters for everyone, but I would say it’s especially important for kids growing up in not the most welcoming of homes, who might see no one like them in the movies and books they love and reach the conclusion that they are *wrong* in some way. I want everyone who doesn’t understand why representation matters to read this book. I’ve been a reddit mod too long to not be cynical about how much good it would actually do, but (as Chuck Tingle would be the first to say) it’s always important to try and make the world I want to live in.

This is one of my recent favorites!

Chuck Tingle has managed to do it again for me, after being completely surprised by Camp Damascus.

The biggest thing for me that Tingle does is comment on very REAL issues within society. The fact that he does it through a queer lens, just adds more of an insightful take on the realities that exist in our world. Horror needs to SAY something, and Tingle manages to get across his message and themes while simultaneously writing a phenomenal book.

The point of view jumps through moments of time, and I found myself equally captivated by the horrors that exist both in the past and the present. IFYKYK. Misha as a character, while flawed, has very real motivations for doing the things that he does. Even as I write this, I'm realizing that Tingle has done a masterful job of creating a multi-faceted character in Misha. Misha's past trauma informs his writing decisions and then to have to face your own horror creations come to life? Beautiful.

Loved this book. Get it. Read it. Love it.

3.5 stars - If "Camp Damascus" left me with an impression of earnestness blended with body horror, "Bury Your Gays" is pure camp. I honestly think this would be an amazing book to screen adaptation (perhaps ironically given the setting?) and the writing felt very cinematic in a positive way. I think the pacing was off for me - I can always do without a flashback - so I'm not sure I liked this quite as much as the last one. But this definitely shows that His Royal Chuckness has plenty of ideas left in this genre. I look forward to more!

4.5 stars

This was a blast, which was a surprise based on the title but not on the author.

Misha, the m.c., is at a pivotal stage of his career, and while he is thriving in some ways (getting major industry recognition for his script writing skills), in others, things are getting...WEIRD.

This felt extremely fresh and innovative, and I loved how Misha's memories crept in constantly. Those were in some ways even more horrific than the shocking events of the present day. Modern Misha is living in a kind of personal _The Cabin in the Woods_ situation, though, so don't sleep on the current shocks either.

What made me enjoy this wild ride even more was the absolutely star-studded cast of audiobook narrators. I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed hearing from so many favs there!

For the right reader, this book is doing the most in the best way.

This was my first novel by Chuck Tingle (despite the fact I’ve had Camp Damascus sitting on my shelf since it was published), and I loved it. I loved his writing style, the way his words seemed to flow so effortlessly and beautifully together.

This book was truly remarkable in many ways. I love a good novel that has more than just one “main” genre and Chuck Tingle meshed together sci fi and horror so perfectly. I loved the originality of this book, but also how it was a very hot take on Hollywood.

There were some very grotesque moments with descriptions that will make your stomach churn, all the while you can’t stop reading because it’s just that good. His ability to write such vivid descriptions of these moments is truly remarkable and something I enjoyed.

I loved the character development of our MC Misha. Watching him grow into this badass hero as the story unfolds is something you truly don’t want to miss.

I wasn't sure what I'd get when I started this book, but Bury Your Gays turned out to be a fun mix of a horror novel, a look at the anxieties facing performers in Hollywood over representation and AI, and more. Chuck Tingle tries to tackle quite a few things in this one, and while I'm not sure if he succeeded 100% in giving each element the care and attention they deserved (the final part of the book just didn't hold up to the high expectations that I had from the start, unfortunately), the core of this story is extremely strong. There is a lot to love in this one, and I'm sure Tingle's fans will be well served with this new book and new readers may find this a great jumping on point to explore the rest of his work.

Bury Your Gays was very entertaining and had a very eye catching opening chapter. I really enjoyed the characters and how the plot unfolded .

I read this book in one sitting and adored every second of it. With Bury Your Gays, Chuck Tingle is sending out the beautiful reminder that your work, no matter how it looks or how impolitely your story may be wrapped, is what matters most. In an age where AI art and the algorithm run everything, this book stands as a testament to the fact that humanity is what matters most, and that human stories, flawed and messy as they are, are the ones we connect to. I can't recommend it enough.

I loved this one! Chuck is becoming one of my favorite authors. I also enjoyed Camp Damascus. This book was so fun and well written. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to read and review. Highly recommend!

I think my actual rating is more of a 2.5/2.75? I'm honestly so conflicted with this one. There were a lot of parts I really enjoyed about this book, and I believe that has some really great critiques and things to say about queer characters in media. But all of the great parts were overshadowed by how weird this is. I'm not sure if I'm just stupid, but I was SO confused the whole time, and still don't really grasp what was happening in this.
This book was great as a horror novel, and as a critique on hollywood's treatment of queer artists and characters. But it turned into a scifi novel about half way through and suddenly I just couldn't keep up with all that was going on. I still don't understand how the whole conflict was wrapped up, I just kinda nodded my head and went "ok cool gays are happy now not sure how we got here but I'll take it" and moved on.

I'm aware that based on early reviews of this, I am an outlier so far. And that's great! I know that this book is really important and I appreciate what it has to say. I just think that this book is perfect for people who are into weirder novels. (and after looking up the author's backlist... I think this is perfect for the people who are already fans of his other works...)

I was blown away by how tightly this story came together. It was new, it was fresh, and it was masterfully told. The role of technology in this story was so terrifying... I did not see this fear morphing in front of my eyes until it was too late. I feel like the sexuality of the characters themselves wasn't the focus, but rather the focus the treatment of queerness within Hollywood/profits and the way folks get dehumanized and stepped on in the pursuit of money. Also Chris Oak lived rent-free in my head for months after I finished.

Hollywood screenwriter Misha has just received his first Oscar nomination, but is unable to enjoy it. He’s just been asked by studio heads to kill off a gay character in his ultra-successful television series as “gay tragedy” sells more than triumph. When he refuses, his personal and professional lives begin to suffer. Can Misha continue to make a stand or will he buckle under the pressure?

This is my second Chuck Tingle experience (what a sentence), and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Re-entering the world of horror following the success of CAMP DAMASCUS, Tingle once again examines the struggle to remain true to oneself and all the obstacles you must overcome. Oh, and lots of gore thrown in to boot. There is one scene in particular that takes place in an airplane that’s both wildly original and deeply unsettling at the same time.

One of the book’s central themes is the proliferation of A.I. and the ongoing reduction of art to the lowest common denominator in an effort to maximise profit. This isn’t a spoiler, but one of the book’s biggest plot points involves a deceased actor reborn as an A.I. generated presence garnering an Oscar nomination. Is that really so far-fetched? I feel like we may head down that road sooner than we think. Very much like his previous novel, things take a turn in an unexpected direction that largely left me satisfied. While I haven’t read Tingle’s more infamous work, I’m surprised at how quickly he took to the horror genre. His descriptions and creativity around many of the novel’s more grotesque moments left me reeling.

BURY YOUR GAYS is a sharp, tightly written commentary on the perils of algorithms and profit-chasing art. Hopefully horror fans eat this one up as well.