So…Chuck Tingle is legit.

This was a really good book! It manages to be sad, funny, hopeful, kind of hopeless at times (opposite day!), and legitimately creepy. I was shocked to find out what was really going on, but even more horrified to know that there are folks out there in a certain industry that would absolutely do this if they had the power.

The book is a rollercoaster ride of both emotion and action and I simply loved it.

I am completely on board with whatever thrills and chills Tingle decides to bring us next!

• ARC via Publisher

I am a recent reader of Chuck Tingle. I heard about him through a book club, and then he also came to a local bookstore with Catriona Ward. I really enjoyed the themes brought up in Camp Damascus, and assumed I would like Bury Your Gays. I also hope I'm referring to Tingle correctly, I read some of his blog posts, and went with ease versus technically correct for the purposes of the review. The book will be released later this year.

While Tingle's books on the surface may seem fairly straightforward, their horror genre roots give ode to a lot of subtext. Kudos for immediately throwing in an Easter egg for those aware of the online lore about who Chuck is underneath the mask. If you know, you know. I "chuck"led every time I saw that particular character's name. There was also a lot of foreshadowing and details to pay attention to as the book went along.

The book combines horror with an examination of the LGBTQA community as well as an examination of AI and its' ramifications. I am going to try to avoid spoilers in this review, but the past and present blur in this book, as we see how what has happened in Misha's past plays an ongoing role in his present life. The villains in this novel were really well written, and pretty much the scariest "monsters" I can think of. Mrs. Why particularly sat with me. It doesn't take gore to make someone terrifying and to be feared. There is also plenty of gore for those who look for that in a horror novel. There's also an ace character we see who plays a vital role in the novel, and I can't think of the last time I saw an ace character in a book. The book works through trauma and grief, as well as trying to reshape the narrative on LGBTQA characters, that they don't always have to end up dead at the end of the plot, and that that's the only way to portray gay people and relationships on screen. The novel really hits home that there should be more happy endings. I hope my review does it justice, and encourages others to pick up this book when it's on shelves.

Please be advised I received an Advance Readers Copy (ARC) of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Misha is a mostly closeted gay man working as a screenwriter in LA when he starts to notice his characters are haunting him, trying to kill him and his loved ones if he doesn’t kill off the gay characters in his current television show.

Tingle has taken the fear of AI and its use in capitalism, specifically Hollywood, and created a terrifying novel about authenticity and standing up for what you believe in. Somehow this story was hilarious while also playing on a very real fear of technologies advances being used for financial gain. I loved everything about this story.

Chuck Tingle, you did it again.

"Like the laboratory technician said: there are no feelings here. There's only profit."

"You know who the real villain is? Unchecked capitalism and the desire for capitalist systems to monetize other people's trauma"

Did I expect an anti-AI/algorithm story told through the lens of a queer character with some gore thrown in? Absolutely not.
I loved the story so much and all the pop culture references! I loved being on this journey with Misha and getting a happy ending.
I just loved everything about this book from the obvious messages about the use of AI in the entertainment industry to the discussion of queer representation and when it's just a money grab versus a heartfelt story, even if it isn't entirely happy like in the case of queer horror. PLUS a Camp Damascus mention?? Ahh

While I think I enjoyed Camp Damascus more I'm truly loving Chuck's entry into more mainstream publishing and writing. This is an excellent exploration of the hypocrisy in modern media representation and the allusions to a specific major tv show do not go unnoticed.

Chuck Tingle has once again delivered a horror novel with a poignant and heartfelt twist. Seamlessly blending together a story of learning to love and accept yourself, the ways in which Hollywood treats queer people and creepy gross monsters, Tingle manages to take a topic that can feel overwhelming to even think about and morphs it into a triumphant victory.

As someone who studies film, I know the bury your gays very well because I've seen it so much in the media I watch. I love how this book took that trope and flipped it on its head. Tingle made an entertaining story while also critiquing that trope and I loved it. The pacing was great and so were the characters. It was a fun read and I want to read more from this author

I have read another one of this authors books in the past so I was excited to pick this one up! Thank you for sending it to me! I liked the story overall but it could have had more character development. Overall- it was okay.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘨𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘰𝘳 𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘎𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘱 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘳𝘤 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

TW: Ch1ld Neglect, Body Horror, G0re, H0mophobia

🖤 Meta Storytelling
🖤 Queer Horror
🖤 Queer Representation Including a Gay MMC and Ace FC
🖤 Simultaneously Funny, Thrilling, and Moving

This rating may be a little biased because I do truly love Chuck Tingle and the work he does, but I was joyfully surprised at how much this book connected with me!

Bury Your Gays is a queer horror novel that follows Misha, a queer screenplay writer in Hollywood. When 'the board' insists that he should kill off the queer characters in his hit TV series, he decides to stand against them. After making his decision, he thinks people dressed as characters from his previous queer horror films are stalking him...

I won't dive too deep into the story as I don't want to spoil any interesting twists, but know that this story certainly takes a few meta turns, as you would expect with a Chuck Tingle piece!

Misha has a few moments from his childhood that have really affected him (and his writing), and I was very touched by a few of these traumatic moments from his youth. They were written very well, and though I had never experienced moments exactly like his, I certainly relived them with Misha because of how REAL the emotions and scenarios felt.

This story grapples with some very real topics (like, hiding your queerness or the negative effects of queerbaiting specifically referencing a certain popular TV series), and I think it does so very well, sandwiching it with the ways that Misha wrote about these issues as he was working through them as an adult.

The twists were (mostly) unexpected, the horror was genuinely creepy, and I really appreciated the commentary on queer culture and the inclusivity of asexual/aromantic people in that conversation.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐.5/5

Almost immediately, Tingle sets readers up in this tense storyline of whether the narrator is unreliable and keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I appreciated the connection between the antagonists and the narrator as well as the additional layer of the "bury your gays" trope we've all seen/read at least once it our lives. I base my opinion of a horror novel on how much it feels like an actual scary movie and this novel had the extra layer of dealing with Hollywood and scary movies. Very rarely does a horror novel feel like a scary movie and cause a visceral reaction within me, but "Bury Your Gays" did that for me. It's probably my favorite read so far of 2024 and I'm recommending it to all of my horror book friends.

Misha Byrne has finally made it. An Oscar nomination for his short film and the rest of his career is going great. But the executives at the studio want him to kill off the gay characters in his streaming series. He refuses, but at what cost? And these monsters coming after him and his friends? They look awfully familiar…

This is my second Chuck Tingle book after CAMP DAMASCUS and, again, it’s lots of fun, wrapped up with real horror. Mrs Y is absolutely terrifying and is honestly my idea of what hell might be like. It all got a bit crazy, but I enjoyed it. Recommended.

This is the story of Misha, who is a Hollywood screenwriter. He writes horror (mostly), and his current project is a show that sounds not too much unlike The X-Files. The studio execs have ordered him to kill off his main characters in an epic example of Bury Your Gays. When Misha refuses, he suddenly finds that he is being followed by monsters from his movies, and horrors from his past.

I liked Bury Your Gays quite a lot. I thought it was better than Camp Damascus which I also loved. This appears to take place in the same universe that Camp Damascus takes place in as well, which was neat.

The twist… or… explanation of what exactly was happening was really interesting and I wouldn’t have guessed it in a million years. The same was true of Camp Damascus as well, so maybe it’s just that Check Tingle has some out-there ideas.

If you like a good horror, you may just like Bury Your Gays. It scared the willies out of me a couple of times. At least books can’t really jump scare me, or I’d hide under the blankets, lol.

The Tingler strikes again! Chuck does queer horror like no other and I am so bloody thrilled that I received an advanced copy from Nightfire. As soon as I got it in the mail, my face was ALL up in dis shit, gobbling it up.

Frankly, life got in the way--I could have easily devoured this is one bite but that pesky sleep called out to me.

This had it all: horror, gore, humor, supernatural (the nod to Supernatural was exquisite and SO clever), but also tender and thoughtful; splendidly executed in a single book, which speaks volumes to Chuck's storytelling abilities. My expectations were high following Camp Damascus and Bury Your Gays far surpassed that...y'all, I'm talking through the roof and into interplanetary fucking space.

Easily makes it into my favorite books of the year. LOVE IS REAL <3

A huge thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for gifting me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Y'ALL. Do NOT sleep on Chuck Tingle!!!!! I immediately requested this ARC after I finished "Camp Damascus" and I was so stunned to be approved. The cover art is so great and it fits in perfectly with the vibes of this book. My other favorite part of Tingle's writing is he doesn't drown the reader in mindless filler just to get to 300 pages or more. We get a straight to the point look at his characters and the action begins in the first chapter. I truly, truly enjoyed this book. Read it in two sittings and we will stan Misha forever.

I liked CAMP DAMASCUS a lot but I *loved* BURY YOUR GAYS: this book is a pop-punk scream, loud and fast and furious and yet never for even a second lacking in love and heart. It manages to be a terrific horror novel full of genuinely terrifying monsters—but the real horrors are, you guessed it, CAPITALIST IDIOTS bent on sucking every good thing out of the creative industries without a care for how hollow it'll all be after that. Chuck is throwing bombs here, coming directly for the Hollywood suits who would rather pour money into capturing the likenesses of their actors for AI to make movies forever instead of supporting actual stories told by actual creatives that might -- GASP -- be something new and different and exciting. He manages to get in great shots at AI and the studios but also corporate allyship, the media's role in terrorizing celebrities, our culture's fascination with gossip, the retrograde communities who would still rather torment a gay kid than support them.... And again, he does it with love. Not only is love indeed real... but a book like this just might give you hope that love can and will save the day in the end. And that's a feat in and of itself.

This book was so so so much fun. This was my first Chuck Tingle book and I enjoyed it a lot! The characters are beautifully written and have such searing stories and revelations that make them so relatable and loveable and the story itself is so unique and fast faced.

As a queer reader this was a breath of fresh air. It is witty and emotional and gut wrenching and above all, gay. Tingles writing is amazing, and i’ve become a real fan.


A huge thank you to Tor, Chuck Tingle, & NetGalley for allowing me access to a digital ARC in return for my honest review :)

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

Release Date: July 9, 2024
Horror, Sci-Fi

Content Warnings: Homophobia, graphic violence

Themes: LGBTQIA+, anti-capitalist, Hollywood, AI art

Synopsis: Misha knows that chasing success in Hollywood can be hell.

But finally, after years of trying to make it, his big moment is here: an Oscar nomination. And the executives at the studio for his long-running streaming series know just the thing to kick his career to the next level: kill off the gay characters, "for the algorithm," in the upcoming season finale. 

Misha refuses, but he soon realizes that he’s just put a target on his back. And what’s worse, monsters from his horror movie days are stalking him and his friends through the hills above Los Angeles. 

Haunted by his past, Misha must risk his entire future—before the horrors from the silver screen find a way to bury him for good.

My Thoughts: Chuck once again proves that love is real with Bury Your Gays. It was poop-your-pants scary, funny, and philosophical. The real horror here, is how REAL this story could be with the advancement of technology and greed.

The main character Misha is well developed and has a tragic backstory that will have you rooting for him the whole time. Although the other characters don’t have much depth, I’m ok with it because this story is about Misha.

Additionally, I can probably count on one hand how much Ace representation I’ve seen in any media, so I was extremely happy to see an Ace character here.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you Net Galley and Tor Nightfire for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Pounded By The Feels After Reading A Review Copy Of “Bury Your Gays” By Chuck Tingle And Marveling At The Layers Of Emotion, Trauma, Humor, Humanity And Genre-Self-Awareness In It That Make It So Much More Than “Just” The Clever Horror Book It Could Have Been.

I’ve read a lot of Chuck Tingle’s work. So many Tinglers with wild, fully consensual sex with mythical creatures, dinosaurs and concepts, “Camp Damascus” and its chilling horror, and a lot of social media posts and essays from the writers. So I figured I had some idea what to expect from the latest one.

Nope.

“Bury Your Gays” is about an out-to-his-friends screenwriter, Misha, who’s been nominated for an Academy Award and who’s just been told he has to kill off the gay protagonists in his hit TV show just as they’re building toward the ending of their will-they-won’t-they story arc. In the words of the old trope, he has to bury his gays.

He rebels and plans to write an even gayer finale when characters from horror movies he’s written start to appear in his life, which would be terrifying enough even if they weren’t killing people to get to him. And he wrote them to be unstoppable…

I’ll get one possible complaint out of the way. No one really has a character arc besides the main character. His friends are there to help and be threatened and don’t change much.

But the story is about Misha’s arc, his history, his fears, and how he transmuted them into his writing.

It’s ALSO about (deep breath): Gay erasure and artificial intelligence and art and Hollywood and the ethics of using likenesses post-mortem and small town bigotry and child abuse and asexual representation and technology invading art and the fear of gay stories with happy endings and the importance of wearing a tie to the Oscars and a truly horrifying horror monster.

Tingle has written a devastating sendup of how queer people are treated in entertainment that’s also scary as hell and still funny and heartfelt. That is an impressive accomplishment and I suspect he’ll be accepting more awards of his own.

Wear a tie.

I read this book in one sitting. I did not plan to read this book in one sitting, but I could not put it down, accepting that my lunch break was now an extended reading break. Bury Your Gays was just that good.

It starts simple. Screenwriter Misha has been told by his exec that the season finale of his show must out, then kill the two leads. He needs to bury his gays because the board has determined it's where the money is. Misha says no. Then starts getting stalked by his (definitely fictional, right?) characters from other shows. Either Misha developed some incredible supernatural powers in that meeting, or something more sinister is at work...

Bury Your Gays illustrates why queer people should be allowed to tell the stories they want to tell, instead of being made to use queerbating, tragic tropes, or fake relentless optimism in the name of corporate Pride. It's a story about the queer struggle to find oneself in a world that makes it so, so hard. There's a lot of love for the queer community poured into this book, and oh does it shines. I especially adored the ace rep - and the concept of ace rep as a plot point. I shall not explain further. However, I am more scared than ever of the corporatization of Pride.

Bury Your Gays also criticizes capitalism's monetization of tragedy and exploitation of workers. It explores what happens when ethics are ignored in the name of an ever-growing profit margin, to the point where the bottom line becomes a near-sentient thing. It leans into the horrors of AI and data-mining by combining the two and going all the way with it. Chuck Tingle has acknowledged all my fears of black block algorithms and also made them ten times worse. Truly a feat! I will be sleeping with my router off!

It's a masterpiece of horror, both visceral and psychological. Since the main character is a horror writer, the story is very genre aware. There's a lot of fun to be had in the tale of "writer being followed by the monsters he wrote," and certainly no small amount of terror. It gets gory here and there, with plenty of suspense in between. Hints are laid out for the reader, enough where I was occasionally able to predict what was coming just a page or two before it landed. My jaw dropped multiple times! The writing is descriptive enough to pull you right in (and gross you out!), and it's paced near-perfectly. There's all these little moments sprinkled in that elevate the whole story, from fun references of other work to subtle clues you'll only catch on a reread.

This book will be living in my head rent-free from now on. It's about so many things and yet has interwoven them all perfectly. Fans of classic horror movies will love this story. Those of us fed up with AI generated trash will love it. Anyone who joined a WGA picket line will love it. Asexuals fed up with lack of representation will love it. People who watched multiple seasons of Supernatural will love it. Is that you? Go pick up Bury Your Gays. Be scared, be sad, be angry. But also validated, loved, and joyful.

Bury Your Gays by @chucktingle is a horror novel about Misha Byrne, he’s a not so out gay, Hollywood screenwriter of queer C-List horror movies and a popular paranormal TV series. One day, Misha is pressured by his producers to kill off the lesbian pairing he’s been working towards in his tv series for the mysterious money making “ algorithm”. As he figures out whether to kill off his gay characters, he’ll find himself being haunted by familiar creatures and in his own “bury your gays” story.

I loved this book. As someone who lived through the height of the bury your gays and queerbaiting of the 2000s/2010s with shows like Supernatural, The 100, Teen Wolf, Sherlock, etc. I knew exactly what tropes Chuck Tingle was playing with and what characters he was alluding to in this book. I think this is a really cathartic book for folks who lived through that fandom era and yearned for queers to be the hero of their own stories. I would have loved to have used this book back when I was writing my capstone for Gender Studies because it was all about this topic. Also the aro/ace rep with Tara is *chef’s kiss* like she is so great and I love how even when other queer identities are represented she’s like where are the asexuals?? Like yes! We’re always getting left out! Overall, just a fantastic book that I literally read in a few hours because I couldn’t put it down. Chuck Tingle is def an auto-read now.