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It turns out Chuck's wonderfully bizarre mind isn't limited to odd romances, but also brings weird science fiction horror to life too. I really enjoyed this story. I loved the commentary on queer representation, especially in the horror genre, and I loved it's level of gore/horror/creepy.

Was this book horrifyingly scary? No. Did I decide to listen to a different book to go to sleep? Yes. 😂 It had a nice level of creepy as we moved along in the story and I thought the gore was perfect for this light horror.

The audio was fantastic. It's mostly Misha, but we also get scripted POVs with a full cast and sound effects and I thought it was really well done. I highly recommend it!

Camp Damascus was one of my favorite reads last year, so I was really excited to read this one, even more so because of the title. Bury Your Gays followed Misha, a sort of closeted gay writer. His plans to make two of his queer characters canonically queer is shot down by an executive of the studio. Instead he is told to Jill them off because “gay tragedy” sells. Misha is soon fighting to survive his own horror villains (and villains from his past) brought into the real world.

Misha’s best friend Tara is aroace, and there is a point made about how there are so few asexual human characters within media, which was a fantastic part of the plot!

Bury Your Gays is such a fitting title and it really is so important that queer people get to see ourselves in whatever ways we want to write about and that queer tragedy and death shouldn’t be the only time we see ourselves.

Thank you to NetGalley for making this available in exchange for an honest review!

Received as an ARC from Netgalley:

This was another AMAZING novel by Chuck Tingle, who really has a true mastery of using horror to explore our current era with intent, and emotion.

The less you know about this book going in, the better. All you need to know is that the book has a very clear vision, death to the algorithm.

Three dimensional characters with meaningful arcs.

I'll follow Tingle into whatever he does next as this is one of my favourite books of the year.

Book Review: Did I just fall in love with the genre of Queer Horror thanks to this masterpiece? YES!
I will probably not read everything by Chuck Tingle (the dino butt stuff is not my cup of tea lol) But Fuck can he write a dark comedy horror. The story was hilarious, creepy, intriguing, and a fun time.
Thanks to Chuck Tingle I added two new words to my vocabulary: Girthquake & Queeroes

Audio Review: Multiple narrators & sound effects, it was such a good listen. I could listen to it again, and re-read the book.

This was campy and oh so much fun. I think going in to this expecting traditional horror might lead to disappointment because while there are some gruesome scenes this is much more about the social commentary, which is what I love the in horror, and Chuck Tingle does it so well here. There were certain scenes and lines that had me laughing out loud, which is not what I expected.

Commenting on Hollywood, Rainbow Capitalism, the dangers of AI, "coming out", and more, Chuck crafts a fun tale following a middle age writer who is "LA out" but not out at in public or at home. Misha is an incredibly relatable character, even when he's being haunted by the monsters he's written for past films.

I received an audio review copy and I loved the narration so much. André Santana is a narrator I've just come across this year but I have loved all of his work. I also loved the cameos of other predominant authors!

Chuck Tingle does it again with his queer horror! As always it’s campy, creepy, funny and gay. Misha’s “monster of the week” monsters were a lot of fun as someone who grew watching X-Files, Charmed and Buffy. The way Tingle uses trauma and makes something different with the way he transforms it through horror and sci-fi.

At first I was very confused with the amount of narrators, but was very pleasantly surprised when they showed up throughout the book. They all did an amazing job, though I was disappointed to see TJ Klune on the list seeing he still hasn’t apologized for his using of the 60s scoop. As always André Santana does an amazing narration job as the main narrator through the book.

Thank you NetGalley, Macmillan Audio and Chuck Tingle for an advanced copy of this audiobook.

I don’t even know what to say about this story. It was EPIC. It was gay and tense and gross and stressful and exciting and just downright incredible. The plot was something fresh and new with a sprinkle of those good good horror elements that makes this an absolute hit, not to mention Misha was the perfect main character for this story. I loved him and all of his relationships with the other characters, including the bad guys.

I am totally floored by this story and I will be thinking about it for probably the rest of my life. Thank you NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an advanced copy of the audiobook (which by the way was IMPECCABLE!)

This started off slow for me. But once the MC started being stalked by his own characters it had my full attention.

Misha refuses to bury his two queer leads on a show that he is the lead writer on. Ironically despite being known as a top Queer Horror writer, Misha is still closeted back home and has yet to ever speak on his own sexuality publicly.

Misha's willingness to stand up for the Queer community while still refusing to admit he was part of it was super annoying. With that said I liked him. He was sensitive, funny, dramatic, and protective of his friends.

The TMZ like coverage of his public stalking and speculation that Misha was the problem rang very true to what we have seen play out in real life. Despite being an Oscar nominee, he is still facing the treat of being blackballed by not complying. Again, we've seen this in real life. Hollywood is dangerous and fickle.

Gruesome murders, ghosts, monsters, aliens, Skynet level AI, and worms kept Misha on the run and forced to defend himself by any means necessary.

This was incredibly entertaining, highlighted real life issues, and gave us ACE REPRESENTATION something we don't see often as pointed out in this story :)

Chuck Tingle. The author that you are. I am in awe of your brain!!!

BURY YOUR GAYS is a fast-paced sci-fi satirical horror about all-consuming corporate greed, and the nuanced topic of queer representation in media—and it’s brilliant. I absolutely devoured this book, despite never reading the genre (or author) before. Everything about it was larger than life while simultaneously extremely plausible and familiar. Certainly a stand-out novel, and I can’t wait to recommend it to others.

The audio edition is a delightful experience! The main narrator does phenomenal (as always, André Santana never misses) with quick cameos from a variety of queer authors, and segments of sound effects. If you’re an audiobook listener, this one is definitely worth it.

i truly loved chuck tingle's camp damascus. the plot to this one didn't particularly interest me (it didn't sound bad, it just didn't include much that i was drawn to) but i saw that it was a full cast audio and i was in.

i consider chuck tingle's horror books to be something similar to the books that grady hendrix is writing these days only chuck's tend to take fleshy chomps out of worldly discourses - religion, homophobia, etc. - and that makes them so, so special to me. bury your gays introduces us to misha, a screenwriter who's been levied a choice - kill off a gay character from a popular series that he writes or be in breech of contract and have his whole career thrown in jeopardy.

first off, i love misha's flat-out refusal to given in to the demand to kill off a character. willing to sacrifice his career because he's not interested in participating in the bury your gays trope, he leaves the office, resigned to his fate.

but soon, misha realizes he's being stalked by his own characters come to life and this time, he may not lose his career, he may lose his whole life. but if these aren't crazed fans, what's actually going on?

it's really impossible to talk more about this book without major spoilers, so i'll avoid it. read it. even if you think that you don't want to read it because it's not your kind of thing, read. it. this book made me ugly cry.

long story short: a fun, campy and gay horror novel that has so much to say in such a thoughtful way.

warnings: there is a lamb in this book (one of the characters) and some of the gore associated with this lamb was pretty upsetting for me to read about. normally, i rate books down for animal trauma/death/etc. but given the circumstances in which this was written (i.e., not for shock value, etc.) i am not doing that this time. this was a great, great read.

I absolutely loved Camp Damascus so I had very high expectations for Bury Your Gays and despite these very high expectations, I was not disappointed. I was actually blown away.

Bury Your Gays follows a gay and semi-closeted horror screenwriter in Hollywood, his boyfriend Zeke, and his best friend Tara (thank you for this amazing ACE representation). The reader joins Misha as he battles against the order to kill off two of his characters if he brings them out of the closet. Gradually Misha realizes he is becoming haunted by his horrific creations and that the only way he can escape his monsters is by keeping his gays alive.

Tingle is a fantastic writer, funny with amazing characters, and a real talent for description and setting without getting too wordy. Going into a Tingle novel you know there is a great chance the queer characters you fall in love with are going to survive. The queer characters are the heroes in a Chuck Tingle book, you aren’t going to be punished here. Bury Your Gays is the big warm hug that the queer kids exhausted by shows like Supernatural need.

There are so many things I love about this novel but, at the top of my list, is Tingle’s expert exploration of queer trauma through horror. Horror is a powerful tool of catharsis and Tingle gets this. Bury Your Gays tackles how detrimental and painful queer baiting actually is, the heaviness of the obligation to be queer and PROUD, and the eternal dichotomy of being too gay and not quite gay enough all at the same time. If all of that sounds just too sad, the heart of the novel reminds us that there is incredible strength and love in the community and the family you make for yourself and that there is incredible strength and love in walking your most true path. And remember, Tingle doesn’t bury his gays.



Get your hands on the audiobook for this one if you can, the acting is fantastic and the production is amazing. This one is a real treat on audio.

This book was a wild ride - unputdownable, grotesque and with just enough of a twist to keep me guessing!

Full disclosure - I am not generally a Horror girlie, nor have I read a Chuck Tingle before (although I admire his breadth of work), but with a title like <i>Bury Your Gays</i>, I was more than interested!

Our main character, Misha, is half in the closet, seemingly depressed, and very much overworked as a screenwriter who is told by the studio to kill off his gay characters or make them straight. With Misha’s refusal to play into the ‘bury the gays’ trope, his life starts spinning out of control as villains and creatures from his past works start haunting and hunting him and those he cares about. Add to that the press sightings of the Oscar-Nom in places he has no recollection of being, and the reader finds themselves as creeped out as Misha.

While Misha grapples with apparently supernatural horror, the reader is also shown instances of his past trauma that shaped him and his art in a genius interwoven way. And when the horror is maybe not supernatural but <spoiler>sci-fi</spoiler>? Loved. Loved the reveal. It felt very timely with today's technology advancements.

But at this point, with everything seemingly wrapped up for Misha and the horror looking over, I was a little surprised that there were 5ish more chapters until the end. Barring some commentary of corporate greed in the last portion, I felt like the book dragged on a teeny bit - a teeny tiny bit - and more commentary of Queer Joy and existence in the media felt a little too on the nose for me to do more than grimace to myself.

I really, really enjoyed this book - and the audiobook was fantastically done - even with the meandering ending. I have no doubt that readers will enjoy watch Misha take on homophobia in the media, the ghosts of his past, and come out on the other side because Queer Joy does matter, even in the Horror genre.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the audio-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was a great read - a mix of humor, horror, and social commentary that worked so well together! Misha is a screenwriter asked to kill off his gay characters in the upcoming season finale. He refuses and soon finds that the horrors he created from movies he had written are now coming to life. I loved the horror aspects of this story and found they drew me in immediately. The discussion of representation and Misha’s determination to write queer joy and not just queer trauma was so well done, and I loved what this book had to say. I will definitely pick up more from this author.

I highly recommend the audiobook for this one. In addition to a full cast narration, there are also scenes with sound effects (birds chirping, doors slamming, etc.) that added to the fun!

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillian Audio for the advanced listening copy!

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this audiobook for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

I was so pleasantly surprised by the depth of this book. Behind the campiness and the fun horror iconography was an incredibly sincere commentary on queer representation, trauma, repression, internal homophobia, the destructive nature of capitalism, corporate greed, and compulsory heterosexuality. As much as I adored the campier moments, these more serious topics were what made the book stand out so much to me.

The story was very well done, and I enjoyed the more meta moments that Misha had where he pondered his actions as the protagonist of a story. I thought that the connections that each of Misha's monsters had to his past and trauma he faced were also incredible, and this felt like such a wonderful tribute to horror writers who include biographical elements in their stories.

I also caught a couple of references to the author's previous novel, Camp Damascus, and I am even more excited to read that novel now!

As a multi-voiced audiobook, this production fell short to me, because most actors only got a few lines of dialogue while the narrator performed most of the work. I have no complaints with the quality of the narration, it just felt disingenuous to call the production a full cast audiobook.

Publication date: July 9, 2024

Ok, this book deserves 10 out of 5 stars! It is my favorite novel so far this year. Not only does Chuck Tingle serve you amazingly terrifying characters, a brilliant sci-fi concept for Hollywood, but a heart rendering tale that everyone can relate to on some level. This multi-faceted book was a bit fever dream mixed with the horrors of capitalism. I cannot say enough about this book! It was fabulous and I look forward to reading more by Mr. Tingle!

Chuck Tingle does not disappoint. This was pure camp entertainment that I couldn't put down. The full cast audio was wonderful.

Bury Your Gays by Chuck Tingle

Thank you so much @tornightfire @macmillanaudio #macaudio2024 for the free audiobook

Blurb:
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.

✨ My thoughts:
Ahh!! I loved this book and audiobook so much!! The whole cast of characters was superb! Misha is an incredible character and I enjoyed following his story. I’ve never read anything quite like this because the “bury your gays” trope is definitely new to me but damn did Chuck Tingle kill it! Not only is this story fun as hell, it’ll also open your eyes to queer representation in Hollywood. I don’t want to give away any spoilers but just know… once you start this, it’ll be impossible to stop so make sure you’re comfortable with snacks within arms reach. Get ready to feel a lot of things because you’re in for a real treat. Bury Your Gays is out 7/9/24!!

Happy reading 📖

This book is a "gentle" reminder of why AI sucks and will ruin literally every artistic form... 5 stars. Love is real.

This was excellent! I really appreciated the pacing–horrors start in the beginning and there isn’t a significant lull as we continue through. Some of the scenes were more visceral than I usually choose to read (the worm, the leg breaking, omg) but Tingle has us so caught up in the mystery of it all that I simply had to keep going to find out how Misha was going to come out of it alive. I also appreciated the monologue about the reason and power of horror as a genre, how capitalism relies on the trauma and pain of people for profit and one of many ways AI could escape its human keepers. A lot going on but somehow it all worked! The monsters reminded me of the nightmares in Sandman.
Best horror I've read in ages. 10/10.
Audio Notes: André Santana does a fantastic job. Some of the monsters require special voices and his character work is great at producing the vibe and creeps required. The interstitial bits narrated by the crew of authors were fun. I had wondered how the team would work and I'm glad Santana did the vast majority of the narration.

I honestly did not know this phrase - that killing off the gay characters, "burying your gays," was a thing. I almost passed on this book thinking it meant something else entirely!

This book, however, is perfect. It's everything you want - humor, satire, irony, thrills and horror. The plot is masterful! Misha is on the cusp of perhaps breaking through from his mediocre career in Hollywood but he's been tasked with killing off characters that mean a lot to him and his series. The executives have spoken and told him : Bury Your Gays.

Tingle takes us through flashbacks and an actual visit to Misha's place of birth as we learn more about his complicated feelings about being gay
The actual reasoning behind this terribly fun story is brilliant and I know you will love every bit!

Cheers to Chuck Tingle and many more books. Check out this audio book featuring plenty of famous readers. Best yet, Macmillan always pulls out all the stops and add sound effects at the beginning of each chapter, making the story Oh So Much Realer!

thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan audio! check out Bury Your Gays - you will never look at a movie or television show the same.

Narrated by André Santana; Charlie Jane Anders; CJ Leede; Georgia Bird; Liz Kerin; Mara Wilson; Mark Oshiro; Sarah Gailey; Stephen Graham Jones; T. Kingfisher; TJ Klune #macmillanaudio #torbooks #campdamascus #chucktingle #stephengrahmjones #andresantana #buryyourgays