Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram is a thrilling short novel in the Montreal subway station. If you liked Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, you would appreciate how the labyrinth quality of the surroundings becomes a character in the novel. The depressed protagonist is trapped in an unending subway system. This setting creates a feeling of being lost in limbo, reminiscent of life with a mental illness. This sense of being trapped for an undetermined amount of time feels comparable to Sartre's No Exit or Huis Clos.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this novel is the author's decision to involve the reader in shaping the story. This interactive element further immerses the reader in the protagonist's world, contributing to the feeling that the protagonist doesn't have complete control over their fate or decisions.

I enjoyed this story. Readers should be aware that the novel deals with themes of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. The author didn't glamorize these elements; rather, I felt they depicted how those qualities can feel while crafting a suspenseful story.

I would recommend this book to readers. Thank you to Titan Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

I loved Coup de Grâce so much. Coup de Grâce is beautifully written. Yes, it is horror but Ajram's writing is unparalleled - the care and attention that Ajram takes to write about depression and its impact is moving and lyrical. The imagery of Coup de Grâce is unsettling and haunting in every sense of the word. Ajram's descriptions of depression left me asking what is scarier - where Vicken is physically or where Vicken is mentally? The ending is a surprise, that is best left unspoiled but its a unique twist and will have you questioning yourself. Thank you to Titan Books for the advance copy.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for this ARC in exchange for my honest review!

I really enjoyed this weird little book. This is a great psychological horror with bits of body horror sprinkled in. The random moments of 4th wall break and choose your own ending threw me off in the best way and made the story a bit funny too. Seeing inside the mind of Vicken was tragic and nightmarish. This world where he is lost is something I could picture in a horror movie. We see him spiraling with his new reality as well as his already established mental illness. While he came to the station to die, he is conflicted with his new sense of survival and will to try to escape.

As this is a novella, it is very short and easy to get through in one sitting. I look forward to more from this author in the future!

Trigger warning: The book starts by letting readers know about triggers for depression and suicide.

Set in Montreal, the book concerns a young man, Vicken, who is contemplating ending his life. From a personal standpoint, one of the reasons I was very excited for this novel, apart from the phenomenal author, Sofia Ajram, is that it’s a horror novel set in Montreal which hasn’t really gotten its due in terms of ‘big city horror’ but also in Canadian horror spaces although the city is home to many wonderful horror creators in different domains. If you’re from Montreal or have visited, you will enjoy the familiarity of the places like the subway stations and other sites.

The novel firmly establishes itself in a Cronenbergian, existential and philosophical horror space which means it’s wonderful for readers who don’t know where the narrative is going because it’s not a straight trajectory from A to B to C.

(Vicken is queer btw; he has sex in a bathroom with a guy named Felix)

He’s looking for an outbound station to exit but he can’t find one. He’s soon joined by another woman who he nicknames Pashmina. She has had the same problem for days. And then together, their days multiply.

What they find is a scene out of a nightmare that would make even Clive Barker terrified.

Vick starts to wonder if he has died and is in purgatory or has he been infected with something causing him to hallucinate this new reality?

It chronicles his descent into madness about what his purpose is and what he is really doing by being trapped here and surviving. It forces the reader to share the terror of Vick with all of life’s unanswered questions like: what does this all mean? Why are we here? And that is as much a part of the terror as wondering if he will survive this hell.

And by the time the elevators enter the chatroom, things get even weirder.

Then the book started to remind me very much of “House of Leaves” where the character’s madness turns into an entity of its own.

And then — this is one of the most interesting aspects of the book — it becomes a Choose Your Own Adventure text in which if you’re reading the eBook, you can click on the links. It leads to at least a few different endings, and all I will say is that it isn’t going to be what you expect!

Overall, definitely one of the most unique and innovative horror novels I’ve read in some time! Very original!

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. The premise was so exciting! But… the prose got in the way.

Don’t get me wrong: there are individual sentences that sing. At times, I was impressed by how vivid the imagery was, and how incisive some of this novella’s statements were. But, these were small islands in a sea of verbiage. If this book had been pruned a little, with unnecessary synonyms removed, and every fifth flourish or so eliminated, it would have been great. But overall, it just lacked control. It’s not that I dislike rich prose. It’s just that this tipped over too often into being pretentious. Reading felt like wading through treacle.

To be clear, there was plenty to like. The body horror was top notch – here, the prose was purposeful, not just purple. It felt as if when something concrete was being described – a broken leg, an elevator journey, a series of half-melted corpses -- suddenly this story took flight. But it kept being weighed down by its own overlong sentences. I think it was at its best when our protagonist had other people to interact with; it kept the abstraction to a minimum, and meant his isolation and depression was brought to the fore. But when he was left to his own devices, things got way too ponderous.

Overall? A near miss that could have been great.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

Content wise you really feel the dread and misery, and the hopelessness associated with luminal spaces. This is one of the only luminal space books that I really felt transported to and not bored? So that's a plus. It highlights that waking/dreaming feeling.

This Kafkaesque nightmare of a novella is at turns really sad, suspenseful, and even gag inducing. For such a small page count Ajram creates a fully realized world in this never-ending subway station. It’s an experience!

An experimental novel with beautiful prose, this novel was such an experience to read. I really enjoyed the writing and commentary on life and death and finding meaning in the mundane. I also found it claustrophobic and slightly disturbing in certain parts, which only added to the overall experience. The ending especially was creative, I enjoyed the different options presented to the reader to control the narrative. A uniquely creative story!