I was looking forward to reading this filippino horror but I'm sad to say that I DNF:ed it about a third through. Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author for a free e-arc copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

DNF'd at 33%
I really wanted to like this book. I love creative takes on posession and ghost stories. The description for this book described it as "Bodies Bodies Bodies meets Talk to Me," which are two movies I really enjoy. Unfortunately, by 33%, this book had not even begun to introduce the horror concept. All I had read was the world's most insufferable characters psuedo slut shame eachother and brag aboout how hot they are. The characters are not unique or clever, they're one-dimensional stereotypes that read like the characters in a 3 minute SNL sketch. The conversational tone is not wholly at odds with the first-person narration, but was incredibly expositional, even a third of the way through the book. Again, I really, really wanted to enjoy this book, but it was annoying and took too long to introduce the horror which it promised.

"Death, IRL, is the final cancellation"

When I requested a review copy of Gigantvm Penisivm, it’s fair to say that I wasn’t expecting a literary tome that tackled its themes with gravitas. From award-winning Filipino author, Jose Elvin Bueno, this novel is billed by publisher Clash Books as a satire on social media influencers and most intriguingly “A24’s Bodies, Bodies, Bodies meets Talk To Me“. My interest was piqued and I saw the potential for a whacky “I-can’t-believe-what-I-just-read” book.

Rafa, Basti, Vicente, Pia, and Mitzi are a group of vacuous social media-addicted influencers: a fin-tech wunderkind; an OnlyFans pornstar; an Instagram model; and so on) who get together on a Friday to stave off the ennui of their privileged lives with drugs and alcohol. The characters are all obsessed with their metrics of online engagement (or as the author puts it amusingly, their “anals and algos”). Basti suggests a demonic summoning to liven things up, using the obscene incantation “Gigantvm Penisivm”. Things go predictably south from there when the spirit possesses each character one by one. After a few chapters with these odious self-obsessed characters, I was more than ready for them to get bumped off in the time-honoured tradition of a trashy horror movie. Sadly, I have to file this novel comfortably in the “not for me” box and I will not be recommending this in good faith to anyone I know.

In the defence of Gigantvm Penisivm (a phrase that you probably won’t find anywhere else on the internet), the premise offers rich potential for satire and social commentary. The early chapters stress the importance of names and draw an interesting parallel between social media handles and the horror trope that if you know a demon’s name, then you have a degree of power and control over it. Characters are referred to by their @-tags throughout the book: an interesting convention at first, but it gets tiring quickly. There’s a suggestion of interplay between the followers/followed and the influencer/influenced, which I was anticipating would be teased out in the context of a horror story about demonic possession.

The book also comments on the importance of telling your own story (or Story, like on Instagram, geddit?) and maintaining a strong authorial voice. The whole narrative is framed as a story that is playing out for the online viewers (and by extension, the voyeur that is the reader). I was anticipating some unreliable narrator shenanigans here, and I’m always here for that.

In short, I started to expect too much from a book of this title.

It’s unusual that I can pinpoint the exact point that I mentally check out of a book, but I can tell you that I knew none of my early optimism for Gigantvm Penisivm was going to be fulfilled when I read the word “milkers” used to describe a character’s breasts. There’s no coming back from that.

This book crawled along at snail’s pace. It is narrated in the first person by both Rafa and Mitzi who alternate chapters. It doesn’t take long to realise that narrator 2 is describing exactly the same events that narrator 1 has just told you, chapter by chapter. I was expecting there to be conflict between the two voices as they began to contradict one another, making you question who to believe - but alas there was no discernable reason for this device, making for a tedious and frustrating read where very little of interest happens.

It wasn’t always easy to tell the narrative voices apart, so there are key phrases repeated throughout to establish the character’s POV. Unfortunately this means that the phrase “that adorable slut” and “that r*tard” are used multiple times. The r-slur appears nearly 30 times in this 267-page book. It’s 2024; there’s no excuse for this and it adds nothing to the book. Another recurring motif is that every mention of the word “influencer” is stylised as “f**k this word, influencer”. I read this phrase more times than I cared to count. In fact, repetition is a major theme of this book and it didn’t feel intentional.

And what of the actual possession? Reader beware, SPOILERS lie ahead so please stop here if you don’t want to know more about this book’s plot.

...

Our group of feckless influencers succeed in summoning up the world’s dullest spirit. Upon taking control of each character’s body, the spirit cites lengthy passages of legislature, strips them of their money (which they apparently give up voluntarily; perhaps demons accept crypto as currency these days?) and imposes martial law. It transpires that the demon is none other than Ferdinand Marcos, former President of the Phillippines. I am not at all familiar with Filipino politics, so I may well have entirely missed the satire here. I understand that the actions of the possessed mirror the real-life decrees of Marcos, who ruled as a corrupt dictator for 14 years. Someone less ignorant of this part of the world may get a lot more out of this novel than I did.

The Gigantvm Penisivm has very little bearing on the story thankfully, until the final pages of the novel which, apropos of nothing, include a graphic sex scene between Marcos and the pornstar character. My research on whether this is based on any historical fact has proved inconclusive.

I wanted so badly to DNF this book but I made myself finish it. There is no horror here, and worse still there is no satire or humour. I count myself lucky that there was no punning on the phrase “brand penetration” - a missed opportunity, if you ask me

If you want to experience this for yourself, Gigantvm Penisivm was published on 5th November and is available as a paperback or on Kindle from Amazon. Thank you to Netgalley and Clash Books for providing me with this ARC and I can only apologise for my honest review.

Horror meets internet / influencers is steadily becoming a favourite of mine on screen and in books. It just felt like the perfect amounts of fun and horror throughout.

I loved the premise of this book, and the promise of humor; but it certainly did not go as expected. "Gigantvm Penisivm" is mostly endless monologue and irritating dialogue, with a bit of satire, employing a few familiar horror tropes to tell a rather bland story about Manila’s elite cast of influencers: they follow a lifestyle presented in ways which make them very difficult to relate to (no redeeming qualities), and this soon put me off from the the book. I was intrigued when the game came up, and waited to see where it all led to... and waited... and waited... At some point I was tempted not to finish, there was too much repetition and very little action. I also got confused by the use of two povs to tell pretty much the same story? Anyway. I have to admit, however, that the author does manage to put on the page characters meant to be unsympathetic and despicable. Considering this was presumably intentional, the book makes its point clearly. But, sadly, the lack of a solid story and the confusingly structured narrative do not deliver a story I can recommend.

Gigantvm Penisivm by Jose Elvin Bueno is a satirical horror novel set in the Philippines that delves a little too deeply into the minds and personalities of social media influencers and those born into money.

The author succeeds in creating characters that are abhorrent and that you don’t feel any emotional connection to. This story is told from the alternating perspectives of two of those characters, which makes it confusing, repetitive, and twice as long as it needs to be. I made it halfway through the book wondering when the “horror” would start, and the longer I read, the more I was disappointed.

The horror composition is 5% possession, 5% physical violence, and 90% insufferable monologue/dialogue with gross overuse of the words “retard” and “lurve.” As satirical horror, I assume that was the author’s intent, and in that case, he nailed it; unfortunately, it wasn’t a good match for me.

DNF

I really wanted to like this but had to give up a third of the way through as it wasn't for me. I found the characters insufferable, which I'm sure is the point, but also really didn't gel with the writing style. Shifting between two perspectives was fine, but having them constantly loop over the same thing was infuriating. I got so sick of having to read everything twice without the overall story moving at all. And then, when it did nudge forwards, it would inevitably be derailed by some random tangent about social media or some other nonsense. Again, I think this makes the characters successful - horrible, annoying influencers - but I quickly grew to hate being in their presence at all.

Also, for a book with a demonic possession reference in its subtitle, I was severely disappointed at the lack of anything even remotely resembling horror. I bailed at 35% where still nothing had happened to warrant it being a horror book. I assume it was about to, but by then I hated everyone in the book and the story itself so much that there was no point in me continuing.

Sorry, definitely not for me.

I get one this one was trying to do as a satire about influencers and the toxic culture that surrounds them. It wanted to be a modern American Psycho and follow in Palahniuk’s footsteps for full commitment to the bit. It missed on both. The characters, the plot, the nonsense on every page. All fell flat. It felt like it was written by an open mic comic, in that it always took the cheap easy joke. Just not the book for me, and not one I would recommend to anyone.

Gigantivm Penisivm
Jose Elvin Bueno
11/5/24

This read was fun. Nothing groundbreaking, but just a fun, frighteningly funny horror satire.

Because of the personality of the main 2 characters, dialogue can feel repetitive... because they are so obnoxious, superficial, pompous, and ignorant. There's lots of social media speak, so I could see that might confuse some, and get on other people's nerves. It got on mine.

But that's what makes reading the rest of the story so fun.
You have no emotional attachment to these shallow influencers, intentionally, so you're just waiting to be entertained by their ultimate fate, as they become the influenced by what they have summoned.

A very original and unique take on possession as well.

A perfect example of kids f*cking around and finding out.

If a funny, fun horror romp sounds up your alley, give this one a shot.

3.75 - 4 / 5

Sorry, I just absolutely did not enjoy the writing in this one. The train of thought POV, annoying monologue/dialogue was intolerable. So many random strings of thought was just irritating and repetitive to read.

Thank you anyways to the author, NetGalley, and CLASH Books for a copy.

In "Gigantvm Penisivm," a satirical horror novel by Jose Elvin Bueno readers are thrust into the high-stakes world of Manila’s elite influencers whose extravagant Friday night takes a macabre turn. The story follows Rafa, Basti, Vicente, Pia, and Mitzi as they indulge in their weekly ritual of hedonism. The evening takes a sinister twist when Basti proposes they play "The Summoning," a game involving a dark incantation to invoke the Dark Lord. What begins as a frivolous attempt at spiritual provocation quickly spirals into terror as the group becomes possessed by a malevolent force. This entity, eager to dominate the Philippines, is not only indifferent to their self-centered squabbles but is also intent on their annihilation. "Gigantvm Penisivm" offers a darkly comedic critique of vanity and excess, blending horror with sharp satire to deliver a chilling yet incisive narrative.

Gigantvm Penisivm is a satirical horror novel about a group of rich influencers in Manila whose Friday night turns darker than expected. Rafa, Basti, Vicente, Pia, and Mitzi have gathered on a Friday night, a night they see as a sacred one for hedonism, when Basti suggests they play The Summoning, saying a prayer to summon the Dark Lord. What happens is they end up possessed, in turn, by a force determined to rule the Philippines who has no patience for their self-obsessed bickering. A force that seems to want them dead.

Told from the point of view of two of the characters, Rafa and Mitzi, in alternating chapters, this book is a wild ride. The characters all talk, and the narrators narrate, in an overblown style, full of grating influencer-speak, and whilst this is effective in its satire and setting up these characters as unlikeable, it's probably the reason some people won't finish the book. The alternating chapters also tell basically the same events from two different perspectives, which isn't a technique I've seen used much, but again, though potentially divisive and occasionally slowing the pace down, it works well to offer a bit more complexity and sides of the story (plus different vehicles for the satire). The plot itself is simple and its a novella/short story length plot that is turned into a satirical novel through telling style and character detail, with endless discussion of social media and wealth from the narrators.

The characters are ridiculous (obsessed with drugs, status, and throwing out slurs whenever they can) and the concept is hilarious, making Gigantvm Penisivm, if you couldn't guess from the title, a satirical horror that brings most of the horror from what these people are like, and most of the fun from the fact they summon a demon who hates them and seems to want to be a dictator.

This book had the "potential" to be great...but I was so bored and disinterested in the characters, plot, just everything...

Going in, I knew and understood that the characters were going to be very unlikeable. They are a group of "influencers," but heaven forbid you call them that...I get this was satire and it was funny the first few times, but it got boring and repetitive quickly.

I had several complaints about this book, including:
-the overuse of certain words/phrases, like "my lurves" and "swear to God, hope to die"
-the use of the word "retard" MULTIPLE times
-mention of suicide being cool
-LONG list of different types of porn (why...?)

I also gathered that the book was written between alternating perspectives but it was very hard to distinguish which chapters were being narrated by which character, as there were no headers clarifying this.

Thank you to NetGalley and CLASH Books for the opportunity to read an Advanced Reader's Copy (ARC) in exchange for my honest opinion/review.

I DNF aviation halfway through. A little too much dialogue for me. I'm n9t saying it's a bad boon. Just not for me

Well that was an experience. This book is purposely offensive and the characters are all pretty much terrible and insufferable people. There are some very funny lines and moments but overall it was very repetitive and just off putting to me. Nothing really happened for 90% of the story aside from characters saying and thinking pretty reprehensible things.

This book is a satirical look at influencers, possession, and shallow friendships.

A group of young, pretty, rich young people who have millions of followers on social media get together one Friday night and perform a ritual, a summoning.

What happens is...a weird kinda possession for a few of them but not the type you might expect.

The characters in this book are not exactly loveable or sympathetic. And they're not meant to be. They represent the social media elite, the brand whores and influencers which young people strive for. But this is not a condemnation of social media or popularity but rather it satricizes the elusive "1%". Where friendships are based on numbers and metrics and communication is done via posts and never beyond.

This book is written from the viewpoints of two characters, Rafa and Mitzi, and we find out about the rest in these chapters. The use of popular terminology, especially in the social media world, might confuse some older readers but I thought this was a GREAT way to tell this story. It gives it an air of authenticity.

But keep in mind that a possession does occur, more than one in fact, and not everyone will make it out alive. I loved how this all takes place in a penthouse apartment in the Philippines. No tropes are used for the story. It's just this group of people in this apartment, experiencing it all happen.

I loved the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) humor, the dead on satire of influencers, and how the possessive spirit is not what you'd expect. You'll be surprised! I recommend this book.