An interesting book revolving around the childhood house of Paul and what happened there over the years. To put this all out in the open, Paul starts a podcast where he interviews different citizens of his home town about what they remember about the building. The book sometimes felt kind of aimless and there were things happening without any real meaning behind them. Since it's a short book I didn't really mind that it dragged on a bit, though the ending was fun and had more action scenes in there. 3/5 stars

I made the mistake of reading this book at night on my kindle with the lights turned off. It’s been a while since a book has made me toss and turn and I was scared shitless.

The imagery was spectacular and it reminded me so much of the movie The Sinister. I loved the acknowledgments at the end and how the author mentioned that he actually lived in 8114 and eerie things happened all the time.

Yes, this book may have had plot holes, a lot of bold words, and not the best writing but I loved every minute of it and that’s what matters.

“Bye for now. Just remember friends, don’t forget to clear your head. To give your life and join the dead.”

Thank you CLASH Books and NetGalley for providing me with my first 5 ⭐️ read of 2025!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

DNF at 20%. I really enjoyed the premise and the cover was enticing. There were moments where I thought the book was headed in an interesting direction but ultimately, the writing was what made me put it down. Too many bolds, italics and caps that made it distracting and pulled me out of the story. I also found that there was a lot of telling and explaining as opposed to showing. The first scare also felt a little cheesy to me, but that's more a personal thing.

(I'm personally chose not to star rate it on goodreads as I didn't finish it and feel like it isn't my place to do so as I don't know the story in full.)

8114 was a dark, sometimes graphic horror which stays beyond the end of the story.
I really felt the main characters decent into horror; not knowing what is real and what isn’t. The darkness of the house alienated him from all support.
I enjoyed the end, it fit well with the rest of the story.

You can’t go wrong with a good haunted house story! This one is that and even more! The buildup and the pacing was great. The main character was a good mixture of likable and unlikable. It had me questioning what was real and what wasn’t at times. it felt like I was in his head experiencing everything along with him. I also loved the authors writing style, it flowed together nicely and was easy to read and follow along.

This was one of my first reads back into the horror genre and it definitely kept me hooked and kept me interested. I was invested in the story of the house and the events that took place. This was quite the thrill!

A great paranormal horror/thriller, somewhat reminiscent of the film "Smile," I'd say. As a horror lover, I was hooked. It is incredibly dark and occasionally quite funny.

This is a hard one to review because there are lots that really worked within.
I really liked the podcast set up and how trying to find out the truth could actually have such a negative effect. The horror grew steadily worse and more disturbing and d to here are certainly parts that will stay in my mind for a long time.
The part I was less keen on was the character of Paul.
I enjoy an unreliable or unlikeable narrator normally but I just couldn't want to Paul at all. This made me feel less invested in him and I found constantly being in his head annoyed me instead of making me feel more sympathetically.
This was a great concept and is well written but I would have just liked to have liked the characters a bit more and I'm understand why certain things are happening.

This one is strictly for the millennials. Filled with 90 references only those of us born in the early 80s will recognize, this short tale takes us on a trip back home. I appreciate what the author is doing with this horror novel. There's something about our early 40s that make us nostalgic for home, regardless of horrific that childhood home may be. I see what he's trying to do, but it falls flat. The plot just doesn't quiet add up. The protagonist is a podcast producer who returns home after the death of a childhood friend. Turns out everything is related to his childhood home-to him-and his friends start dropping like flies. The author never clears up why this is suddenly happening now or why the house wants the protagonist.

Besides the plot holes, so much of this short text is spent in the protagonist's head. We hear so much of his worry and self-doubt, that it numbs you to this guy's situation. It was repetitive and boring. I had to force myself to finish it. There's plenty of gore and weirdness, but it's drowned out by this guy's inner monologue, which is not that interesting.

Side note: I was really annoyed by the random bold words. Not sure what the intention was with this move. Equally annoying, the protagonist referred to his podcast producer as "Producer Rachel" for some reason I cannot fathom. Just why?

8114 - Joshua Hull
I give this 👻👻👻👻/5
26/08/2025


"Bye for now. And just remember,friend...don't forget to clear your head. To give your life and join the dead. To close your eyes and join the black. "

We follow Paul, a host of a small podcast, as he returns to his hometown only to discover that one of his best friends committed suicide in the ruins of Paul's childhood home.
While trying to find answers,Paul decides that he wants to deep dive not only into the history of the town but the history of his own life.

This book, oh my god. I always have something to say about everything cause I yap a lot, but I am speechless. Everything about this screamed, "Switch your lights on."
As someone who has watched Glorious and absolutely loved every second of if and if you did too I highly recommend grabbing this when it hits your shelves.

The story of this short book follows Paul, a failed podcast host fresh off a recent scandal. Paul was following the trail of a past classmate who disappeared, only to find that that person disappeared on purpose. Disgraced, Paul travels home after receiving an emergency call only to find that his best friend recently committed suicide in his own old, derelict home. Sensing another story, Paul throws himself full-tilt into the new mystery, waking up ghosts both real and imagined in his wake.

Podcast books are my jam. Tell me there's going to be some little chapters that are nothing but back-and-forth dialog and I am immediately in. The thing I really enjoy about podcast interviews in books, though, is that you get a different narrative style when you switch to those chapters. Rather than descriptive third (or even first) person, you jump into stream-of-consciousness "unscripted" dialog. The thing is, this entire book is stream-of-consciousness, so you don't get that nice shift when the podcast chapters come up.

Stream-of-consciousness writing isn't really my thing to begin with, so I'm definitely biased when I say that I found the writing lackluster. The sentences felt plan and boring with a general lack of variety in vocabulary. This author has also never met an ellipses he didn't like. I counted seven on a page at once point. I suppose that it could be argued that this was a stylistic choice, but it really felt juvenile when used over and over and over again.

The imagery written down in the scary scenes is, admittedly, top notch. The ending especially impressed me with how it painted a picture of what was happening in the house and what the horrors actually looked like. The guy definitely does not hold back on his descriptive writing. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the end, I wasn't super interested in what was happening because the plot meandered so much in the middle. For a short book, we sure revisited the same clues a whole bunch.

This book had a cool idea, but I really felt that the poor writing kept it from being a good book. With some editing and polishing, I'm hoping it will improve before publication

I really enjoyed Joshua Hull's first novella, "Mouth," so I was excited to pick this up. The cover of 8114 is absolutely amazing and it was cool to learn about its origins in the acknowledgements.

I really enjoyed the premise and set up. I do enjoy a "small town protagonist returning home to face their past" narrative, and the fact that a creepy, potentially possessed house is central to that made this even more appealing. There are many genuinely creepy scares and some memorable imagery throughout.

Unfortunately, I found the narrator's voice distracting at times. The author uses a lot of bold and italic words for emphasis and that style didn't work for me. I also found the plot disjointed sometimes; one minute something horrifying is happening and then the next minute the MC is chilling out and making jokes like nothing happened. I get that the character is someone who deals with hard things by repressing his feelings and using (inappropriate) humour, but we're getting his inner monologue so it would make sense for him to be more conflicted internally. Whether intentional or not, it was hard to get past the narrator's self-absorption, even in moments when (I think?) he was supposed to be having "come to the light" revelations about his own selfishness.

At the same time, the MC really grew on me. By the end I was rooting for him to sort himself out. There is a good message at the core of this book about accountability and the possibility of redemption (even if the MC doesn't really get to either, he struggles towards them) that I appreciate.

Overall this was a fun, 3.5 star read for me with a poignant, clear message and some great scares. It reminded me a lot of The Last Days of Jack Sparks but I enjoyed this more.

Thanks for the ARC!

A fantastic love letter to horror!

I need so much more from Joshua Hull.

While not super scary, it was tense and visual, Joshua created a connection to the character in such a short amount of time.

8114 is very self-aware, with constant callbacks to horror, and horror tropes, i appreciate how the main character is a constant idiot with numerous horror tropes at the same time Josh makes fun of said horror trope.

It is a brilliant little novel and I know it would make a great film

Paul Early, a controversial podcaster, is called back to his hometown of Pendleton, Indiana, after the shocking suicide of his childhood best friend, Kyle—made even more unsettling by the fact that it happened in Paul’s former home at 8114. True to his nature, Paul begins digging into the sinister mystery surrounding Kyle’s death. But as others around him start dying in increasingly horrifying ways, it becomes clear that an ancient, malevolent force is at work—and it has its sights set on Paul.

Overall, this was an engaging and well-crafted story that I read in just two sittings. The pacing was excellent, and the disturbing sequences added an extra layer of intensity that I enjoyed. It goes between podcast episodes and the MC’s pov which made it feel kind of real. Haunted houses and possession are tropes that, if done well, can really scare you and the fact that this place actually exists made it all bit creepier.

This is set to be published August 26, 2025. This is a must-add to your TBR!

In this story We follow Paul as he travels back to his childhood home after an urgent phone call from a friend telling him to get back as soon as possible. Following the fallout of a failed and highly controversial podcast things are already not looking good for Paul. And then after paying his abandoned
Childhood home a visit, things rapidly begin to unravel after he discovers that one of his childhood best friends unalived himself in the ruins of the old property. Is he paying for his mistakes or is there something more sinister out to get him?

This is told in a mixture of traditional narrative and snippets of a podcast. Which was a really interesting way to read a story especially one with so many twists and turns as this book. This felt like a brilliant blend of mystery and horror. I haven’t read a book that’s gotten under my skin like this since I read Penpalby Dathan Auerbach, and honestly I was so happy it did! Which might be a weird thing to say, but after seeing this incredible cover I wanted some scares from this one! This had me looking over my shoulder at times and a few times I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye, I was truly on edge as this book came to a close. Climbing the stairs in the dark to go to bed was a really freaky moment!
Things unfolded in such a satisfying way that made this almost impossible to put down. I read the majority of this in one day and honestly I wouldn’t have been able to do it any other way.
Side note I feel like this would make an incredible horror movie!
This book had me clutching my face, laughing, gasping and even wincing at times. It was a great blend of genuinely scary horror moments, a great mystery that unfolds in a steady and satisfying flow and some really good body horror splattered in there.
I would highly recommend checking this out when it releases in August, I’m so glad I got to read this ahead of release! Can’t wait to get into more ARC’s in the future

I feel like this book needed to be way longer than it actually was, I didn't feel particularly connected to any of the characters, especially when they died. The narrator Paul just seems like a tosser. Completely unlikable. I also felt the ending to be quite rushed and didn't really match the rest of the plot. I do enjoy the concept of the book, the story and the switch between situations was smart, just felt it could be fleshed out a tad more.

I DNF @46%. I think part of it was that this is just not for me, but a lot of the humor felt misplaced amidst serious events. The dialogue felt forced, and I’m tired of the true crime podcast trope in books.

Book: 8114
Author: Joshua Hull
Publisher: CRASH Books
Estimated Publication Date: August 26, 2025
Capone’s Rating: 4 of 5 ⭐s

With 8114, Joshua Hull pulled me in and held me fast, as 218 pages blasted by. I needed to know how our protagonist (and the author who cornered him) would resolve the contortions into which he’d been twisted. This book was unique, its story well-executed.

The opening, I’ve seen before: A character who’s left a hometown long behind—along with associated dark memories—is coaxed back home after something bad has happened… and what the character finds is something akin to what they knew before, only much worse. In fact, I’ve read at least three books in the last twelve months with that sort of opening. As we all know, there are no new ideas—but there are ingenious takes on similar themes. So I don’t count this similar start against Hull any more than I counted it against Sarah Gailey (whose Just Like Home was a tremendous success, in my view) or Ronald Malfi (I loved Small Town Horror). No. My wonder was: What would happen from there? And man! The hits came fast, and they kept coming. Hull’s skill is best on display in 8114 while he’s describing what is utterly real to the pov character whose experience drives the hell-bound train but what, for us, is in serious doubt.

Joshua Hull takes that opening and runs with it, and the changes not only undergone by the main character but by all the characters around him. Infused with horror-pop-culture references that work well in this post-Jade Daniels world, 8114 knows what we’ve seen before and offers something new. I’m not a reader who seeks scares, but I can definitely see this book spooking a lot of horror aficionados. At times, the action moves a bit too quick for what’s developing for my taste, but Hull acquits himself extremely well as an author who disappears into the narrative he’s woven for us; that’s what we want, of course. Hull delivers in this page-turning spookfest.

Wow. This one was really good! A unique take on a haunted house type story. A wild ride of psychological horror and supernatural. There were some truly terrifying/creepy parts throughout. I loved the writing and the podcast part of it. This is a must read for horror fans!

Thank you to Clash Books and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This book is scary. It also feels cinematic which makes sense because the author is a screenwriter and filmmaker.