Review: Slice-Of-Life Horror In Nicole Goux’s ‘Pet Peeves’

Welcome to the table,

There comes a point in life when you realize you have outgrown so much. It’s weird, as people grow and change, how everyone who is seemingly in the same environment, enjoying the same activities, having the same conversations, and eating the same food still end up on different paths growing in different ways. Before they realize it, they are not even in the same circles or headspaces anymore.

I read somewhere that the average person in America has between 3 and 5 close friends, and half of those lean closer to the 3 than the 5. We are always all changing and growing, and it seems more than not we are growing apart. The fear of that, over the other horrors looming in Pet Peeve, really makes this metallically slice-of-life horror story hit home.

Nicole Goux weaves one hell of a slice-of-life horror story with Pet Peeves, out from Avery Hill Publishing. The story follows Bobbie, of a young woman in a dead-end bar job whose dreams are drying up and her life seems to keep hitting the snags that are all too familiar with those of us who have lived through an uninspired and under-funded young adulthood.

In a lot of ways, the horror of the story comes in the form of dissolving relationships and failure to launch futures. The relationships between friends and family in this book feel authentic and honest. It’s not an over-dramatic romp through some reality TV-styled hellscape of highly manufactured soundbites. Pet Peeves really shines with its truthful conversations and grounded themes. The horror that comes feels looming, and while always there in the background, is largely forgettable until it can’t be ignored, and by then it is too late.

Pet Peeves does this thing where it lets you get comfortable. You kinda fall into the same rut of chaos and frustration that the protagonist deals with in her day-to-day life. You become part of the fabric of the story and you see all the things she can clearly see about herself that are pushing others away, but you also empathize with the desire to be your own true self. All of this makes the 3rd act horror event more powerful and turns the whole book into something more than you expect.

When the shift happens, and it happens really late in the story, it is one of the best executions of a horror reveal in recent readings, it is nothing short of delightful because I was honestly caught off guard and did not see it coming and that was really fun for me.

Until next time, sometimes the day-to-day drudgery is as scary as the thing that lurks in the shadows.