in honour of the Backrooms film being released this month, I’m looking for books with that weird, creepy, liminal space vibe. pretty much like Severance on Apple tv! or even Pan’s Labrinyth? something along the lines of characters finding a world that shouldn’t exist, that defies the logic of the normal world, becoming trapped, and it’s either empty or has monsters. i’m not fussed by either! if there aren’t any books exactly like this, then something close would be appreciated too. i love horror as a genre but i’m still quite new to it, other than classics like The Exorcist. 👻

Context: I work at a climbing gym as a routesetter, so I and my coworkers put the holds on the walls that people climb. My gym recently adopted the use of this one app where we upload our routes and boulders that we set so people can log their sends in the gym and rate the climbs. A week ago, my coworkers and I were lamenting the app because one customer consistently rates everything 3 stars, and it’s bringing our gym’s rating down. Like, to the point of the higher-ups scratching their heads at it.

It got us on the topic of ratings about books. My boss said 3 stars isn’t a bad rating, it’s average, although most people likely wouldn’t think the same way when looking for a route to climb in the gym. I said when I rate book, 3 stars is generally a decent rating. It may not be a book that I loved or that I would say was for me, but I would still likely recommend a 3-star book to a friend. Another coworker agreed with that sentiment.

This whole conversation got me thinking: at what point do you start to consider a book “bad”? As in, when would you stop recommending a book to someone? Everyone has different metrics they use, and I’m curious to know everyone’s thoughts. For me, I start thinking a book is bad around 2-2.5 stars.