*Spoilers Ahoy. Read At Your Own Risk*

The Haar follows old lady Muriel McAuley. Muriel, an ancient, derelict, and decrepit tomb of melting, wrinkled old lady flesh on the verge of death.

She lives alone in a cute cottage by the Scottish sea (emphasis on alone). Her dead husband, Billy, disappeared at sea under mysterious circumstances 12 years prior to the start of this story. She has a grandson, which doesn’t matter since at no point does he aid or visit his elderly grandmother who is being harassed daily by *evil greed-driven American corporation.* This corporation wants to build a luxury resort on Muriel ft. her neighbors land, which sounds very American.

Muriel only has a landline phone, which explains why she’s not live on Facebook exposing the *evil greed-driven American CEO and his goons* to the delight of TikTok netizens.

*evil greed-driven corporation* tries to bribe Muriel and her neighbors into selling their land. Muriel’s response to them is, “double it and shove it up your arse.”

Muriel’s neighbor, Arthur, is the only person in this book who seems to care about her. Not going to lie, I was hoping they would hook up. Alas! Arthur is burned to death in his house by some kid who was probably paid likd $200, thus sinking my MurielxArthur ship.

As is typical in fiction and in reality, the cops are paid off, spineless, and useless (see: Uvalde, the murder of the Petit families, etc.). In fact, everyone in this town is paid off, spineless, and useless including the fire men, construction workers, and probably the mailmen too.

Everyone also sucks so badly that you, as the reader, will be rooting for their demise. Case in point: a group of construction workers see a naked woman walking towards them and their first thought is to rape her? Like I knew it was the goo monster in disguise, but… STILL. Humans are the real monsters, am I right fellas?

Speaking of monsters, the Haar rolls in bringing with it Avalon. Avalon is a violent shape-shifting gelatin creature. It wisely realizes that instead of putting in a effort to find and kill people, it can chill in Muriel’s cottage and have a steady stream of food come to it. Avalon may have also eaten Muriel’s dead husband, Billy and retained some of his memories.

Anyway, Avalon wears Billy’s skin and woos Muriel, whilst also eating everyone who ventures into her cottage. It’s a win-win situation for both of them. Avalon gets an all-you-can-eat buffet delivered right to him, and Muriel gets companionshp. In the end, Muriel becomes a goo monster (?) herself and disappears into the ocean with Avalon. But not before Avalon eats *evil greed driven CEO ft. his goons.*

The Good: The Haar is quite funny and the gore scenes are delightfully squicky. Muriel is an well-written character. Frankly, I was shocked that a man wrote her, which is probably sexist of me but whatever. Having an older woman be the main character in a horror was pretty unique.

I read this thinking it would be about a toxic or monster-filled fog rolling in to consume everyone, I actually felt this was a more interesting story than The Mist. The blend of horror, comedy, and romance made this quite a fun read, while still being weird.

The Bad: The villains are cardboard cut out evil for no other reason than to be extremely evil. I’m not saying these characters are unrealistic, because look at MAGA, Pete Hegseth, the dude who owns Palantir, etc. But the fact every villain in this story took a page out of MAGA’s book of Defending-Everything-Because-Trump-Did-It-And-They-Voted-For-Him felt kinda of like a caricature.

The evil corporation steamrolling everyone and paying off everyone because they are simply evil and wicked feels like a half-finished theme that was never fully realized. Like yes, evil corporations be eviling and humans suck, but why does everyone in this story except Muriel and Arthur suck?

The author could’ve made some of the bad guys passive, or just like poor saps trying to make a living who feel a bit guilty at what they’re doing, but also need to pay rent.

Despite it’s flaws, The Haar is probably one of my favorite horror books of all time.

The Haar Rating: 8.5/10