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Penpal

A kindergarten balloon message meant to find a penpal brings a boy unexpected replies and photographs of himself. Years later, the narrator reconstructs childhood events to learn what happened.

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In an attempt to make sense of his own mysterious and unsettling childhood memories, a man begins to reconstruct his past. As the games and adventures of his youth become engulfed by a larger story, he finds that it forms a tapestry of unbelievable horror that he never could have expected. Each chapter completes a different piece of the puzzle for both you and the narrator, and by the end of it all, you will wish that you could forget what he never knew.

First published: 2012
Publisher: 1000Vultures
Pages: 252
Amazon reviews: Read reviews on Amazon

Book tags

Content warnings

Body Horror / Body Trauma
Child Abuse
Child Death
Child Harm
Death of a Loved One
Emotional Abuse
Gore
Stalking
Torture

Missing warnings do not mean other content is absent.

Horror profile

Scary: 4 out of 5
Creepy: 4 out of 5
Gore: 2 out of 5
Disturbing: 4 out of 5
Weird: 1 out of 5

How we calculate this

These are editorial estimates of intensity, informed by reading and review evidence, then checked before publication. They aren't star ratings, reader-vote averages or a measure of quality.

Each dimension runs from 1 (low) to 5 (exceptionally intense). A 5 is reserved for strongly consistent evidence. People experience horror differently.

Scary: Fear, tension and immediate threat.
Creepy: Unease, dread and an uncanny atmosphere.
Gore: Graphic injury, blood and bodily detail.
Disturbing: Upsetting ideas and lingering psychological impact.
Weird: Surreal, strange and reality-bending elements.

We draw a filled profile only when all five scores have been reviewed. Unrated does not mean mild. Missing scores are not estimated from genre tags or your saved taste. This profile isn't a complete content-warning guide.