Come Closer by Sara Gran

From 101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered by Sadie Hartmann

JENNIFER Childs
January 09, 2026

They surveys in this book are telling me I’m probably possessed by a demon. A sloth one, if my constant fatigue is any indication.

Which, good for me getting the laziest sort, but bad for an otherwise very Type-A person. At this point, it’s probably tag-teamed with my psych to get me to accept the body we’re in and calm the fuck down.

I read this book prior to my current review project and had it slated as a shorter review I would clean up when I actually started to hammer those out. Yesterday me is a real bitch, and today me has a sloth demon, so I’m not going to do a full spoiler-y thing. You get what you get.

(The cover of Come Closer by Sarah Gran. The cover has a red background gradient that goes from solid to scratches from top to bottom. In the bottom half of the gradient, the scratches fade out enough to reveal a woman’s face, nose, lips, and shoulders, before fading back in.)

Amanda is happy and successful in her profession, marriage, and social life. Nothing lasts forever, however, and she begins to hear noises around her apartment and to dream sexy dreams about blood and women. Obscene notes, weird thoughts, and sudden outbursts would normally have people wondering about carbon monoxide poisoning, but instead Amanda’s taking Buzzfeed-style quizzes to determine what her favorite flavor of ice cream says about her possession potential. Neither solve the problem that it it’s possible that some creature full of lust and perversion has decided to wreck Amanda’s life while it makes her soul a nice little hidey hole. It’s also fairly evident that this demon only tears wide open the holes in the perfect life narrative. The husband is terrible, the job is unsatisfying, the social life superficial.

I loved the meta nods to surveys. I love bringing back the idea that from everyone else’s perspective, unhappiness is a possession.

Unhappy women can’t just exist, especially when the façade meets all of the qualifications for happiness. It's a mental illness. It’s possession. It’s Brigid being burned alive by her insane husband while he claims changeling. It’s never that the life was fucking awful when you read the subtext. It’s always the woman’s fault for inviting the bad tempers in. And maybe you need a blood demon to blow that shit open so you can escape, as long as you run straight into her arms.

An orange cat is curled up on the couch with his gray blanket. The lighting is all ambient and cozy and shit with the Christmas tree is in the background.

No work gets done around here when there’s a baby that looks that pettable within five feet.