“It is a subtle and underlying discomfort. (…), “like a fever dream”YouTuber Riley Marie confesses. In the video, the young woman recommends to her community the books that caused her delicious anxiety. She describes these novels as “weird books for weird girls” (“weird books for weird girls”). “This new trend of weird/toxic/unhinged female fiction is my new favorite genre, I’m fascinated”comments one enthusiastic reader.
On the Reddit forum “Suggest a book,” another post states: “I want books about women that are truly weird. Baffling, scary, eccentric, disgusting, I want it all.” And under #weirdbooksforweirdgirls, #weirdgirlbooks on TikTok, content creators present, in front of the camera or in the form of video montages, the essentials of the moment. Among them, Rabbit, by Mona Awad (2019, only available digitally for French language), The dangers of smoking in bedby Mariana Enríquez (Sous-Sol, 2023), and Mother, by Ainslie Hogarth (2023, untranslated).
This novel, which tells the story of Abby, haunted by the ghost of her poisonous mother-in-law Laura, since the latter’s suicide, popularized the expression on TikTok. domestic horrors with its share of disturbing quotes, passionate critiques and harrowing cinematic scenes that take place in luxurious kitchens or elegant living rooms. Or when the home becomes the site of the strange, of horror. “Supernatural or not, these stories point to intimate fears – impossible grief, feelings of failure, isolation and repressed secrets – to which the house gives materiality. There is a permanent reversibility between the character’s discomfort and the house that manifests that discomfort.explains image historian Fleur Hopkins-Loféron. Not bloodshed, but paranoia, manipulation and derailment of perceptions.
“Addressing taboo topics”
In literary and cinematic jargon, the term “domestic terror” has multiple avatars that Internet users have appropriated: terror at home (“horror at home”), housewife horror (“housewife horror”) or even domestic gothic…This genre has its origins in the Gothic literature of the 18th century.my century, with authors such as Samuel Richardson or Ann Radcliffe, at a time when heroines were cloistered in damp monasteries. Today, castles and abbeys have given way to orderly suburban houses and residential areas for the wealthy.
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