Coup de Grâce is a horror novella about a man trapped in an impossible subway station. Vicken is on the subway, planning a one way trip to the Saint Lawrence River, but when he gets off, he’s in a huge, Brutalist station. A station with no exit and no return line. A station that changes as he explores. And suddenly things aren’t as certain as they seemed when he stepped onto the train.
This novella combines some fantastic horror elements: liminal spaces, fourth wall breaking, body horror, and the kind of terrifying impossibility of space you get in House of Leaves. It is also a dark look at depression, suicide, and self-harm, and the warning at the start is important to note because it does make up a lot of the book. What you end up with is something visceral and weird, almost absurdly funny in the way it paints hopelessness and lack of control by its ending, and a book that never quite offers a reprieve. The ending might be a bit divisive, leaving a lot up to the reader, but it is exciting to see this kind of horror, that isn’t afraid to be unrelenting, and I loved the creepypasta and liminal space elements (the book itself feels like it could be a creepypasta even as it refers to them).
Fiendfully Reading 
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