DO NOT KILL A SPIDER
WRITTEN BY YASH SHARMA
REVIEW WRITTEN BY JOE COMPTON
PART I OF THE DO NOT KILL SERIES
RELEASED: SEPTEMBER 18TH, 2025
PUBLISHER: SELF PUBLISHED
LENGTH: 134 PAGES
GENRE: HORROR/PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR
I am really lucky to have the opportunity to read up-and-coming authors at the very beginning of their journey. I did that a few times this year, and it is always amazing. Yash Sharma is one of those. Yahs has a great sense of how to play your senses against themselves, and as the reader watches a descent into madness, it is the talent Yash displays that gets you there. He uses the absurdity of the situation to assert this small bit of doubt that tiptoes into a bigger avalanche of nice situational horror that would make the likes of Edgar Allan Poe and Clive Barker smile.
His main character, Avery, is very well fleshed out, and we get a great sense of how she can put on the many faces she has and how, when the mind meld begins, those faces start to become one voice. It is a clever and very nicely done tempering. I also like that we don't get to see a character like this from a middle-aged to nearing elderly perspective be the maddening agent for the unraveling. Its a nice change of pace. I also like that her intellect is challnged but only by the adage of "A Grace go I". That helps the turn here tremendously.
The antagonist is also very well defined, and it's the right type of villainy, as it is just being what it was born to be, a creepy spider and thus it sees nothing wrong with how it is behaving. I love how we can hear it though, and how it has a personality. Again very unique character set up you don't see often and it works so well because of that.
You can see Yash's talent for the turning of screws that every good horror writer has in their bag of tricks. You can see through his excellent writing and use of words where he wants to go, where he wants to take the reader, and what he wants to settle you in for, just to pull the rug out.
The cadence here is a tad muttled though, and it tries too hard at times, and that's where you see the youth of the writer come into play. As a now avid reader and horror writer, I could see where he wanted to go, and you want so badly to reach out and help him, but these are things that are going to come with time, and this his story not mine. I will say he never lost me though because when Yash found his footing, he really found it. He pushed and challenged me to go along for the ride.
His main character, Avery, is very well fleshed out, and we get a great sense of how she can put on the many faces she has and how, when the mind meld begins, those faces start to become one voice. It is a clever and very nicely done tempering. I also like that we don't get to see a character like this from a middle-aged to nearing elderly perspective be the maddening agent for the unraveling. Its a nice change of pace. I also like that her intellect is challnged but only by the adage of "A Grace go I". That helps the turn here tremendously.
The antagonist is also very well defined, and it's the right type of villainy, as it is just being what it was born to be, a creepy spider and thus it sees nothing wrong with how it is behaving. I love how we can hear it though, and how it has a personality. Again very unique character set up you don't see often and it works so well because of that.
You can see Yash's talent for the turning of screws that every good horror writer has in their bag of tricks. You can see through his excellent writing and use of words where he wants to go, where he wants to take the reader, and what he wants to settle you in for, just to pull the rug out.
The cadence here is a tad muttled though, and it tries too hard at times, and that's where you see the youth of the writer come into play. As a now avid reader and horror writer, I could see where he wanted to go, and you want so badly to reach out and help him, but these are things that are going to come with time, and this his story not mine. I will say he never lost me though because when Yash found his footing, he really found it. He pushed and challenged me to go along for the ride.
In that vein, I have to say Yash's super power might be making me care about unlikeable characters because the grandchildren here in this story pushed me to a place I didn't think I would go to as a reader, but man, they were great at being what I needed to cheer against or empathize for the other side. A great horror device that is in the same vein as a Creepshow or Tales From The Crypt episode.
All I know is I can't wait to read more in this series, see how Yash gets better, and enjoy the ride he's taking me on because I have a great feeling I am going to. I would love all my friends who read horror to join me and I hope you all do.
YOU CAN GET THIS BOOK HERE
All I know is I can't wait to read more in this series, see how Yash gets better, and enjoy the ride he's taking me on because I have a great feeling I am going to. I would love all my friends who read horror to join me and I hope you all do.
YOU CAN GET THIS BOOK HERE
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