Every month, one of my paid members' perks is to pick a book for me to read. This can be one they read with me, or one they want me to simply read and review. For July, I was really excited to see the group pick Headlights by CJ Leede. I had Leede on my radar, and had heard some really good things about this one in particular. A few of the members were using me as a canary in the coal mine to test this one out, and a few read along.

Anyone who has been reading my reviews over the last year knows that I have been loving stories that don't fit easily into one genre. Genre bending/genre mixing stories that do more than one thing really well have been hooking me for some reason. Headlights is my first CJ Leede book, and I was really impressed with the layers that she built in to this story, and the different genre elements of the story that helped propel this one to some weird, wild places.

I have heard this described as True Detective meets the X Files, and I think that's a reasonably fair assessment. Headlights tells the story of an agent with a traumatic past with some possible supernatural skills who gets pulled back into investigating a series of murders that he was unable to solve in the past. What begins to unfold is part detective thriller, part murder mystery, part folk horror, and part cosmic horror. It is a story about trauma and grief, nature and man's destruction of it, and the horrors of our past and how we face and reconcile who we were and are.

The book is divided into 6 parts. As I first jumped into part one, where we get Daniel's introduction, some mysterious background, and his route back into the fold of this investigation, I was a little put off by the writing. Much of the first part, especially our main character's internal monologue, is written in that staccato "Blake Crouch-esque" micro paragraphing style. I think this writing style has its place, and can be used to build some tension, but for me I only enjoy it in small doses. As with Blake Crouch, it often makes me feel like I'm reading a screenplay versus a book, and I wind up fighting with the story, trying to avoid the skimming that this style pushes me towards. I was worried at first that the rest of the book would be a dump of this style of writing.

However, as we get more into the meat of the book, this style was definitely mixed in, and I began to understand why Leede was using it. Daniel's character suffers from post traumatic stress, and is constantly questioning and fighting himself, and this micro paragraphing became a good insight into how his mind was working. When juxtaposed with the dialogue and the exposition, we get the sense of someone who is calm on the outside while a war of feelings and thoughts wages within. There was a chapter in part 4 where this technique felt a little heavy handed to me, but again overall it was used well. As someone who also deals with cPTSD myself, I thought the subject was handled well, and it was a really interesting exploration of trauma and its impacts. I can certainly relate to Daniel and how sometimes, you look calm on the outside but inside you're a mess.

The horror elements of the book were also really well done. We have supernatural elements, cosmic horror, some folk and eldritch horror mixed in, with a sprinkling of gore and body horror. The book is also a love letter to Stephen King's The Shining. Our main characters have a connection to the cosmic and supernatural and they "shine," we get a scene in the hotel that inspired the book, our main character's mom loved The Shining, and we get multiple other nods and references to the story. This creates a fun element to the story for King fans.

One of the thins that impressed me the most is how Leede built tension as the story goes on. She never resorts to using cheap scares, opting instead to constantly build the fear and horror of the story while mixing it with the mystery and tension of the crime solving elements. Ultimately, some of the horror is what we as humans are doing to nature, to our environment, and to the world around us, and how that world can fight back. We get supernatural horror elements and cosmic horror blending in as time goes on, and the interplay with these and the violent/gore horror of the murders creates a very multimodal tension and fear.

The last two parts of the book were a brilliant catharsis of all of that tension. We get the reveal about the murders, why they were happening and who did them, and what role our main characters played. We get a beautiful exploration of our main characters' relationship, especially as it relates to accepting who we are, and accepting the people we love for who they are. Leede also does a great job exploring how facing our trauma and facing the difficulties in our past and present can lead to a better understanding of self and the world around us, and bring us some peace about the less peaceful elements of our lives. This includes some exploration of family dynamics, and how our subconscious can affect our conscious being.

My only issues were some of the writing elements, as discussed above, and I did want a bit more time at the end exploring some of the horror, as well as maybe a bit more time exploring what ultimately becomes of our main characters. On the whole, however, the great elements of the book ultimately far outshined the downsides.

Overall, this was a wonderful story, and I had a ton of fun with it. I would highly recommend you check it out, especially if you like weird horror that blends genres to explore big themes. I will definitely be reading Leede's other books! And if you want to read books like this with me or pick books for me to read, make sure to check out the Dark Traveler's membership tier!

4.25/5 Stars

Format: Hardcover