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Welcome to Harris County Public Library's Reading Room Radio, where your to be red pile gets a little more exciting one micro podcast at a time.
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With this year's Smash Independent Horror Success Obsession, making rounds in the theaters and breaking records for both independent movies and horror movies everywhere.
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I think people would love to hear more and read more books that are similar in that topic of obsession and infatuation and things like that.
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One book series and one short story comes to mind when I think of Obsession.
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I really loved that movie, and I loved how scary it was, how scary it could make um love be as this strong emotion that kind of overtakes somebody.
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The first thing it made me think of was a really good 17-volume manga series called Blood on the Tracks by Shuzo Oshimi.
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This book is really devastating.
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It is a story of uh Saishi, a little boy whose mother really does love him, maybe to too much of an extent.
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Um, if you've seen the movie Obsession, then the mother's actions and intentions really mimic the horror character in Obsession.
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She is a mother that is so obsessed with her son and in controlling him that she will do anything and everything to keep him out of trouble, to keep him just as close to her as possible.
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And it documents this abusive relationship between Saishi and his mom as he grows up and how her actions and what she did to him as a kid affects him as an adult.
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But it's also a really sad story about how we feel towards our parents despite whatever they they do to us.
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And it's really devastating, but it comes with those themes of obsession and infatuation really well that pairs with the movie really well.
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And the short story that I had in mind immediately after watching Obsession comes from one of Eric LaRoka's short story collections.
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This particular story I'm thinking of is inside of the collection The Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances.
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There's four really great short stories in there, including the titular one, but my favorite of those four was actually called All the Parts of You That Won't Easily Burn.
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And this was a really great short story.
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I loved it so much.
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I thought about it for weeks after finishing it.
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It is a story of a man who, when looking for a gift for his husband, actually ends up interacting with a very suave, smooth, mysterious shop owner of an antique store and ends up having an affair
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with him.
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It's not a normal affair that you would think of.
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The shop owner asks him to do things to his own body and put things inside of his own body.
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I will not spoil it, um, but yeah, definitely an adult horror short story that I think is really cool.
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The infatuation that the main character immediately gets for this man and his obsession with doing whatever he wants to do for him is really cool, almost supernatural in a way, but there's definitely not any ghosts or will-o-wisps in this story.
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Just a man willing to do anything to himself to please another man.
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And it was really cool.
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And I really recommend both that short story and all of Eric Leroca's short stories.
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They're really amazing.
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So yeah, check them out.
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Hello, I am Crystal Mosley with Freeman Library.
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I'm an adult program specialist, and I chose the series Killing Stalking by Koogie.
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It is a psychological graphic novel horror about Yoon Bum, a lonely young man who becomes obsessed with O Seng Wu, someone he sees as charming and attractive, the complete opposite of himself.
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But when Bum secretly enters Seng Wu's house one day, he discovers that Seng Wu is not exactly the guy he thought he was.
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Instead, he finds himself trapped in a dangerous situation filled with abuse, manipulation, and fear.
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As the story goes on, the relationship becomes increasingly disturbing, showing how easily someone's feelings can become tangled up in an unhealthy attachment and emotional dependence.
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I think killing stalking fits the theme of obsession really well because it shows how far someone can go when their feelings for another person become too intense and unhealthy.
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Bum's attachment to Sang Wu makes it difficult for him to separate his desire to be loved from the pain he experiences, while Sang Wu uses control and manipulation to maintain power over him.
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What makes this story so interesting is that it shows how obsession can be confused with love, even when the relationship is clearly harmful.
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Although the story is very dark and disturbing, it gives readers a powerful look at how obsession can affect someone's emotions, decisions, and perception of love.
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Ultimately, reading this book was extremely hard.
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There are both good and bad aspects to every story, and ultimately, this is one of those that shows you the darker sides of unhealthy types of love.
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At times, I really, really sided with both characters, and it can be kind of hard to understand why, but I think when you experience a certain type of trauma, when you read these kinds of stories, you see a little bit of yourself in them.
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And I'm not saying that that is a good thing.
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However, it was definitely, definitely one of my top reads of 2026.
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I devoured it.