Modern Hysteria

By: Aron Beauregard

Narrated by: John Wayne Comunale

Every parent’s worst nightmare

A mysterious internet figure, known only as Mr. Boy, is preying on depressed teenagers and brainwashing them into horrific acts of self-harm and suicide. The macabre message behind "The Dropout Challenge" is simple: Drop out of sight. Drop out of school. Drop out of society. Drop out of life altogether.

Derek Pearson is a struggling graphic novelist whose younger brother took his own life after becoming ensnared in "The Dropout Challenge". Upon hitting rock bottom, Derek becomes obsessed with pulling back the curtain on the malevolent mastermind responsible for his brother’s gruesome demise.

Despite a lack of urgency from the authorities and his outrage regarding the tragedy, Derek has also discovered a strange positive trend in his artistic trajectory. For the first time in his life the story he’s telling through his illustrations is worth finishing. But with art imitating life, many questions still remain. Who decides how it ends? And has Derek become more fixated with crafting the perfect conclusion for his masterpiece than getting justice for his family?

Warning: This book contains graphic content. Listener discretion is advised.

©2022 Aron Beauregard (P)2023 Aron Beauregard

Not what I expected but in the best way .

I’ve only read 3 of his books so far , this being the 3rd , this one is probably my favorite. It’s the most “balanced” of his stories . As in there is blood and gore but it’s tamed compared to his other stuff , it was more disturbing than gorey , if that makes sense but I loved it . Also for some reason the narrator kinda sounded like Keith David at points but in a good way .

Why is he jerking off so much.

Storywise this was a pretty good book it constantly kept my attention with new supruse and gory details. What put off was the amount of self pleasure going on throughout the book.

Incredible

Another fantastic, creepy ass af novel from the SK (splatter king) this was very deeply mentally unsettling and the narrator did a wonderful job bringing this story to to life.

Best book by Aaron Beauregard thus far!

I have recently just became a fan of Aron but this is by far my favorite book. The chase between the antagonist and protagonist left me at the edge of my seat the whole time and that ending just came completely out of nowhere!! Well done!!

More calm for Aron Beauregard, but a lovely message

I’ve become used to moments in his books where you sometimes have to fight back the nausea to keep going. He goes gross in a truly genius way. This one, felt very different. I almost thought I should do some research to see if someone close to him had recently taken their own life. All in all though- lovely passages about the artistic struggle and the commitment to write exactly what he wants makes him a true voice of extreme horror.

Twisted Message

This story was something that I thought I could anticipate the twists and turns in, and some of them I could but the ending was definitely different than I had imagined it when I first started and I loved that. There are never truly happy endings with tales like these but somehow I felt peace and closure with the final chapter. Always fun writing - and terrifying to think of how challenges like these are still so prevalent and continue to be a parent’s worst nightmare. I remember the Momo sensation and my own son had his run in with it as well, at least he was too young to fully understand the gravity of the situation and was simply scared of the images he found alone enough to tell me about it. He didn’t pick up his tablet again for years.

Great book

I really enjoyed this book over his other “son of the slob.” It not only had graphic imagery, gore and more, but the message and story had me hooked. Definitely recommend.

Great story

This story is extra scary knowing that things like the events within happen. With our obsession as a society with being in the know about trends and challenges, there are no doubts that some of the more underground challenges are dangerous and even deadly. There is an odd optimism to this tale as well, giving the story that much more of a hook. I loved this book, and if you are a fan of extreme horror I think you will too.

A rarely explored kind of horror!

The internet is scary as shit and I think this is a great entry in soft splatter punk. I love this author but can understand he isn't for everyone. So know this is graphic and uncomfortable with very taboo subjects.

Definitely a good story.

I feel like it’s always good when the evil ones get justice. Not trying to spoil anything, so I won’t go into it. I enjoyed this story because it disturbed me pretty badly! I guess that’s what I enjoy about all his stuff.