The Short Version
- Voice: André Santana is the credited narrator, though the synopsis describes multicast narration involving more voices than that single credit shows.
- Big ideas: queer horror, industry erasure, trauma as monster
- Atmosphere: Bloody, satirical and pointed
- Worth it?: A sharp queer horror satire best judged on its own reviews, not on a pull quote that turns out to describe a different Chuck Tingle book.
This audiobook picked up a 2025 Audie Award in the Judges Category for horror, and its own synopsis leads with a pull quote calling the narration personable and the whole production a fast-paced cocktail of social commentary, humor and horror. Read that quote again, though, and the attribution underneath it says on Straight, not on Bury Your Gays, which means the specific praise for the narration quoted on this page is describing a different Chuck Tingle audiobook entirely. The synopsis frames the larger story as one about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead, a line that doubles as both a Hollywood satire and a fairly direct statement of horror-movie stakes.
Misha is the character at the center of it: an actor finally closing in on an Oscar nomination after years of trying to make it in Hollywood, only to learn that the studio behind his long-running streaming series plans to kill off its gay characters for the algorithm heading into the season finale. He refuses, and the synopsis pivots hard into horror from there, with monsters from his own past horror-movie work stalking him and his friends through the hills above Los Angeles. Chuck Tingle is credited as a USA Today bestselling author, and the synopsis positions the book as a Macmillan Audio production released through Tor Books in July 2024. André Santana is the credited narrator, though the synopsis specifies that the program features multicast narration, meaning more voices than the single credit on this page suggests were actually involved in the recording, presumably to handle Misha's friends and the studio executives who populate the story alongside him. The book also carries that 2025 Audie Award from the Judges Category for horror, a real industry credential sitting alongside the misattributed pull quote discussed above.
Highlights
A second pull quote in the synopsis is properly attributed and worth trusting more than the first: Rachel Harrison, national bestselling author of Black Sheep, calls the book brilliantly bloody, wildly fun and extremely scary, and says it brings a sledgehammer down on tired tropes. The five reviews mostly back that up. One reviewer describes the writing as visceral, saying the story is powerful, painful and heartwarming all at once, and connects the horror directly to the reality of not feeling like you belong to whatever counts as normal. Another reviewer traces the monsters directly back to the main character's own trauma, arguing that the horror becomes a working metaphor for the parts of yourself you bury to survive, and notes that what is buried in this story never actually stays buried, echoing the synopsis's own closing warning that the horrors from Misha's past find a way to bury him for good if he lets them. A third reviewer calls the setup fun and unpredictable, saying they did not see the ending coming despite having read widely across the horror genre for years. The synopsis also lists Camp Damascus as another Chuck Tingle title for anyone who finishes this one wanting more of the same satirical horror sensibility.
Weak Spots in Bury Your Gays
The pull quote issue deserves a closer look. The synopsis attributes a specific line about André Santana's narration and the audiobook's fast pacing to AudioFile magazine, but the same line closes with the words on Straight, identifying a different Chuck Tingle title as the actual subject of that praise. That does not necessarily mean the description is wrong about this book too, satirical tone and social commentary run through Tingle's work generally based on the synopsis alone, but the specific sentence was not written about Bury Your Gays, and the page presents it as though it were. The rating badge has its own inconsistency: it shows 4.2 from a single counted vote, a figure no individual whole-star rating can produce under any rounding method, while five separate written reviews, ranging from three to five stars, sit underneath that single-vote count. Not every one of those five reviews is glowing, either. One reviewer, giving three stars under the heading Hollywood killed the radio star, says the book opened strong with a fun setup and real Hollywood movie energy, then felt the story drop off quickly into what that reviewer calls a sad, bad ending, and specifically flags how hard it is to find a horror book that sticks the landing.
Best Suited For
Horror listeners drawn to satire and social commentary over straightforward scares are the clearest audience, and specifically listeners interested in queer horror that treats industry pressure to erase gay characters, quietly and for the algorithm, as its own kind of monster worth naming outright. Fans of Chuck Tingle's satirical sensibility more broadly, or listeners who already enjoyed Camp Damascus and want more of that same tonal mix, have an obvious next step named right in the synopsis. Anyone choosing based on the AudioFile pull quote should know that specific praise describes a different book, so weigh the properly attributed Rachel Harrison blurb and the reviews above it more heavily instead. That critical review, the one titled Hollywood killed the radio star, stands as the clear dissent among five otherwise positive responses, worth reading in full before deciding how much a satisfying ending matters to you personally, especially if you tend to remember how a horror story lands more than how it opens.
Before You Listen
Does the pull quote in the Bury Your Gays audiobook synopsis actually describe this book?
Not entirely. The line about André Santana's narration and the audiobook's pacing is credited to AudioFile magazine, but the attribution names a different Chuck Tingle book as its actual subject rather than this one. A second quote, properly credited to author Rachel Harrison, does specifically praise this book by name.
Does the Bury Your Gays audiobook use multiple narrators?
The synopsis says yes, describing multicast narration for the program, though only André Santana is listed as the credited narrator on this page. That gap between the credit and the synopsis description suggests more voices were involved than the single listed name reflects.
