Adult coloring books have been all the rage for some time now, with adherents claiming that coloring helps with stress relief, creativity, or reminds them of the simple nostalgia for childhood coloring activities. I’ve tried a few coloring books and found them more stress-inducing, because the tiny, intricate patterns are maddening, or because I’m not sure which colors to use.

But finally, I’ve found a coloring book that satisfies my aesthetic preferences AND takes the guesswork out of my color palette, because one only needs various hues of red, brown, and gray. Alan Robert’s The Beauty of Horror: A GOREgeous Coloring Book is definitely an adult coloring book given its intricate illustrations of decomposing corpses, sea monsters, homicidal clowns, torture, and labyrinths of entrails.

One of my colored pages is pictured below. There is something truly soothing about coloring in blood stains!