Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.46 AVERAGE
3.46 AVERAGE
Very well written but beyond grotesque.
Merged review:
Very well written but beyond grotesque.
Merged review:
Very well written but beyond grotesque.
Si has visto suficiente cine de horror, te darás cuenta que recientemente ha habido una nueva ola de "horror elevado". Un horror en el que deja de lado los sustos fáciles, las tramas complejas, y le da la bienvenida a tramas sencillas pero cargadas de significado, de finales ambiguos y con un tema preferido tan manoseado ya que es hasta cliché que es el duelo.
Ya muchas películas han explorado el tema del duelo y cómo afecta a los que se quedan, véase: The Babadook, A Dark Song, Midsommar, Hereditary, The Night House, Antichrist, Men, apenas este mes sale The Woman in the Yard sobre este mismo tema...
Lo que nos lleva a We Can Never Leave This Place. Con poco menos de cien páginas me pude dar una idea desde la página cinco que esta noveleta cae en este horror elevado del que acabo de hablar. No me había tocado leer algo de este "género", y si tiene algo de bueno es su brevedad y que lo sucede es curioso y causa repeluz, casi como un cuento que pudo haber nacido de un sueño de Guillermo del Toro, con insectos gigantes parlanchínes y toda la cosa.
Ya muchas películas han explorado el tema del duelo y cómo afecta a los que se quedan, véase: The Babadook, A Dark Song, Midsommar, Hereditary, The Night House, Antichrist, Men, apenas este mes sale The Woman in the Yard sobre este mismo tema...
Lo que nos lleva a We Can Never Leave This Place. Con poco menos de cien páginas me pude dar una idea desde la página cinco que esta noveleta cae en este horror elevado del que acabo de hablar. No me había tocado leer algo de este "género", y si tiene algo de bueno es su brevedad y que lo sucede es curioso y causa repeluz, casi como un cuento que pudo haber nacido de un sueño de Guillermo del Toro, con insectos gigantes parlanchínes y toda la cosa.
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Egregious overuse of similes
I actively hated reading this book. 'Why not DNF it?' you ask? Unlike a big doorstop of a tome that overstays its welcome, this story comes in just shy of a hundred pages and I figured I'd stick around to see just how bad the trainwreck would get. It turns out, pretty bad!
Maybe I was never destined to enjoy this one because I never like child protagonists, especially when they're unreliable narrators and have overactive imaginations that warp everyday events into Kafkaesque oddities. And we jump into the surreal pretty quickly, but with that comes the steady downward trend of my enjoyment.
I'm not a stranger or particularly opposed to difficult content being present in books as long as it serves a narrative purpose. But what we got here felt like a list of taboos being checked off just to say they were present. We got: child abuse, animal death, murder, necro-cannibalism, incest, rape, decapitation, and an ever-present layer of literal ankle-deep raw sewage on the floor of every scene. And instead of a slow build-up to instill a sense of dread in the reader of any one of these things happening, you're just hit over the head with one after another. Towards the end I wasn't thinking, "I really hope X doesn't happen even though I think it will," but rather, "sure, this may as well happen too at this point, why not?"
There is a story and a message here about inherited generational trauma buried under all the detritus and filth, but it's more trouble than it's worth to dig it out. The biggest surprise of this book was that it was written by an author I've previously read (and really enjoyed!). But after this "Wouldn't it be fucked up if..." Mad Libs exercise of a book, I'm gonna need some time before I revisit their work again.
Maybe I was never destined to enjoy this one because I never like child protagonists, especially when they're unreliable narrators and have overactive imaginations that warp everyday events into Kafkaesque oddities. And we jump into the surreal pretty quickly, but with that comes the steady downward trend of my enjoyment.
I'm not a stranger or particularly opposed to difficult content being present in books as long as it serves a narrative purpose. But what we got here felt like a list of taboos being checked off just to say they were present. We got: child abuse, animal death, murder, necro-cannibalism, incest, rape, decapitation, and an ever-present layer of literal ankle-deep raw sewage on the floor of every scene. And instead of a slow build-up to instill a sense of dread in the reader of any one of these things happening, you're just hit over the head with one after another. Towards the end I wasn't thinking, "I really hope X doesn't happen even though I think it will," but rather, "sure, this may as well happen too at this point, why not?"
There is a story and a message here about inherited generational trauma buried under all the detritus and filth, but it's more trouble than it's worth to dig it out. The biggest surprise of this book was that it was written by an author I've previously read (and really enjoyed!). But after this "Wouldn't it be fucked up if..." Mad Libs exercise of a book, I'm gonna need some time before I revisit their work again.
adventurous
challenging
dark
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Graphic: Suicide, Violence, Vomit, War
Umm, I'm not really sure what I just read. It's a lot to process and I may need to reread. This novella is like a fever dream, wondering what is real and what is an imagination of Mara's grief stricken mind. What is reality here? I have never felt claustrophobic reading a book, but this one did it. I may like this more the longer I sit with it but I know for sure that I want to read more of Eric LaRocca's work.
2.5 Stars
There’s definitely something to be said for LaRocca’s prose. The detail work and imagery are pretty darn good.
(But please hire a new editor. Please because there’s also a shit-ton of line work that’s needed to be done to clean up some repetitive words and other stuff. It ceases to be a nitpick when it’s so prevalent.)
The pacing of this here little book was also super solid. I sped through this thing faster than I thought I would.
Other than that though, I just really didn’t find much to love here. It’s a good one-sitting brain dead read with a simple message and a ton of shock value to please all the weirdos out there (I count myself among this number). Unfortunately for me, shock value is nothing without substance, and there just wasn’t really much to chew on here (pun 100% intended).
Also, the ~twist~ was pretty damn easy to spot, especially since it’s been done before in a book/movie that’s, well, ya know, good. It’s kinda hard to count that as a fault just because it does open a door to some of the fantastical and gross imagery that carried this through to the end. There’s a string of scenes in particular that reminded me of Darren Aronofsky’s film, “mother!”
But yeah if you like incest, cannibalism, a shit-ton of shit, gore and Life of Pi, I’d recommend checking this little book out.
There’s definitely something to be said for LaRocca’s prose. The detail work and imagery are pretty darn good.
(But please hire a new editor. Please because there’s also a shit-ton of line work that’s needed to be done to clean up some repetitive words and other stuff. It ceases to be a nitpick when it’s so prevalent.)
The pacing of this here little book was also super solid. I sped through this thing faster than I thought I would.
Other than that though, I just really didn’t find much to love here. It’s a good one-sitting brain dead read with a simple message and a ton of shock value to please all the weirdos out there (I count myself among this number). Unfortunately for me, shock value is nothing without substance, and there just wasn’t really much to chew on here (pun 100% intended).
Also, the ~twist~ was pretty damn easy to spot, especially since it’s been done before in a book/movie that’s, well, ya know, good. It’s kinda hard to count that as a fault just because it does open a door to some of the fantastical and gross imagery that carried this through to the end. There’s a string of scenes in particular that reminded me of Darren Aronofsky’s film, “mother!”
But yeah if you like incest, cannibalism, a shit-ton of shit, gore and Life of Pi, I’d recommend checking this little book out.
I hated this book, and I loved this book. LaRocca’s writing is impeccable (as with everything I’ve read that they’ve written). I wanted to put this book down more than once, but I couldn’t look away.
Merged review:
I hated this book, and I loved this book. LaRocca’s writing is impeccable (as with everything I’ve read that they’ve written). I wanted to put this book down more than once, but I couldn’t look away.
Merged review:
I hated this book, and I loved this book. LaRocca’s writing is impeccable (as with everything I’ve read that they’ve written). I wanted to put this book down more than once, but I couldn’t look away.
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes