Reviews with content warning for Blood - You've Lost a Lot of Blood

The story within this story, a novella called You’ve Lost A Lot of Blood, and we get to read part of that story in chunks. I really loved that it was a video game horror novella. It's something I don’t think we really see in the genre that often. I literally can only think of the film Stay Alive and Brainscan.

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stefanie_duncan's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Maybe I need to read it again to understand it fully. This is my 3rd book by this authors. And while I loved the other 2 by the author this one is not my favorite. I will re-read it some other time to maybe “get it”.

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_lera_'s review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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elyssajoh's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

IT’S ENOUGH SLICES.

This book had me captivated nearly the entire time. The format of the book was quite unique and I enjoyed it. There was so much to read into from the socratic dialogue between the two main characters to the slow reveal of the horrific plot in the novella within. I enjoyed trying to interpret all these details and how the various works within the book related to the main storyline.

However, there was too much going on (hence it’s enough slices). I am having trouble even concisely summing up what this book is about

- plagiarism?

. I can’t quite make up my mind if it would benefit from being longer or if some of the details should have been cut. A lot of the explanations

i.e. the wax priest thing, the Martyr has a tumor thing, Tamsen blames her brother for her parent’s death, they’re stuck in a loop, the video game changes people, Ambrose is involved in the murders, the sex scenes of Tamsen versus Martyr, the reveal that it was all plagiarized actually

seem just glossed over and not fully explained, part of which is intentional and leaves the reader to interpret for themselves what it means. Part of it seems rushed- did LaRocca really do the work of investigating the psychology of serial killers before writing this? (For a book largely based on dialogue with the main character, this is important.)

Overall, it was really cool but it was just tooooo much. Delving deeper into just a few of the big reveals may have been more impactful than shoving as many horrific reveals into the plot as possible.

That being said, I do plan to try another book by LaRocca at some point.

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doomluz's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This story was interesting. It didn’t gross me out as much as Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

The twist is that the short story and poems were supposed to have been written by different people that Martyr Black had killed, but the voice and reoccurring imagery throughout feels like the same author. Unless he edited the pieces or picked them because he liked the originality and he's drawn to that imagery?
I liked the poems, but the short story "You've Lost A Lot of Blood" was ok. It was kind of predictable. I liked the imagery and idea of it, though it uses one of my least favorite tropes.

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