Reviews tagging 'Miscarriage'

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca

77 reviews

zuuizai's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-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

2.5

I was extremely excited to read this book due to all of the wonderful things I have heard about it. I ended up disappointed. There was a couple of things I did enjoy though. I loved the formatting of the book, and the ideas were interesting enough to keep me reading until the end. 

The first story was the best of the three. I really understood and thought that both Agnes and Zoe were well fleshed out characters. I also enjoyed both the theme of religion and the need for human connection in all of the stories.

I felt like the other stories were missing something. The enchantment especially. It felt like a lot was left out. For example, why did Olive and her son have black circles on their hands. It just felt slightly pointless and like the author wasn't sure where the story was going. 

I think this book highly lacks in the horror department. It just seemed like the author was trying to throw in as many disturbing things as he could for shock value. I understand that horror does that a lot as a genre, but it was still highly ineffective. Most of the scenes which were meant to be 'scary' just made me think "ew, thats gross". 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, and Death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

Minor: Racism, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Excrement, and Suicide

elvish_presley's review against another edition

dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

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

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Child death, Blood, and Death

Moderate: Miscarriage, Pregnancy, and Grief

mfrisk's review against another edition

dark emotional funny mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

3.0

I really enjoyed the titular story in this book, found the second story to be a bit all over the place and perplexing in tone/character motivation/meaning, and the third story didn’t pack enough of a punch for me. I like the style of this writer overall and will check out future works for sure though. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Animal death, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Blood, Body horror, Mental illness, Animal cruelty, Miscarriage, Death, Murder, and Suicide

Minor: Sexual content

hue's review against another edition

dark

2.5

Things have gotten worse since we last spoke 3/5
The enchantment 1/5
You'll find it's like that all over 1/5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Body horror, Suicide, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Sexual content, and Miscarriage

stardustdreamer's review against another edition

dark 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? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Body horror

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Mental illness, Medical content, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, and Racism

Minor: Lesbophobia

kyleighwhitsell's review against another edition

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Death, Miscarriage, Slavery, Suicide, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Grief, Animal death, and Child death

melliedm's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.75

A slick collection of variably disturbing short stories that will consume a few hours of your time without you noticing.

1. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is a gruesome epistolary story connecting two women through email and text message where their quickly dread-inducing kink relationship becomes a nausea-inducing horror-show on the desperation people have to love and be loved. Truly disgusting and I could never bring myself to read it again, but it was the best story in the collection.

2. The Enchantment follows an estranged couple as they act as caretakers for an island hotel the winter after their son’s suicide. Heavy religious themes might resonate more with other readers, but they didn’t with me. The beats in this one read more like the author wanted very much for this to be a screenplay and not a short story. It felt a little like other familiar stories in the horror canon put into a blender? My least favourite of the bunch.

3. It’s Like This All Over was mildly interesting. A man finds something strange in his yard and politely confronts his aloof neighbour about it, and then finds himself unable to refuse the neighbour’s invitations.  The way the author presented the protagonist’s perspective seemed to have the opposite effect as was intended. By the end I got the sense we were supposed to very much view him as an insert that any of us could very well be, but there was a strange depersonalizations of him that made it difficult. Perhaps it was that he never has a first name, and is only “Mr. (Surname)”, which in my mind has a way of othering someone. I also would have liked to spend more time with the protagonist actually engaging with the neighbour, the escalation seemed far too sudden.

Overall an enjoyable collection of disturbing tales, and quick to read in a single dark evening alone. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical content, Murder, Self harm, Slavery, Sexual content, Vomit, Animal cruelty, Gore, Grief, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Abandonment, Body horror, Infidelity, and Injury/Injury detail

cantfindmybookmark's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Self harm, Suicide, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Infertility, Injury/Injury detail, and Miscarriage

soft_plush's review against another edition

dark mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

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

4.75

This book was way more intense than I thought if I’m honest. Especially the first story but I do recommend reading it if you’re up for some gross detailed parts as well as big twists and turns and stuff that will genuinely make you question what you just read. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Death, Grief, Suicide, Lesbophobia, Miscarriage, and Vomit

Moderate: Grief, Lesbophobia, and Pregnancy

Minor: Lesbophobia and Pregnancy

ghost_cat99's review against another edition

dark emotional 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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Suicide, Animal death, and Child death

Moderate: Miscarriage and Vomit

Minor: Racism