Reviews tagging 'Medical content'

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

12 reviews

dexlud's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes is a beautiful short story collection by Eric LaRocca, consisting of 3 beautifully told horror stories that make your blood run cold. My favourite story was the second one, The Enlightenment. I found the storytelling amazing and loved it so much! My least favourite was the final one, You’ll Find It’s Like That All Over, which was amazing and I still loved, just not as much as the other two.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Death, Blood, Death of parent, Gore, Grief, Infertility, Miscarriage, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Child death, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Self harm

Moderate: Vomit

kyra_joy's review against another edition

dark emotional sad fast-paced

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

4.0

Since there are only three stories I’ll give them each a rating.

Things have gotten worse since we last spoke. 
This wasn’t bad, it was definitely creepy and I could the descent into danger and madness that our character Agnes heads into. I think that end lack a little bit and maybe due to how much it was hyped I expected it to be more disturbing. 4/5 

The enchantment.
This one was odd and I don’t think I really caught on to what it was saying until I read the afterword. It seemed a bit all over the place. I’d give it a 3.75/5 as I still do enjoy the writing. 

You’ll find it’s like that all over. 
Weirdly I think this one might be my favourite it really fit into the good short story formula, he got in he got out and I could easily pick up the ideas the author was exploring, I also think that as a woman the idea of  social expectations of being polite is something that really spoke to me. The end wasn’t wasn’t perfect but overall was good. 4.5/5

So all together I think the collection sits at about 4/5 definitely worth reading, and will give his other works a try.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Medical content

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

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

a_wren_that_reads's review

dark mysterious tense fast-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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Vomit, Body horror, Child death, Suicide, Toxic friendship, Blood, Death, Self harm, Violence, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Pregnancy, Slavery, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, and Religious bigotry

If you can't handle talk of Christianity, praying, etc. Skip the second story

ptitirodactyle's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

THGWSWLS: 4,25 stars
The Enchantment: 3 stars
YFILTAO: 3 stars

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual content, Stalking, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Fire/Fire injury, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Gaslighting, Gore, Medical content, Medical trauma, Blood, Body horror, Death, Emotional abuse, Suicide, Torture, Grief, Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Vomit

hellocath's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Medical trauma, Suicide, Medical content, Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Toxic relationship, and Animal cruelty

Moderate: Vomit

Minor: Racism

joperceptions's review against another edition

This book was disgusting? Once I’m done reading my current read I’m going to try and pick this one back up again but am super hesitant to. It takes gore to a whole new level and not it a good way- a level where I consistently had to stop reading for a bit and just sit in my feeling of “wtf am I reading right now”. 

Unsure what the purpose of writing something like this would even be? I really thought it would be better than it was, like a crime/ horror queer novel. And it was horror and it was queer but just the wrong kind of horror. Like a really, utterly fucked up kind. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Mental illness, Sexual violence, Infertility, Medical content, Blood, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic friendship, Gore, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Sexual content

molliundera_'s review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

2.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Grief, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Self harm, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Infertility, Medical trauma, Toxic friendship, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Suicide, Death, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

themeadowlibrary's review against another edition

challenging dark tense fast-paced

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

1.5

What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

An interesting concept with some really badly done writing. 

I wish I could give this a higher rating because it was viscerally disturbing and unique. However, the writing fell extremely flat for me, and the overall story seemed rushed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Sexual content, Animal cruelty, Blood, Body horror, Self harm, Gaslighting, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, and Vomit

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Lesbophobia, Stalking, Death, Homophobia, and Suicide attempt