Reviews tagging 'Toxic friendship'

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

56 reviews

arys_library'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

3.75

Uh wow. Why did I love this book. It was so entertaining I read it in one sitting. Of course the fact it’s only 100 pages helped. But still what? It wasn’t what I fully thought, it was gross and gory but not nearly as dark and emotionally grueling as I expected. Instead it shows just how far someone will go, how evil and crazy someone can become with a small push from someone else. There are only two things I didn’t like about the book. First, the main characters talked to eachother so weirdly in the beginning. (No spoilers don’t worry) in the beginning I get that they were more professional but still in every email they sent it felt like they worked together or something. But when they chatted on messenger it was completely different. I don’t know if I just wasn’t getting the point of that or if it was just weird. And the second is kind of hard to explain without spoilers. But it was so strange how Agnes so quickly agreed to everything Zoe asked her to do. These things she did with ty out question or deeper thought, or even proof that Zoe would follow through. Unrealistic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Gore, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Toxic friendship, and Violence

Moderate: Blood, Body horror, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Medical content, Sexual content, Cursing, and Murder

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Vomit

katbamkapow's review against another edition

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

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

3.0

It was fun! I mean, if you know what you're in for. A quick, horrifying read on the sofa in one sitting. At times  it felt like the prose was working a little harder than it needed to, simply for the sake of itself, but for something so short it didn't really bother me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Death, Domestic abuse, Medical content, Toxic friendship, Toxic relationship, Violence, Confinement, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Torture, Abandonment, Blood, Body horror, Bullying, Grief, Self harm, Animal cruelty, and Cursing

Moderate: Sexual content

reckenreiter's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

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

1.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Sexual violence, Slavery, Gaslighting, Emotional abuse, Gore, Medical content, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Self harm, Stalking, Toxic relationship, and Toxic friendship

roraisabella's review against another edition

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? Yes

3.0

a book that makes you go “what the hell was that”, very icky and disturbing but i love a short horror story, and this one was shocking enough to keep you turning the page. gripping writing style and easy to read. that being said, this book isn’t meaningful at all, and works mainly off shock value and gore. i also didn’t like the detailed scenes of animal cruelty, i found it unnecessary. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Self harm, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Death, Excrement, Gaslighting, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Toxic friendship, Violence, and Vomit

lenahausr's review against another edition

challenging dark sad fast-paced

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

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Murder, Mental illness, Medical content, Gore, Violence, Vomit, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Homophobia, and Torture

Minor: Cannibalism

coolbitch's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

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

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content, Emotional abuse, Death, Slavery, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Vomit, Toxic friendship, Mental illness, and Toxic relationship

taria'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? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Toxic relationship, Body horror, Cursing, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Medical content, and Violence

Moderate: Incest

Problematic dominant/submissive relationship, eating raw meat on purpose, parasites

kbea88's review against another edition

challenging dark 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

3.0

I just don’t think this genre is for me. The writing was fine but the dialogue certainly didn’t sound like 20-something’s even in the early aughts. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Blood, Gore, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Suicide attempt

hyperfixd's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Toxic friendship, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Death, Gaslighting, Suicide, Violence, Body horror, Vomit, Mental illness, Self harm, and Toxic relationship

Minor: Vomit

_chelseachelsea's review against another edition

dark sad tense fast-paced

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

3.5

It’s hard to digest this one. Some moments filled me with a deep sadness, others with an even deeper horror and disgust. If you are looking for a short story to twist your gut on a Saturday night, this is perfect. It is without question an excellent piece of fiction. But there was a glaring element of the story that really rubbed me the wrong way.

My biggest issue with this story is that it’s written by a male author, but the characters - Zoe and Agnes - are queer women. I would hardly imply that men are incapable of writing queer female characters, but when the sordid and twisted romance at the core of the story is between two queer women, it does beg the question as to whether Eric LaRocca is in any position to be writing it.

On one hand, the trope of the evil lesbian is tired and played out. On the other, Zoe and Agnes are unique in that both seem to be desperate for something that sounds better in fantasy than it does in reality, and neither is truly prepared for the fallout of what they’re asking for. It’s not so much a story about an evil lesbian manipulating a vulnerable young woman as it is a story about two strangers - who could almost be of any gender - toying with the bounds of codependency and pushing each other to the breaking point. It could have been about two men, or a man and a woman, and still played out the same way. However, there is no getting around the fact that LaRocca chose to use a queer relationship to tell this tale, and I find something very ugly about that.

I tried very hard not to let that ugliness influence my review too much. In terms of the story itself - the vivid descriptions provided in every email, the steadily increasing sense of dread that creeps in with every new instant message exchange - the writing is excellent. By limiting the narrative of the story to email and message conversations, we’re left in the dark about what the characters are thinking, saying, and doing while they were away from the screen. We don’t know who Zoe is, what she does for a living, or what her days look like when she’s not dominating her virtual slave. We don’t know what Agnes‘s relationship with her roommate is like, who she interacts with when she’s not emailing Zoe, or many of the details from her past that may have fed her seemingly irrational behavior over the course of the story. The reader is forced to answer those questions entirely on their own, and there is a lot of power in that. 

LaRocca is remarkably well-paced, carefully threading small details throughout the novella, and he does it with the fluidity of a tennis match. The power shifts from one side of the relationship to the other very quickly, and just when you think you know the direction the story is headed in, LaRocca takes another sharp turn to the left or right. It’s jarring, it’s upsetting,  and it’s indisputably impressive.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Gaslighting, Gore, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Body horror, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Mental illness, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Suicidal thoughts

Moderate: Blood, Child abuse, Gore, and Grief

Minor: Vomit, Pregnancy, Suicide, and Homophobia