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trudilibrarian's review
2.0
A reclusive couple's power goes out and they are forced to use their scarce survivalist supplies to live off the grid.
Sometimes I can be too damn literal for my own good -- and resistant to anything mind-bendy, trippy, weird, or otherwise Weird. That one sentence plot summary above (not to mention the snappy title and awesome cover art) had me salivating to get my hands on this Grindhouse novella. I love any kind of a survival story, especially if you throw in off the grid and possibly end of the world elements.
Survival makes strange bedfellows of us all. It brings out the best (and worst) in us. It makes allies of enemies and makes us kill (and sometimes possibly eat) our allies. For dramatic purposes, survival stories are the sweet sweet siren song in my wheelhouse.
This story? Well, it's kind of false advertising in a way. It *is* a story about a couple losing their power, and it is *sort of* about a couple trying to live "off the grid" but it is in no way a literal interpretation of these things. This is not a survival story.
If anything, it is much more a dark, grotesque psychological exploration of paranoia and our often tenuous relationship with reality and our construction of it. Any other time, and *that* could have been in my wheelhouse too, it's just I was expecting (due to my own penchant for literalness) a grabby, clawing "oh my god the water's turned off and our cupboards are bare" survival story and what I got was an unsettling, weird, examination of one couple's descent into Hell? madness? bad hygiene? a horrible toxic marriage? a fifth dimension?
Normally, I love it in the shadowy, shaky corners of The Twilight Zone, it just didn't work for me here. Effective, evocative writing though!!! Kudos for that. And some fairly, squishy, glucky, squirmy scenes for those who appreciate things of an effluvium nature.
Sometimes I can be too damn literal for my own good -- and resistant to anything mind-bendy, trippy, weird, or otherwise Weird. That one sentence plot summary above (not to mention the snappy title and awesome cover art) had me salivating to get my hands on this Grindhouse novella. I love any kind of a survival story, especially if you throw in off the grid and possibly end of the world elements.
Survival makes strange bedfellows of us all. It brings out the best (and worst) in us. It makes allies of enemies and makes us kill (and sometimes possibly eat) our allies. For dramatic purposes, survival stories are the sweet sweet siren song in my wheelhouse.
This story? Well, it's kind of false advertising in a way. It *is* a story about a couple losing their power, and it is *sort of* about a couple trying to live "off the grid" but it is in no way a literal interpretation of these things. This is not a survival story.
If anything, it is much more a dark, grotesque psychological exploration of paranoia and our often tenuous relationship with reality and our construction of it. Any other time, and *that* could have been in my wheelhouse too, it's just I was expecting (due to my own penchant for literalness) a grabby, clawing "oh my god the water's turned off and our cupboards are bare" survival story and what I got was an unsettling, weird, examination of one couple's descent into Hell? madness? bad hygiene? a horrible toxic marriage? a fifth dimension?
Normally, I love it in the shadowy, shaky corners of The Twilight Zone, it just didn't work for me here. Effective, evocative writing though!!! Kudos for that. And some fairly, squishy, glucky, squirmy scenes for those who appreciate things of an effluvium nature.
hsienhsien27's review
5.0
Originally posted here: http://wordsnotesandfiction.blogspot.com/2014/11/hells-waiting-room-by-cv-hunt.html
This was supposed to be my Halloween read. I read it in a span of maybe four or five days. Hell's Waiting Room is a novella filled with enough oddities to make another novel. I actually thought this was going to be a post-apocalyptic novel, I though that this was going to be C.V. Hunt's California. Which was probably a silly thing to compare it to. I haven't even read it yet, but the novella consists of a married couple in an apparently collapsed world. But you would discover sometime soon that it's something more.
Everything falls down and gets worse when the electricity goes out.The main character, who remains nameless for most of the novella, is a woman who seems to show no value for herself. She lets her husband verbally abuse her and fights back sometimes, but still ends up falling under his rule. But the husband is kind of a loser, dysfunctional himself, he is overweight and insults the main character, calling her "fat" and basically telling her that she is useless, weak, and ugly. He spends most of the novel masturbating in his room alone and verbally abusing her. The main character is trapped in a sort of hell, where she hallucinates walking skeletons, fetuses in baby jars, and her dead parents. Until she escapes and experiences more. What's outside of the house is no different. The neighbors are freaks and she almost gets sexually assaulted by one of them, and his mother is some weirdo hippie that makes medical herbal concoctions that help nobody.
As you can see this novella is definitely hell. People are hell, pleasure is hell, home is hell. To be honest, I read this book a few weeks ago, a day after Halloween I think, so unfortunately my memory is a little foggy. I remember what happened, but I can't really talk about it, you know what I mean?
C.V. Hunt doesn't play around, she doesn't polish her writing to make it look pretty or poetic. She tells it as it is, there are dead babies here, come on. But she is still able to contain the magical realism and the fantasy in her little words. She manages to write simply without it being too stale and blank. I keep wanting to read more of this woman's books because they're bizzaro and they seem to have more of a personal level to it. Hell's Waiting Room felt like a long metaphor of a woman who is sick of it all, who feels that she is inadequate, and because of this, it feels like the world is against her, the world is out to get her. Hell wants to leave her in its depths and it drives her crazy, it has gone on since she was young. Because even the youngest know the world is pretty fucked up and then they go nuts too.
You can tell right away that this hell was produced by the main character herself, because sometimes people make their own hell. If I go any further, then I will ruin it for ya. So read it, it's not that long.
But what else can I say? This book is some pretty darn good stuff. it's dark and thrilling, it has the perfect elements of a thriller. It's not some cheesy detective story or BOO! stuff, it's odd and unnerving and I like that. I also love the book cover, it fits the story quite well.
Rating: 5/5
This was supposed to be my Halloween read. I read it in a span of maybe four or five days. Hell's Waiting Room is a novella filled with enough oddities to make another novel. I actually thought this was going to be a post-apocalyptic novel, I though that this was going to be C.V. Hunt's California. Which was probably a silly thing to compare it to. I haven't even read it yet, but the novella consists of a married couple in an apparently collapsed world. But you would discover sometime soon that it's something more.
Everything falls down and gets worse when the electricity goes out.The main character, who remains nameless for most of the novella, is a woman who seems to show no value for herself. She lets her husband verbally abuse her and fights back sometimes, but still ends up falling under his rule. But the husband is kind of a loser, dysfunctional himself, he is overweight and insults the main character, calling her "fat" and basically telling her that she is useless, weak, and ugly. He spends most of the novel masturbating in his room alone and verbally abusing her. The main character is trapped in a sort of hell, where she hallucinates walking skeletons, fetuses in baby jars, and her dead parents. Until she escapes and experiences more. What's outside of the house is no different. The neighbors are freaks and she almost gets sexually assaulted by one of them, and his mother is some weirdo hippie that makes medical herbal concoctions that help nobody.
As you can see this novella is definitely hell. People are hell, pleasure is hell, home is hell. To be honest, I read this book a few weeks ago, a day after Halloween I think, so unfortunately my memory is a little foggy. I remember what happened, but I can't really talk about it, you know what I mean?
C.V. Hunt doesn't play around, she doesn't polish her writing to make it look pretty or poetic. She tells it as it is, there are dead babies here, come on. But she is still able to contain the magical realism and the fantasy in her little words. She manages to write simply without it being too stale and blank. I keep wanting to read more of this woman's books because they're bizzaro and they seem to have more of a personal level to it. Hell's Waiting Room felt like a long metaphor of a woman who is sick of it all, who feels that she is inadequate, and because of this, it feels like the world is against her, the world is out to get her. Hell wants to leave her in its depths and it drives her crazy, it has gone on since she was young. Because even the youngest know the world is pretty fucked up and then they go nuts too.
You can tell right away that this hell was produced by the main character herself, because sometimes people make their own hell. If I go any further, then I will ruin it for ya. So read it, it's not that long.
But what else can I say? This book is some pretty darn good stuff. it's dark and thrilling, it has the perfect elements of a thriller. It's not some cheesy detective story or BOO! stuff, it's odd and unnerving and I like that. I also love the book cover, it fits the story quite well.
Rating: 5/5
tracyreads's review
4.0
3.5 stars
This little novella is such a head trip. The two main characters are survivalists (for lack of a better word at the moment) and while I liked the main female character, the man in this one is a disgusting pig and I failed to see why she stayed with him. The power goes out, the temps heat up, and things get weird. Very weird. I have read a few from Hunt and I enjoy her writing, but this story just left me all sorts of confused. I'm willing to admit that that may be a fault of my own. I recently read another title by this author and I'm very much looking forward to Cockblock and forthcoming titles of hers as well.
This little novella is such a head trip. The two main characters are survivalists (for lack of a better word at the moment) and while I liked the main female character, the man in this one is a disgusting pig and I failed to see why she stayed with him. The power goes out, the temps heat up, and things get weird. Very weird. I have read a few from Hunt and I enjoy her writing, but this story just left me all sorts of confused. I'm willing to admit that that may be a fault of my own. I recently read another title by this author and I'm very much looking forward to Cockblock and forthcoming titles of hers as well.
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