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A review by ghostboyreads
Burn You the Fuck Alive by B.R. Yeager
4.5
"It's like a toothache. It takes over everything. A patch of rot grasps a nerve and the world falls away. Your body disappears, your pasts and futures dissolve into a single intolerable present and all you are is a throbbing sweaty toothache."
Review updated as of my re-read (17.2.25-19.2.25 ) love love love this book.
Death. Decay. Corrosion. The apocalypse. It's impossible not to think of these words when tackling this novel. Burn You the Fuck Alive is best described as a kaleidoscopic collection of devastation. Much like his previous work, there's this very distinct, almost overwhelming, but, entirely brilliant brand of nihilism in these writings. Yes, the expected hopelessness persists. But, just about anyone can put to paper some nihilistic musings, what makes Yeager's work so unique, so utterly crushing is that he manages to capture something that almost no one else can, he has a gift, it's the way he speaks of isolation, the way he writes about desire, the way he gives life to something that before his novels, could only be felt. Yeager doesn't simply just state that the world is shit, he carefully pulls apart the stitches that were keeping our souls tethered.
Appealing on the most sickening of levels, the stories within Burn You the Fuck Alive may vary in their theme and narrative styles, but, an uncontrollable, yet, strangely poetic sense of bleakness ties them all together. Perhaps one of the loneliest novels to exist. When plunging into this one, the reader is forced to confront unending psychological torment, grotesque body horror, and the most devastating portrayals of isolation. It's a novel that forces us to grapple with both the mundane and bizarre, the horror, so seamlessly woven into the normalcy of every day life, makes even the most simplistic of thoughts and feelings unpleasant. The population of this novel seem to be wasters, underachievers, they're drowning in apathy, smothered by their inability to care - they do not exist to be adored, rather, overlooked, fading into the spaces between, soaked in their own abandonment.
Review updated as of my re-read (17.2.25-19.2.25 ) love love love this book.
Death. Decay. Corrosion. The apocalypse. It's impossible not to think of these words when tackling this novel. Burn You the Fuck Alive is best described as a kaleidoscopic collection of devastation. Much like his previous work, there's this very distinct, almost overwhelming, but, entirely brilliant brand of nihilism in these writings. Yes, the expected hopelessness persists. But, just about anyone can put to paper some nihilistic musings, what makes Yeager's work so unique, so utterly crushing is that he manages to capture something that almost no one else can, he has a gift, it's the way he speaks of isolation, the way he writes about desire, the way he gives life to something that before his novels, could only be felt. Yeager doesn't simply just state that the world is shit, he carefully pulls apart the stitches that were keeping our souls tethered.
Appealing on the most sickening of levels, the stories within Burn You the Fuck Alive may vary in their theme and narrative styles, but, an uncontrollable, yet, strangely poetic sense of bleakness ties them all together. Perhaps one of the loneliest novels to exist. When plunging into this one, the reader is forced to confront unending psychological torment, grotesque body horror, and the most devastating portrayals of isolation. It's a novel that forces us to grapple with both the mundane and bizarre, the horror, so seamlessly woven into the normalcy of every day life, makes even the most simplistic of thoughts and feelings unpleasant. The population of this novel seem to be wasters, underachievers, they're drowning in apathy, smothered by their inability to care - they do not exist to be adored, rather, overlooked, fading into the spaces between, soaked in their own abandonment.
"She asks for a light. You reach in your pocket and dig out your Bic, strike the flint, and touch the flame to her cigarette. She inhales. The tip roils cinder. A line of flame draws down the paper, crossing the band, down the filter. It touches her lips and her entire face is ablaze. Engulfing, disappearing her hair, climbing down her throat, down her shoulders and arms and chest and belly, down her pants to her shoes. Washed in pumpkin light. She waves her arms, spinning in circles and howling."
No matter the story, these tales are designed to attack, to viciously assault. This isn't a novel you simply read, it's a novel that's felt. It's a vulnerable thing, this book, with beautifully terrifying writing. It's so horrific, based in a reality that's actually kind of terrifying to think about. Like experiencing the worst acid trip of your life, only, it never seems to end, and then the crushing realization that this is your every day. Burn You the Fuck Alive gifted me the chance to reminisce on what it was to feel as lonely as these stories do, and so I must say thank you, to The Young People, Burn You The Fuck Alive, A Favor, Puppy Milk, and Highway Ways for allowing me to experience the rapture, for it has been beautiful to burn the fuck alive.
"Tracing the black skids to the flattened guardrail, I peer down the ravine. It's a miniature tornado's wake-leveled trees and brush, a path carved down to the Volkswagen. It rests on its side, nuzzled between ancient firs and the ravine's incline. Coolant spitting. Billowing dense miasma."