A review by sugarmountain
Woom: An Extreme Psychological Horror Novel by Duncan Ralston

dark 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? Yes

1.0

shit was mid tbh 🥱

edit: you know what. im coming back to this to speak on it. its a gross out shock horror book; hardly scary, mostly just bleh. however, looking back at the plot - there is one, surprisingly - i feel like there is an underlying theme here and its easily the most reprehensible part of the book. main character is such a poor little lad, look how much he's suffered - he's super traumatized and mentally ill!
so he rapes an innocent woman, and she pities him for it.
. sure, its just a story, but are we supposed to empathize with it? with him? what exactly is the idea here? we all saw the ending coming,
although i expected the woman to be consenting to the matter (thought they make take the route of 'we've become mutually enlightened'), and was pretty disappointed to see the rape route taken just for the sake of shocking the readers. ok, so youve written a story where a traumatized man re-traumatizes a woman after she opens up to him. great. hurt people hurt people. soooo deep and edgy. but then she feels bad for him, she wants to take care of him? the woman is violated and subsequently forced into a position where her assailant is now dependent on her, a literal manchild, and she agrees to this, because... maternal urges? we're not given a reason for why anyone would consent to that. what the fuck?
it should go without saying that this book lacks nuance and does zero introspection. it has no commentary to make on the issues it depicts (unless you count a white author using the nword several times in his shitty horror book which... ehhh). 

i should specify i went into this knowing exactly what it was and got what i expected. i dont give a fuck about cancel culture. this isnt a concern so much as an observation. i do stand by my point that you can't call it a horror book if it isn't scary, and copious amounts of shit does not equal scary. well, nah, it does. but in a book... not so much. 
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