I do think this book was intentionally written to serve as a B-rate horror novel, but I don’t really think it hit the mark and it was mostly an annoying read.

The most annoying thing about this book is that it actually has an interesting idea and cast of characters to work with. The book could have easily been a lesbian centric Carrie style revenge tale & it could have been incredible in so many ways, but instead the author just sticks to cheap violence & excessive sexual assault/violence.

First: this is not an “extreme horror” book. It is just gory and not in an interesting or particularly well done way. Everything felt like a gore gag you would see in an episode of South Park. Most of the gore came off as cheesy & like the author has no clue how to write visceral body horror or violence. Though in his defense, I don’t think he was exactly aiming to make this an art house horror either.

Second problem is the fact that this book was clearly not edited - or if it was, that editor needs to get canned. There were so many typos and weird phrasing and contradictions. The only thing the “writing” had going for was a vaguely interesting plot.

I do love the idea! And I am always going to be excited about more queer horror since that is my favorite brand of horror. Unfortunately, you can really tell that a man wrote this because the way the female characters interact both sexually and romantically is just so far off base from how women (usually) treat each other.  There were entire segments and random mentions of nipples and “tits” and “ass” that it makes Stephen King’s occasional bouts of sexism seem progressive.

Pretty much every sex scene is rape or attempted rape or about rape. The only semi genuine consensual scene at the end fades to black & then you find out it might not be so consensual after all.

It is too bad the author wanted to be more tropey and cheesy. I would have loved more introspection about Susan losing her mind and turning into this psychotic bloodthirsty psychic. I don’t doubt it would have happened in her situation after a year, but it sucks we saw absolutely none of it progress. This book would have been so much better if the author just took a breath and paced himself.

I thought there could have been more complexity with Lynette and Charlie too. They literally just …fall in love in the span of a weekend & it is hard to really grasp why? I could buy their relationship, absolutely! But its execution was poorly handled. Lynette could have been so interesting too but that was another lost opportunity.

Charlie was honestly fine as the main character. She wasn’t offensive or even annoying: just underdeveloped. 

For a split second, I thought Greta was going to have more nuance than Generic High School Popular Mean Girl, and I was honestly so ready to applaud the subversion, but then it didn’t happen and went to the shitter.

No characters have any arc whatsoever unless I guess if you count Susan’s descent but since we don’t really see this, it doesn’t count. I LOVE stories like these and usually the center of the disaster in a town is THE most interesting part like Carrie or Alessa in Silent Hill. And Susan could have been *horrifying* and in theory, she was, but the writing did not serve her potential at all and it is too bad.

I genuinely wanted to like this book. On paper, it has all the ingredients of an amazing horror novel of the likes we haven’t seen in a while. Buuut unfortunately the author just cared more about gore and rape porn & cheesy sequences to give more than a passing thought. I sort of hope one day someone writes something similar but with the sorely deserving depth that this book completely lacked.

I don’t think anyone would enjoy this book for real unless I guess you are a teen boy going through a “A Serbian Film is the most intense horror movie evah!!” Phase. I think it is an okay read for feeling inspired as a writer though, and I think it serves as a decent example of how shitty your book might be if you decide to self-publish without an adequate editor. 

If this book was trad published w a professional author then shame on that entire company.