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anna_hepworth's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-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? It's complicated
5.0
This is very bleak horror, with minimal nasty and much slow creeping dread. The viewpoint is very tightly first person--as diary entries--until the end, when it moves to second, and that works incredibly well in ratcheting up the emotional resonance of the story.
It is a story about forgetting, about an apocalypse--or maybe a pandemic--where one can survive, but not thrive. About the slow erosion of memory and the loss of self that goes with that.
There is no logic to what is going on, no explanation. Laverne, who is writing the diary, doesn't know the why. They know some of the what is happening in the now, and some memory of the bad things that have happened, but there is no indication that this is all the bad, just all the bad that they have remembered.
It is a story about forgetting, about an apocalypse--or maybe a pandemic--where one can survive, but not thrive. About the slow erosion of memory and the loss of self that goes with that.
There is no logic to what is going on, no explanation. Laverne, who is writing the diary, doesn't know the why. They know some of the what is happening in the now, and some memory of the bad things that have happened, but there is no indication that this is all the bad, just all the bad that they have remembered.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Gun violence, Suicidal thoughts, Dementia, Medical trauma, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Child death