Reviews tagging 'Infidelity'

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes by Eric LaRocca

16 reviews

charliewarliee's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke and Other Misfortunes is a beautiful short story collection by Eric LaRocca, consisting of 3 beautifully told horror stories that make your blood run cold. My favourite story was the second one, The Enlightenment. I found the storytelling amazing and loved it so much! My least favourite was the final one, You’ll Find It’s Like That All Over, which was amazing and I still loved, just not as much as the other two.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Grief, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Child death, Death of parent, Medical content, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Gore, Infertility, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, and Self harm

Moderate: Vomit

auteaandtales's review against another edition

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Sexual content, Self harm, Fatphobia, Child death, Miscarriage, Gore, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Mental illness, Injury/Injury detail, Infertility, Infidelity, Blood, Animal death, and Animal cruelty

bunnyprincess's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Mental illness, Self harm, Homophobia, Animal death, Blood, Murder, Death of parent, Suicide, Vomit, Torture, Body horror, Child death, Death, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Infidelity, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Pregnancy, Confinement, Animal cruelty, Excrement, Gore, Infertility, and Violence

zuuizai's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

I was extremely excited to read this book due to all of the wonderful things I have heard about it. I ended up disappointed. There was a couple of things I did enjoy though. I loved the formatting of the book, and the ideas were interesting enough to keep me reading until the end. 

The first story was the best of the three. I really understood and thought that both Agnes and Zoe were well fleshed out characters. I also enjoyed both the theme of religion and the need for human connection in all of the stories.

I felt like the other stories were missing something. The enchantment especially. It felt like a lot was left out. For example, why did Olive and her son have black circles on their hands. It just felt slightly pointless and like the author wasn't sure where the story was going. 

I think this book highly lacks in the horror department. It just seemed like the author was trying to throw in as many disturbing things as he could for shock value. I understand that horror does that a lot as a genre, but it was still highly ineffective. Most of the scenes which were meant to be 'scary' just made me think "ew, thats gross". 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Gore, and Death

Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Toxic relationship, and Gaslighting

Minor: Racism, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Suicidal thoughts, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Excrement, and Suicide

stardustdreamer's review against another edition

dark fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Toxic relationship, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Gore, Infidelity, Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Body horror

Moderate: Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Mental illness, Medical content, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, and Racism

Minor: Lesbophobia

kyleighwhitsell's review against another edition

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Death, Miscarriage, Slavery, Suicide, Infidelity, Pregnancy, Grief, Animal death, and Child death

melliedm's review against another edition

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A slick collection of variably disturbing short stories that will consume a few hours of your time without you noticing.

1. Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke is a gruesome epistolary story connecting two women through email and text message where their quickly dread-inducing kink relationship becomes a nausea-inducing horror-show on the desperation people have to love and be loved. Truly disgusting and I could never bring myself to read it again, but it was the best story in the collection.

2. The Enchantment follows an estranged couple as they act as caretakers for an island hotel the winter after their son’s suicide. Heavy religious themes might resonate more with other readers, but they didn’t with me. The beats in this one read more like the author wanted very much for this to be a screenplay and not a short story. It felt a little like other familiar stories in the horror canon put into a blender? My least favourite of the bunch.

3. It’s Like This All Over was mildly interesting. A man finds something strange in his yard and politely confronts his aloof neighbour about it, and then finds himself unable to refuse the neighbour’s invitations.  The way the author presented the protagonist’s perspective seemed to have the opposite effect as was intended. By the end I got the sense we were supposed to very much view him as an insert that any of us could very well be, but there was a strange depersonalizations of him that made it difficult. Perhaps it was that he never has a first name, and is only “Mr. (Surname)”, which in my mind has a way of othering someone. I also would have liked to spend more time with the protagonist actually engaging with the neighbour, the escalation seemed far too sudden.

Overall an enjoyable collection of disturbing tales, and quick to read in a single dark evening alone. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical content, Murder, Self harm, Slavery, Sexual content, Vomit, Animal cruelty, Gore, Grief, Medical trauma, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Animal death, Abandonment, Body horror, Infidelity, and Injury/Injury detail

meecespieces's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Miscarriage, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Suicide

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Infidelity and Animal death

parasolcrafter's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

the first story out of these three was fine, but the other two were quite boring :/ reading the afterword did make them both a bit clearer, but it doesnt make the stories any more enjoyable. the first one was really well-written and i wanted to know how it would end, but the second story was a little too drawn out, and the third one was just...strange. i also dont know why the third story's main characters husband was described as being racist because he's literally only mentioned. it just feels like a really weird detail about someone we dont ever meet.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Murder, Pregnancy, Vomit, Self harm, Body horror, Grief, Religious bigotry, Sexual content, Blood, Abandonment, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Cursing, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Infidelity, Mental illness, Miscarriage, Violence, Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Death, and Gore

gotabookforeverysituation's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Toxic relationship, Violence, Mental illness, Child abuse, Body horror, Child death, Emotional abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Religious bigotry, Animal death, Animal cruelty, Gore, and Torture

Moderate: Miscarriage, Sexual content, and Infidelity

Minor: Racism