Reviews tagging 'Excrement'

The Ghost That Ate Us by Daniel Kraus

2 reviews

scaredy_bear's review against another edition

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slow-paced
  • Loveable characters? No

1.5

If you are triggered by the constant mention of peoples weight, this is not for you. The author mentions weight in pounds at least 21 times. Assuming I didn’t miss flagging any, that’s an average of it appearing every 14.3 pages. This is only the mention of weight given in pounds. This does not include the many other times weight is mentioned.
The last words in the book are literally “44 pounds”.


The author including himself with in the story also is so cringe.
It’s revealed early on that one of survivors wants to speak with the author because he’s a big fan of the authors books. He raves about them. It’s weird to have him hyping himself through this character. Later he has this same character ask a bunch of questions about his previous books. Idk if he’s trying to promote them or make them seem extra deep by talking about the metaphors/themes in the books but it is weird as heck. He complains about being summoned by one of these imaginary characters while hes on a book press tour for one of hia other books. He complains that he has to drive an imaginary long distance to speak to an imaginary character. Ick. Then at the end of the book it’s revealed that the main character (and his cult) specially chose Kraus to spread word of the murders through his writing. They cast a lil spell by chanting the first sentence of his first book which Kraus says no one knows and its soooo obscure. Why this cult chose him (besides him making the decisions of this imaginary cult of course) is confusing. He’s not that big of a name, personally I only know him through is co-authoring with George A Romero and Guillermo Del Toro, and he writes fiction. So why would he be their choice to write a “non-fiction” account of their story?.


Initially, I thought the actual ghost story was going to be enough to push past the above but upon reaching the end I can assure you, it’s not. The climax left a lot to be desired.

Ultimately I would not recommend this novel.
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stitchnlich's review against another edition

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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? Yes

1.0

Reading a horror novel, I expect to be uncomfortable, queasy, grossed out.  Horrified, essentially.  I don’t even mind the unreality, though it was a mindfuck - honestly in a cool way. 
But I think the points here could have been made without rampant fatphobia. Obviously the book has themes of the culture of consumption in the US through the lens of fast food horror and heartland gothic and I get what he was trying to do with the “the guy who killed a bunch of his fast food service coworker gets inexplicably fat in the insane asylum while the survivors all waste away” metaphor. It bothered me at an ignorable level while I was enjoying the rest of the book but honestly I’m sick of fatness as shorthand for excessiveness and immorality, and most especially for evil.  It’s tired, it’s done. While part of what the last chapter did something cool, but fatness as transmissible evil makes me want to sew my eyes shut and never read a book again. Totally ruined my day and probably my week.
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