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stitchnlich'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? 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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Body shaming, Cancer, Drug abuse, Drug use, Fatphobia, Gore, Mental illness, Pedophilia, Suicide, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail