A review by prettyinpapercuts
The Bedwetter: Journal of a Budding Psychopath by Lee Allen Howard
3.0
3.5/5 stars
First off, thanks so much to the author, Lee Allen Howard for so kindly sending me a physical copy of his book in exchange for a review.
Russell Pisarek hasn't pissed the bed in years, so why has he started regressing to bedwetting once again? Could it be his menial job? His living situation? The fact that he was abused for bedwetting as a child? His twisted desires to subdue and shave women?
I thought The Bedwetter did some things well. I really liked the set up of it being a journal. It very much read that way, and I thought it worked. I think to capture Russell the right way, we needed to know his thoughts as recorded by his own hand. Reading The Bedwetter like it was a real journal helped you get into his head. He thinks he is the literal shit. He thinks he's clever and charming in his own weird way, and that if he has any faults, they can't be blamed on his own action. I don't think this would have been as effective any other way.
The big thing that disappointed me here was that the synopsis didn't seem very true to what happened in the book. I expected this weird entity, the Piss Fairy, to be one of the main focuses of the book. In fact, that's what sold me on it in the first place. That's why I agreed to read and review. So it was a real bummer that we only see the Piss Fairy, I think, twice? And only near the very end of the book. In fact, none of what the synopsis describes happens until the last 80 or so pages. This isn't a long book, but it was still disappointing that what interested me most didn't happen basically until the climax of the book. That meant, for me, that a lot of the beginning kind of meandered into territory I didn't find all that interesting.
I will also say that there is violence towards animals in this book. I SHOULD have figured there would be. The synopsis does mention past acts of violence towards cats, but since it also says he's basically graduated to bigger and better things, I thought might be mentioned as a past action and but not acted out in the book. However, I was mistaken, which is my bad. I'm not counting that towards my rating. I feel that readers should be aware. I, for one, am shamelessly sensitive towards harm towards animals.
All in all, not a bad book by any means! It was a quick and, at parts, intense read. This definitely felt like a good origin story, like maybe a prequel to some slasher film. Russell sure was an interesting dude to analyze for a couple hundred pages.
First off, thanks so much to the author, Lee Allen Howard for so kindly sending me a physical copy of his book in exchange for a review.
Russell Pisarek hasn't pissed the bed in years, so why has he started regressing to bedwetting once again? Could it be his menial job? His living situation? The fact that he was abused for bedwetting as a child? His twisted desires to subdue and shave women?
I thought The Bedwetter did some things well. I really liked the set up of it being a journal. It very much read that way, and I thought it worked. I think to capture Russell the right way, we needed to know his thoughts as recorded by his own hand. Reading The Bedwetter like it was a real journal helped you get into his head. He thinks he is the literal shit. He thinks he's clever and charming in his own weird way, and that if he has any faults, they can't be blamed on his own action. I don't think this would have been as effective any other way.
The big thing that disappointed me here was that the synopsis didn't seem very true to what happened in the book. I expected this weird entity, the Piss Fairy, to be one of the main focuses of the book. In fact, that's what sold me on it in the first place. That's why I agreed to read and review. So it was a real bummer that we only see the Piss Fairy, I think, twice? And only near the very end of the book. In fact, none of what the synopsis describes happens until the last 80 or so pages. This isn't a long book, but it was still disappointing that what interested me most didn't happen basically until the climax of the book. That meant, for me, that a lot of the beginning kind of meandered into territory I didn't find all that interesting.
I will also say that there is violence towards animals in this book. I SHOULD have figured there would be. The synopsis does mention past acts of violence towards cats, but since it also says he's basically graduated to bigger and better things, I thought might be mentioned as a past action and but not acted out in the book. However, I was mistaken, which is my bad. I'm not counting that towards my rating. I feel that readers should be aware. I, for one, am shamelessly sensitive towards harm towards animals.
All in all, not a bad book by any means! It was a quick and, at parts, intense read. This definitely felt like a good origin story, like maybe a prequel to some slasher film. Russell sure was an interesting dude to analyze for a couple hundred pages.