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A review by cryingalot49
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca
dark
emotional
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
A toxic lesbian romance begins with a simple forum post about an apple-peeler for sale and ends with extreme body horror.
There's a lot about this I liked. Despite this refrain I hear lately against depicting queer people as queer because of the bad things that happened to them, I think it's vital to keep exploring the ways that trauma comes built-in with queerness. Maybe this is an issue for young millennials and Gen Z with more accepting parents, who didn't have to contend with the sexuality tearing their family apart. Agnes is not a lesbian with mommy issues because she's gay. She has mommy issues and seeks out a toxic relationship because her mother unceremoniously and completely cut her off after she came out of the closet. To ignore the ways things like this play out in queer relationships is to erase so much of what queerness is and what queer horror explores best. Stop trying to silence queer horror writers on this front.
I also thought the animal death scenes were amazingly effective. There are some things I almost always find to be manipulative and poorly portrayed in fiction, but in this novella, they're illuminating and unforgettable.
So much of the story's meaningfulness and power fall away as it rockets out of the atmosphere toward its conclusion, though. It seems like LaRocca either ran out of fuel when the relationship takes its worst turn, or the format is inadequate to capture the emotions involved in a relationship like this. What the email-and-messaging format would be really good for is exploring the uncertain boundaries between fantasy and sincerity (the cannibal cop story comes to mind). Were the women both sincere? Was Zoe intentionally manipulative or did she assume they both knew this was fiction, a game? There are rife emotional landscapes to explore here and a whole generation who grew up queer on the internet who can relate, but LaRocca mostly leaves the most fertile ground untilled and the characters fade into the background of an exploitation horror scenario when their presence could have elevated the story far beyond that.
Unlike in the brilliantly visceral, surreal gore from queer writers like Dennis Cooper, LaRocca immediately backs away from the gross-out almost as soon as it's introduced. The finale was laughable to me, as a result. Where Cooper can make even the most gnarly gore feel like a surreal, abstract painting of what's inside his characters' hearts, LaRocca drops his like a silly punchline and shrugs.
There's a lot about this I liked. Despite this refrain I hear lately against depicting queer people as queer because of the bad things that happened to them, I think it's vital to keep exploring the ways that trauma comes built-in with queerness. Maybe this is an issue for young millennials and Gen Z with more accepting parents, who didn't have to contend with the sexuality tearing their family apart. Agnes is not a lesbian with mommy issues because she's gay. She has mommy issues and seeks out a toxic relationship because her mother unceremoniously and completely cut her off after she came out of the closet. To ignore the ways things like this play out in queer relationships is to erase so much of what queerness is and what queer horror explores best. Stop trying to silence queer horror writers on this front.
I also thought the animal death scenes were amazingly effective. There are some things I almost always find to be manipulative and poorly portrayed in fiction, but in this novella, they're illuminating and unforgettable.
So much of the story's meaningfulness and power fall away as it rockets out of the atmosphere toward its conclusion, though. It seems like LaRocca either ran out of fuel when the relationship takes its worst turn, or the format is inadequate to capture the emotions involved in a relationship like this. What the email-and-messaging format would be really good for is exploring the uncertain boundaries between fantasy and sincerity (the cannibal cop story comes to mind). Were the women both sincere? Was Zoe intentionally manipulative or did she assume they both knew this was fiction, a game? There are rife emotional landscapes to explore here and a whole generation who grew up queer on the internet who can relate, but LaRocca mostly leaves the most fertile ground untilled and the characters fade into the background of an exploitation horror scenario when their presence could have elevated the story far beyond that.
Unlike in the brilliantly visceral, surreal gore from queer writers like Dennis Cooper, LaRocca immediately backs away from the gross-out almost as soon as it's introduced. The finale was laughable to me, as a result. Where Cooper can make even the most gnarly gore feel like a surreal, abstract painting of what's inside his characters' hearts, LaRocca drops his like a silly punchline and shrugs.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, and Medical trauma