I am not sure if I just read a story, or if I just refueled the tanks of whatever generates the worst nightmares… the ones where humans are the monsters. This starts out brutal, with a slight hint of Jack Ketchum, and then takes off.
I honestly had no idea what to expect from this book. There aren’t enough trigger warnings in the world to prepare you for it. You can feel your mind in those of the characters the protagonist interacts with, and you can sense the way you want things to shift, the things at least on the side of the barriers of light and darkness that feel sane. Suzy is a very straightforward, honest character. Her life would have killed most others. You get the sense she would not have minded if it had killed her.
The killing that happens seems almost incidental. The bruality raises the hairs on your arms and neck, but is not the story. It’s just there, and bleak and realistic to a point that pushes aside the walls we create so we can pretend that there is good in everyone, and that people can always change.
And I am left to mourn those that Suzy, and Lem, never would… with no closure. I will not forget this any time soon.
Highly recommended and brilliant, but you’ve been warned.