fizzy

“‘I'd imagine you'd be uncomfortable, with your heart full of so many forgotten things.'
‘No, that's not really a problem. A heart has no shape, no limits. That's why you can put almost any kind of thing in it, why it can hold so much.'”

Pros

- Entertaining
- Decent purely as a crime novel
- An easy and quick read
- The premise could've made for a solid book if it stuck to one theme or the other (a gut-wrenching story of violence and generational trauma, or an over-the-top campy horror about a messed up backwoods family) rather than attempting and failing to integrate aspects from both.

Cons

- This is more of something i was confused by and is not necessarily a con, but it didn't live up to the “hype” of being an extreme horror read. Yes, the subject matter is very disturbing and some parts could be gross for readers who are a bit more squeamish, but people have made this book sound like it is practically unreadable due to how explicit and disgusting it is, which i didn't at all find to be true
- Extremely predictable “plot twists” that feel cheap and hinge on shock factor and violation of taboos rather than meaningful character/plot development
- Annoying love-at-first-sight plot derailment purely to further a random plot twist
- Cliché horror tropes galore as well as schlocky dialogue, especially from Alice towards the end
- Bland prose with little to no character or stylization
- Though there were occasional glimpses of complexity in the characters, as a whole they did not feel multifaceted despite their extensive trauma which in reality would more drastically complicate their personalities and experiences. Instead, most characters are framed as either good or bad, and were sometimes even explicitly named as such. Michael and Misty are the heroic martyrs while everyone else is labeled as evil and unsympathetic despite everyone being victims of some sort of awful abuse and having all committed the same crimes.

“It occurred to me that the wrinkles in the sheets would probably never be smoothed out, the sweater never put away in the drawer, the mathematics problems never completely solved.”

“It was as though the very constellations knew our impending sorrow. For against that great – wide – sweep of sable there came the burst of a single jewel-like star, and I saw it shimmer, and break, and streak down the cheek of that one coal-black sky like a reluctant and solitary tear...”

Really superficial materialistic popular-girl themes and I'm not quite sure if the whole Caroline bathroom incident was supposed to be metaphorical and deep or something, but it wasn't executed that well. However I love the art style and it was really entertaining, even if the charactees are kind of insufferable lol