Nico Babico

I fully understand that Virginia Woolf is an icon of modernist writing, but I cannot read her writing. Despite only having a reading length of about 5 hours, it felt like six months. Her style of writing is so rambly, and while I understand that being rambly is a part of the stream of consciousness model, it's done in a way where it feels unauthentic and without purpose. Jean Rhys also used stream of consciousness in Voyage in the Dark, and it worked very well, it's one of my favorite books. I can only assume that Virginia Woolf's writing just isn't for me. That being said, one of my biggest pet peeves in writing is definitely meandering around points rather than using smaller points to reach the main point, and Woolf's writing resides in the former category (from my point of view). There were bits and pieces I really enjoyed, but they were so far apart between the pages and pages I skimmed as I got bored that I can't give this book more than one star. I was initially going to give this book two stars because I thought Septimus' story was interesting, but his conclusion was so incoherent that it made me laugh.

Reading this book, and a another “cosy romance” by a different author earlier this year, has made me realize that cosy romances might not be for me. That being said, my gripes lie with the lack of things happening that feel impactful, and that's to be expected from a low-stakes cosy romance. If you enjoy cosy romances, I think you will like this a lot!

I loved the way this story developed, I also think it balanced things very well between plot and spicy scenes. I felt just as invested in the story as I was in the smut, and I genuinely enjoyed the prose so much. There are some things I didn't enjoy very much though, for example, how often the character's lips twitch. This is also a bit of a personal preference, but there are parts of the story where real world things like tv shows are referenced, and because you need outside knowledge of what these things are, it can feel corny when they were brought up (especially in succession).

DNF.

The prose just wasn't for me. I didn't make it very far before I decided this book wasn't something I would enjoy.

This review does not contain direct spoilers, but I do discuss the novel in depth!

☄️ At a glance:

This book is terrifying, multilayered, complex, and lingering. It is marred by sections of meandering text and a character who inserts himself into interesting sections, breaking the pacing with his rants.

🟢 What I thought was done well:

I found a lot of Zampanó's parts were intriguing and often horrifying in the way that makes events linger in your mind. The idea of writing something with the intent of making it feel like an academic study, especially of a visual medium transcribed into text, was very well done and a unique take to follow.

The actual horror elements were also done with so much thoughtfulness and intent that, as mentioned before, scenes often linger with me. I loved Zampanó's writing style and his way of describing things. The story itself is very interesting as well and it's also explained in a way that captivated me throughout the text during his section.

I thought the characters were also very complex and well described. I love how the author doesn't just present us with characters, but also has other in-universe characters discuss their intentions and complexities like a real media analysis.

I loved the ending. It concludes things nicely while cementing that feeling of lingering dread the novel had built up until that point.

♦️ What I didn't enjoy:

Truant's sections usually drove me nuts, especially when he interrupts something interesting happening to describe something completely unrelated and often uninteresting. He goes on long rants stemming off of a vaguely related word or sentence written by Zampanó and it can go on and on for

pages. Every female character Truant meets is A) ogled by him for being super hot, B) often super intelligent to, of course, complement their super hotness, and C) immediately an object of sexual desire and he has sex on paper with, I swear, 9 out of the 10 women he meets. I was genuinely hoping that by the end of the book we would find out that all of the women he apparently had sex with didn't exist and it was all a mind trick.

90% of the horror of this book originates from Zampanó while Truant mumbles in the background trying to add effects. There were a few interesting parts from his perspective but I wasn't a fan in general. I understand why Truant needs to exist for the story's sake, but I feel like if the unrelated shit he talked about was trimmed, the book would be at least 1/3 shorter. Every time he would start talking, I often had to resist the urge to skip to the next Zampanó bit.

🏠 The takeaway:

The horror of the domicile is strong here, and I enjoyed the idea of taking a place (a home) often considered to be a safe space and turning it into something terrifying, existential, and cold. But if I'm being frank, giving this book 3.5 stars is generous considering how often Truant's sections made me want to put the book down. It felt like trying to read a book while an annoying sibling is whispering varied words relating to genitalia in your ear. I hated the treatment of women in this book. While Zampanó never discusses women in an objectified way (the way Truant does), other male characters not associated with Truant often treat Karen as an object of stimulation (Holloway, Wax, several of the men she interviews about The Navidson Record are some examples that come to mind). The book didn't need any of it. The horror here is not even about misogyny, though I think that could have been an interesting lens to explore. The horror here is ████. I want more ████. I want less Truant talking about how hot woman #7 is and how despite all of these women having different names and looking different, they all melt together in my head as "woman Truant had sex with while interrupting Zampanó for the 20th time." In fact, writing this review made me realize I think this book deserves 3 starts instead of 3.5.