Rhiannon
Claustrophobic... panicked... anxious... all these emotions, and more, run rampant through this book like a hot, metallic burning fever of hallucinatory uncertainty and suspicion.
When Margaret checks into Graceview Memorial for a radically experimental and dangerous treatment program for her extremely rare autoimmune condition she's out of options and almost all hope. Isolated and without friends or family (by her own design) she begins the painful and highly invasive treatment as a last resort.
This book was startling and unexpected. It built into a kind of subtle gothic horror without my even noticing it as I was so wrapped up in the story of what the MC was going through. A sense of dread and panic gradually sets in that's barely discernable and makes it all that more effective. The setting in an isolated ward in what seems like your average hospital definitely plays into the paranoia and suspicion, particularly if the reader has pre-existing phobia or mistrust of hospitals.
So much of the story felt hallucinatory, dissociative, hypnagogic in the most unsettling ways. It is a perfect example of an unreliable narrator whose desperation to get better overcomes all her better judgments. I can only imagine the kind of desperation that would lead someone to this kind of risk, but when you're out of options...?
A sinister, gripping medical horror that subtly edges in, just under the skin, and stays bone deep long after the last page.
Claustrophobic... panicked... anxious... all these emotions, and more, run rampant through this book like a hot, metallic burning fever of hallucinatory uncertainty and suspicion.
When Margaret checks into Graceview Memorial for a radically experimental and dangerous treatment program for her extremely rare autoimmune condition she's out of options and almost all hope. Isolated and without friends or family (by her own design) she begins the painful and highly invasive treatment as a last resort.
This book was startling and unexpected. It built into a kind of subtle gothic horror without my even noticing it as I was so wrapped up in the story of what the MC was going through. A sense of dread and panic gradually sets in that's barely discernable and makes it all that more effective. The setting in an isolated ward in what seems like your average hospital definitely plays into the paranoia and suspicion, particularly if the reader has pre-existing phobia or mistrust of hospitals.
So much of the story felt hallucinatory, dissociative, hypnagogic in the most unsettling ways. It is a perfect example of an unreliable narrator whose desperation to get better overcomes all her better judgments. I can only imagine the kind of desperation that would lead someone to this kind of risk, but when you're out of options...?
A sinister, gripping medical horror that subtly edges in, just under the skin, and stays bone deep long after the last page.