Jared

It’s hard for me to hate anything Kristopher Triana writes. He clearly has more sympathy for his characters than almost any of his peers and that’s definitely felt here.

The reason this book works the least for me is because the character is so clearly evil. For the other three Triana books I’ve read, the main characters have been seemingly innocuous people. Here, the main character is a pedophile goon who raped trans girls in prison. There’s nothing interesting about that.

Anyone can write complete evil. It takes a true talent to write sympathetic evil. I don’t find Jackie to be an interesting character at all.

Was it fun? Sure. All of Triana’s books are fun. He’s one of the best at pacing in the entire industry. Did I cry? Yes. Seri reminded me a lot of my little sister which made a lot of the moments between her and Jackie even more horrific. But I don’t think that’s good writing, just basic empathy.

Kristopher Triana is incredible at writing women, so it feels like a waste to have the only woman in his stories be helpless victims of a misogynistic rapist.

I also learned I really prefer third person to first.

Kristopher Triana continues to show me that a lot can be done in extreme horror without having to resort to senseless shock. It’s baffling to me that he’s friends with Aron Beauregard, because Kris is so much better at writing than he is.

I loved the romance, and I really liked that it wasn’t smutty. You’re told to read a romance book and your mind immediately goes to pork written for middle aged women, but Triana was very reserved here.

I wish it was longer, to be honest. I felt like there was a lot more room for their relationship to grow and develop beyond the 100 something pages we’re given. I’d love to see Triana write another horror novel or see this one adapted to film.

Overall, I’m glad I read this. I’m gonna take a break from horror for a bit because Playground and Endless Night took a lot out of me, but I’m glad I read this before that break.

Kristopher Triana might be my #1 author of all time.

Why did I finish this one? I honestly can’t tell you. The last book I read before this was Playground and it was so unbelievably awful that it kinda made me not want to read a book for a long time. But three months later and I’ve finally made it through.

Endless Night is a bad horror novel. It’s a great road trip story, but horrible everything else. There are large chunks of this book dedicated to Jody, Andy, Jody’s Dad and Sharon just having a normal vacation that are intercut with the killer talking about how much he wants to kill Jody. I really don’t know if that was meant to make us feel tension but it doesn’t work. I *guess* Laymon was trying to make the reader uncomfortable with the underlying idea that “he could show up at any moment” but it really loses steam quickly. I found myself wanting to get through the killer’s chapters as quick as possible so I could get back to the vacation plot line.

I guess the book succeeded in getting me to care about the characters. But even then it wasn’t like they were treated like real people. Jody and especially Sharon are treated like objects of desire rather than people. The omniscient narrator is *always* talking about their bodies in a very odd way. Even worse that Jody is 16. When the killer’s perspective is just filled with how much he wants to rape this character, it just goes over the top when the unseen narrator of the normal chapters is also constantly describing how attractive this kid is supposed to be.

The ending sucked. I’ve seen stories lull the audience into a sense of comfort before ripping it away. Mommy (2014) in particular is really good at doing what I think this novel was trying to do. But here it just feels cruel. And not in a smart or thought-provoking way. It just gets worse for the sake of getting worse.

Honestly, I’m kinda pissed that Gone to See the River Man was as good as it was. Because I keep getting tricked into thinking that extreme horror can be good. Maybe Kristopher Triana is just built different. I should just read his other books and avoid the rest of the genre.

Endless Night was a waste of time. If Richard Laymon can stop being a pedophile, he should try to write a slice of life comedy book.

From page one it was the worst book I had ever read. At first I was going to finish it with the hope that it would get better. Eventually it got to a point where I finished this out of spite.

Entirely pointless book. A bad spiritual successor to Saw, horrible writing in every aspect, and just pure shock value for the sake of shock value. Aron Beauregard cannot write children.

Don’t waste your time. It’s not even disturbing, it’s just gross. And not in a fun way either. There is something fundamentally wrong with you if you take pleasure in portraying or taking in violence against the most innocent.

The worst part about this was that the book randomly took a turn in an attempt to make you feel bad for the situation. You can’t do that. You have not earned sympathy, you cant suddenly act like this violence has weight to it when you revel in its goofiness.

I very rarely call any art worthless but this was worthless.

I don't have much to say about this one. It was starting to grab me, but then she started eating people and all of the psychological manipulation just kinda went out the window. The first 200 pages or so are pretty awesome though, it's just a shame they through away all of the tension building for a rushed and rather pathetic ending.

Luckily, Kristopher would improve greatly in the next two years with Gone to See the River Man, a book that's paced perfectly and has a beautifully profound while still disturbing ending.

I cannot believe how much I liked this.

This is my first “splatterpunk” or “extreme horror” book and I’m worried that I might have started with the best of the best.

I heard that this genre was full of the edgiest, lamest attempts at shock value for the sake of shock value. This was anything but.

Most of the horror her is purely psychological. It’s a family drama at heart. Very similar to Hereditary, in that we focus on a family crumbling through the vessel of a demonic tale. Don’t tell anyone I said this, but this book handles that concept WAY better.

This book is unrelenting. It will indeed go there, but it never feels undeserved. The reason this book works so well is because it earns its depravity. It’s not just a series of increasingly vile events, it very slowly builds to a revelation.

They pull the rug out from under you right when you start to sympathize with Lori. She is a bad person and the book slowly reveals that in some of the best usage of flashbacks Ive seen in writing.

The violence is definitely extreme, but it’s rare. A majority of this film’s horror comes from its analysis of what people are capable of. Lori is pure evil, but not in a villainous way. In a purely desperate and depressing way.

I think that’s the main reason this worked. It’s not two people being tortured in a forest. It’s two people uncovering their true selves. and that’s truly terrifying.

I certainly have my issues. For one thing, I think way too much time is dedicated to these killers. I understand that this book was one of the first ever true crime novels, but that doesn’t really excuse it from falling into the common pitfalls of the genre.

That being said, this is truly the best of said genre. In Cold Blood mainly works for me because of part one. An entire third of this book is dedicated to the lives of The Cutters. Parts 2-4 would not work at all without that first part, and while the book does get worse after that, I think it’s overall paced incredibly well.

True Crime as a genre is one of my darkest vices when it comes to art. I know how exploitative it is, I know that it humanizes people who frankly don’t deserve humanization, and I know that it melodramatizes real tragedies. But sometimes, it can be great and respectful.

I heavily doubt anything in the True Crime genre will ever top this. Capote’s dialogue is so expertly written and endlessly layered. The omniscience adds a genuinely chilling atmosphere to the entirety of the aftermath.

I’m overstating my issues with the book because it really is an incredible work of genre-bending nonfiction. Almost perfectly paced and deeply empathetic, even if sometimes to its own detriment.

True Crime will probably never reach these heights again.

While there are certainly moments here that feel way too edgy for its own good, overall it’s a pretty stellar novella.

I low-key feel like this is just what the first Joker movie thought it was. Rage works better because it’s not an outright endorsement of Charlie Decker as a person.

The last moments are what’s really disturbing here. Over the course of the book, each character slowly starts to side with Charlie. Despite him being an incellian loser, they start to treat him like a hero. It all culminates in everyone violently beating on the popular kid.

Everyone supports Charlie because often people don’t really want change. People support violent causes because they find catharsis in violence.

The final chapter of the book is a letter that a student wrote to Charlie in his mental hospital. Everyone loves Charlie and their lives are all peachy.

Nothing ever happens.

Just watch the movie. I couldn’t finish this, Mickey was such a lame character.

Wasn't at all shocked to find out the author was writing a YA dystopian after this because that's exactly how it read. Idk if this is anti-art to say but this concept would work so much better as a film.

Reggie is a pretty fascinating person. While I quickly realized that this book wasn’t going to apply to me since I’m not going to be going into any business management, I made myself stick through it. I think it was really worth it in the end.

There was a lot to learn here about leadership. I’ve always struggled with taking a leadership role directly. I’ve wanted to be a follower all of my life. But I know that I’m going to need to change that sometime. And who else to help me learn that then one of my favorite contemporary leaders: Reggie Fils-Aimé!

Reggie was very business minded here, but the reason a lot of the advice stuck with me is because he was always personal about it. Reggie understood good sales and business, but a lot of his add campaigns worked because he understood people.

Nintendo of America from the Wii to the early Nintendo Switch was objectively more personal. The company leaders were public, interacted with fans, and overall just cared. And that’s something you don’t see anymore in advertising.

I’ll miss people like Reggie. I’ve considered going into advertising, so this book might help a lot if I go into that. Thanks, Reggie!

(The only real issue I had with the book was that I wish he went more into his time at Nintendo. I would have loved a chapter or two explaining why him and Iwata and Miyamoto became quasi-mascots for the company and why that personal nature went away after the Switch era)