Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

I finished reading this today and have mixed feelings about it.

I like;
-The emails and the format of it all
-The cover art
-When Zoey asks Agnes to do something it is the best. Starting off with something easy like the red dress, the slight escalation to the underwear, and then the odd request of the salamander.
-The apple slicer, how its a symbol of how Agnes believes Zoey can/will/is taking care of her. How it ends with the apple slicer.
-The line ‘I guess that's what makes people do horrible things – they think whatever they're doing isn't nearly as bad as what somebody else will do'

Things I don't like;
-Holy fuck the apple slice talk in the start is almost unbearable. It's way too long.
-I don't give a shit about Zoey or Agnes. I have no feelings towards them at all.
-The pacing is off. They exchange for too little, even for lonely mentally ill girls I think there isn't enough words between them. It makes some of the conversation feel jarring and oddly interjected.
-I feel like the redacted and court files aspect could have gone a lot harder and drove some of the tension more.
-Speaking of, the tension is like zero lol xd
-I also don't feel like Zoey and Agnes have any sort of relationship. They are just two people who talk on the internet who happen to have their own separate burdens who happen to entangle. Perhaps that is the point, but I wanted something more substantial between them.
-There a few times where the girls will go on long tangents describing things that I think are supposed to be scary but really just drag out for far too long.
-The most interesting moment (or at least for me personally) is when Anges opens a bit about the abuse she endured as a child via the hands of her aunt, how her aunt used to make her eat eggs whole. I understand that leaving Anges past vague is in some part intentional, but I really wanted to hear more about it.
-As other reviews and comments have pointed out; is this lesbian torture porn? While the author does identify as queer, they don't identity as a woman, or a queer woman at that. Am I saying that anyone who's not a woman should be restricted to not writing lesbian or queer woman characters? No, of course not. Still, I also can't help but wonder the same. While I imagine that was never LaRocca's intention the book doesn't have enough intention or purpose for the reader to draw any conclusion, positive or negative in regards to the question of wlw torture porn. Which is a problem in itself, that I cant garner any message from the text.

Would I suggest reading this? Yes. I think this is a book you have to read yourself to determine your thoughts about it.