Laura Keating

The premise of this little novella is fantastic, but in the end, I can't help feeling like this is the equivalent of an early draft of what could have been an absolutely stellar work, and instead falls short. Editing is a big issue from beginning to end--I'm not talking about typos, as the text is clean, but about small inconsistencies and things which simply don't make sense on a character portrayal and storytelling level. (For clarification, I'm not talking about the 'weird'...I'm literally talking about believability when it comes to basic human behavior/activity.) Little story issues that should have been caught in editing left me rolling my eyes early on, and similar issues never let up, much as I hate to say that.

As the book got deeper in and more interesting, there was also an impulse to over-explain/over-tell and lean into repetition, which again felt like an editing issue. (Do I need to be told what cynicism is? Nope, I don't...) The story itself WAS interesting, and I wished I could simply get lost in it, but the simple truth is that there were just too many distractions, over and over again, including issues with characterization and believability that had nothing to do with the weirdness/horror at hand and could easily have been fixed in the course of another draft or two. Some of the writing was also lovely, especially when it came to descriptions of the weird, which leaves me feeling like I'd gladly read more work from the author, but likely not from this press, and maybe not in novella form since it felt like some of the heavy-handedness which took me out of the story came from the author feeling rushed to deliver meaningful characterization.

Overall, I fear I can't recommend this one.… (altro)