Are Your Parents Home?

From the get go, Athan drops you into an uncomfortable situation, just waiting for the right time to pounce and let the carnage begin. A home invasion of any sort is a nightmare, but one on this level of brutality is a full on visit to hell. With a rather short page count, there isn't really ever a break between the violence, only varying levels in the intensity with which it is delivered.

Despite keeping its foot on the gas, somewhere towards the last third, it begins to feel tired. Largely in part due to keeping the main character more of a passive observer rather than an active participant. It becomes little more than a collection of torture vignettes in a vacuum, and I wasn't particularly a fan of the ritualistic aspect that underlines motivation. This is unrelenting but in the end feels a little <i>too</i> devoid of emotion, the ending not doing it many favors in that regard. I don't regret reading it, as it's a breezy and truly nasty read, with some hints of a more solipsistic <i>Martyrs</i>, and sprinkles of Green Room.

I think Jon Athan's books and I probably don't get along, and I need to accept that and stop trying them out. The plots always intrigue me, but the writing is less than ideal (and riddled with a heavy overuse of metaphor and simile), the characters are flat and self-contradicting, and the suspension of disbelief required to buy into literally ANYTHING that happened in this story was too much for me to handle. I like over-the-top gore and violence, but it has to be at least a tiny bit believable. Don't even get me started on how stupid literally every single character in this book was, either. 💀