Better the Devil You Know

I was warned. I saw the author's warnings. I read the free sample. The bag had a label: Dead Dove, Do Not Eat. But I opened the bag anyway, I looked right at that dead dove and I thought, nah, there's a little shelf life left in this one, I think it's edible.

By time I realized the dove was, in fact, inedible, I'd already cooked it up and garnished it like a fancy meal. Twenty-two percent of that dead dove was already consumed, so there was no point letting it go to waste; if it was poisonous, I was about to die anyway. I'd brought this on myself. So I ate the rest of it.



Metaphorical dove aside, I'm not being facetious when I say I thought I was fine with the book's contents based on the author's provided sample and the warnings here on the summary. I'd read claims that the opening is as bad as it gets, so I didn't figure I would need to look out for anything worse. I'd survived the bad part, now it was time to just take a tumble down the rabbit hole and read something that was, initially, like someone had ground Saw and Hostel up in a food processor and garnished it with some over-the-top, ludicrous sexualization.

Because you know what? I like dark horror. I like messed up things that are clearly labelled and don't try to play themselves off as less-messed-up things. When I know what I'm getting into, I usually don't mind. But this was... Let's just say that the opening scene is extremely far from “as bad as it gets.” There are things in here that even the warning tags on the summary couldn't have prepared me for, though I'll say it didn't trigger me or anything - just repulsed me by hitting basically every one of my hard nopes in a never-ending chain.

And yet it wasn't poorly written from a technical perspective. There were a few odd writing quirks, but this book flowed well enough and the writing was easy to parse - even if not easy to digest for reasons of content rather than quality. The characterization of Lucifer was certainly... a choice that was made, and not one I'd have personally picked, but whatever. And the ending tried way too hard to be clever, only to leave me feeling like I'd just watched the beginning of one movie with the end of another stitched onto it. But I can't say those gripes with the story itself mean the writing is bad. I've read far worse plot devices and story arcs; they just weren't covered in a thick coating of viscera.

So... where does that leave this review? I could fill probably eight paragraphs with things that repulsed me, but then I'd have to go back and dwell on this story more than I'd like. I could give a rundown of the plot, with or without spoilers, but honestly I don't want to. I didn't particularly care about the characters, like the lore, or enjoy the story. It was very much not my cup of tea and I only even kept reading because it became something between watching a trainwreck and setting a personal challenge.

Maybe I should just stick to what I said in my final status update for this one: No.

Ultimately, that's the emotion this book made me feel. That's the one word, flatly inflected, that best describes my reaction to this... adventure. Just no.

But I was warned, so I don't feel right giving it a crappy rating. And even if I did feel okay giving it a bad rating, I actually don't know which one I'd use because 1 means “did not like” and 2 means “it was okay” and frankly I think both are accurate. I didn't like it, but it was okay and I'm just not the target audience I thought I was.

I think I'll abstain from using stars and just leave this review on a note that you can make of as you wish: For as much nope as I'm feeling right now, I still might read another, less extreme, story by the same author if I find one that suits my interests.