Ignore the Dead

The moment Sizemore announced this book I was “shut up and take my money” level of excited, and I am pleased to report that it absolutely lived up to my expectations.

The prose is stunning and emotionally powerful, this book broke my heart a few times, but it also made me smile with some gorgeous turns of phrase talk about a good balance between form and content!

The imagery was just the right blend of gritty and striking.

The way cancer is approached in this book is devastating so do approach with caution if that's a sensitive topic for you.

Richard, the main character, felt like a real and fully fleshed individual complete with his own idiosyncrasies. I've said it before, but Sizemore is a deviously talented writer when it comes to making you care about his characters even when they are deeply flawed or even pretty despicable.
I was unsure of where the story would go next pretty much all the way through and at no point did it feel like the twist and turns of the story were forced.

Points for using the word pre-Cambrian twice in a way that wasn't just flashing vocabulary.

Lastly, and I only ask because I don't remember seeing that expression in any other book before, am I the only one who had never heard the expression “lot lizard” until recently or have I been living under a rock?

*I was initially not going to review this book because a certain edgelord author is thanked at the end of the book, yes I'm that stringent when it comes to harassing behavior (if you know me you know exactly why). That being said, after talking to the author I concluded that it would be unfair to him considering that he wasn't even aware of the extent of the situation and to be 100% clear Mr. Sizemore did not ask me to reconsider my position. I'm including this because I know I'm not the only reviewer who's not feeling the indie horror scene right now.