Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke And Other Misfortunes

Another day, another Eric Larocca book I'm not sure if I enjoyed ✨
*Edit to add star reviews to each story. The average of the 3 ratings equals the overall star rating!

The first story I found extremely unnerving and by the end, I felt like I needed to take at least 3 showers to wash off the feeling of reading that story.  4/5 ⭐️

The second story had so much potential to really disturb me, but I was so let down by the direction the story took and the way it ended. 1/5 ⭐️

The final story I found too short to really make a huge impact on me like the title story. I get the direction where they were going, but I wanted a little more of a slow burn. 2/5 ⭐️

hate stories exclusively built on STUPID characters, things have...spoke is still a masterpiece tho <3

things have gotten worse was a reread for me and it is one of my absolute favorite books/stories of all time. the other two stories were new for me and the first one was also a 5 star but the second was more like a 3/3.5 star but because things have gotten worse is a 100/10 for me i'm giving the collection a 4.5

everything eric writes i adore. eric and i just click like that what can i say 

Possibly the worst horror book ive ever read. Wattpad creepypasta levels of quality. Scratch that, that's a disservice to wattpad. The characters are sloppily written, changing personalities, goals, beliefs every other second like a schizophrenic war veteran. The settings are lazily written, almost as if they were an afterthought.

And the plot. Christ the plot. A dementia ridden grandmother could write a more coherent plot. The macarbe lesbian internet story has the two women go from just meeting, to forming a slave contract in a matter of pages. Pace as a concept is thrown out the window.

Props to the guy who somehow crucified himself onto a cross without any help. That feat is more impressive then any writing in this book. I've tutored 13 yr olds with better aptitude in writing, and this is published work.

I want my time back >:(

1/10

I LOVED it

Since there are only three stories I'll give them each a rating.

Things have gotten worse since we last spoke.
This wasn't bad, it was definitely creepy and I could the descent into danger and madness that our character Agnes heads into. I think that end lack a little bit and maybe due to how much it was hyped I expected it to be more disturbing. 4/5

The enchantment.
This one was odd and I don't think I really caught on to what it was saying until I read the afterword. It seemed a bit all over the place. I'd give it a 3.75/5 as I still do enjoy the writing.

You'll find it's like that all over.
Weirdly I think this one might be my favourite it really fit into the good short story formula, he got in he got out and I could easily pick up the ideas the author was exploring, I also think that as a woman the idea of social expectations of being polite is something that really spoke to me. The end wasn't wasn't perfect but overall was good. 4.5/5

So all together I think the collection sits at about 4/5 definitely worth reading, and will give his other works a try.

Eric LaRocca has become one of my favorite authors. The first story THINGS HAVE GOTTEN WORSE SINCE WE LAST SPOKE was good but not as good as I remember. It definitely hit as good the second time reading it, I would give the first story 3 stars. The second story THE ENCHANTMENT was my favorite. I absolutely loved this story. The religious tones were so interesting. This story had me hooked, I could not stop reading it. I would give this story 5 stars, I want a full-length novel of this story. The last story YOU'LL FIND IT'S LIKE THAT ALL OVER was really good. It wasn't my favorite but I did not hate it. I would give this story 3.75 stars. Overall, I'm giving this collection 4 stars.

3,5 stars
It's deeply disturbing and even disgusting at times, but I just couldn't stop reading and devoured it in one sitting. Although the ending of every story felt a little disappointing, the stories themselves were definitely fun to read. Morbid fun

hate stories exclusively built on STUPID characters, things have...spoke is still a masterpiece tho <3

This review assumes you have read the book. Otherwise, my recommendation is do not read it.

This book is actual garbage. The writing is absolutely atrocious. LaRocca is an immature author who does not possess the ability to create a character of any substance. Every character lies on one side of a choice while another character is on the opposite side of that choice. There is no nuance at all. “Hey I want to do this” “I don't want to do this” “Okay grr” “Grr” That is the exact scenario LaRocca is limited to in his dialogue interaction. The lack of any driving force behind characters is in part due to the inability of LaRocca to write female characters. Every female character is subject to the stereotypes of hysteria and fickleness. So of course when they manically change their minds for no reason it makes them feel like a marionette for the author puppeteer to dance towards some strange end. His entire effort is spent on working towards some shock purely for the value of shock. There is no compelling story here, no interesting motivation the characters have, only a train chugging for 5 minutes to get to a poorly described destination of grotesquery.


And the destination of the title story is so vague as to be a frustrating nothingness. I literally cannot imagine what this woman is going to do with an apple peeler and a defecated tapeworm. Not because I don't have a capably gross mind, but because nothing makes sense. Is she going to peel the worm? Peel her skin somehow in a helical shape, only to see she's unable to reinsert the tapeworm? Is she going to bake an apple pie in her bathroom? I thought an apropos ending using Chekhov's apple peeler may be Agnes piercing her eyes because she does not deserve them (the repeated motif). But it's an extremely gratuitous stretch to reach that ending.

Ironically, the second ‘misfortune' is such a common and boring trope it is essentially the same level of nothingness. She is a ghost and someone walked through her and now she's trapped in this earthly purgatory. This is the least creative ending anyone could have done with ghosts. Sixth Sense, The Haunting of Bly Manor (The Turn of the Screw), SCOOBY DOO showcase this sort of ending. It is not allegorical, like The House that Jack Built. It's not an insight into a character's mind, like The Shining. It's just a childish trope.

There are many portions that make it impossible to suspend a sense of disbelief. No one posts their life story trying to sell an apple peeler on a LGBTQ forum. A tapeworm can live hooked in the intestinal wall for years. And a baby cannot kick after one month of fetal development. Seriously, some basic cursory research (google searches really) would have gone a long way.