Lornographic Material

Dig if you will ...

... the nothing.

Of you and I engaged ...

... in tedium.

Animals strike curious poses,

They feel the heat, the heat ...

... of repetitive frustration. 

That's this book. It's a repeat frustrater (it's a word, shut up!) because the author spoils his own book time and time again and then doesn't have the sack to tell you about the shit you really want to know about. Here's the dealio, if you can dig it. Let's say I walk in the door with a bag of groceries. You see the groceries, pick through the groceries, and, lookey here! you're even nice enough to help me put them away. How do I repay you? By explaining to you how we both JUST put away the groceries, and oh yeah, these are what groceries I bought. Oh, you want to know how I came about the groceries? WELL, FUCK YOU, YOU NEEDY BITCH! 

I can get with the concept of the big baddie being left to the reader's imagination. But when you don't explain anything throughout the entire book (and this includes simple descriptions of the house we spend the majority of the novel in) I gotta call bullshit. Admit it, Josh Malerman, you copped out because nothing you could think of was cooler than... well, than nothing.

Our main character is your typical every-woman, and the only reason we're given to care about her is her pregnancy. That's cheap Character Development 101. "I got this chick that everyone is suppose to want to follow for 262 pages but there's absolutely nothing interesting about her so... I'LL MAKE HER PREGGERS! w00t! Who has two thumbs and knows how to write? This guy!" Malorie relies on everyone else in the world until they're all gone and then steps up because she has no one else. Tom is the only interesting character and we maybe two (three?) chapters from him.

And finally... (Sorry, everything else from here on in is a...)

SPOILER ALERT!

I wanted to know more about the four and a half years Malorie spent alone with the kids. THAT would have been more interesting that what I received. Instead, all that interesting stuff was glossed over.

The author hiding the kid's names until the final pages was idiotic. As I was reading the novel, I thought, "Oh, I think I see the point. She never named them so she wouldn't grow too attached to them. That would explain why she's only calling them BOY! and GIRL!" But no. They have names. They have names the whole time. They have names and she's still calling them BOY! and GIRL! ad nauseam... for no fucking reason... Who does that? Any parents out there? Do you ONLY call your child BOY or GIRL? And yes, I know GIRL! isn't Malorie's kid, but still, BOY! is her kid and she does the same shit to him.

The kids being faceless nobodies with no personality made them completely inconsequential. You don't give a shit about these kids. Hell, I liked Victor the dog better than either one of those mannequins.

And the ending? The ending raised so many questions, but not in the way I thought it would, or in any good way at all. Can a grown woman really dangle from a window by an umbilical cord? Why didn't Gary just kill Malorie right then and there, or, at the very least, pry her eyes open to make her see? Do women really sync going into birth like they sync periods? When did Don have the time to hide Gary in the basement? It would have made more sense if Don and Gary really had dug a tunnel to each other like Malorie first thought. I just don't see the housemates trusting Gary to walk outside by himself. It went completely against character.

*bashes his head in the cabinet drawer*

END SPOILERS

In summation: I'm glad this was on sale for $1.99 for several reasons: the length, the content, and the bare-minimum writing skills. If you're stuck in traffic for five hours and this is the only book you have with you, read it. It gets one-star for being error free, and half a star for the scenes from Tom's POV.