Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke (Unabridged‪)‬

Forewarning: The format of the novel makes for a painfully repetitive audiobook. Just click the “skip 15 seconds” button whenever they start a new email.

That said, it’s a taut and effective psychological horror. It’s emotionally distressing and often disgusting. It’s not for the faint of heart. But if you’re looking for something unique, you’ve found the right book.

As much as I enjoyed this, it feels like it’s lacking in almost all aspects. Minor spoilers ahead.

We’re constantly reminded of a police presence, but nothing comes of it. We’re not even shown properly why there is a police presence later on in the story as it ends so abruptly and with very little to go off of to speculate as to what happened.

Zoey and Agnes’ relationship was so… strange? The dates given in the email correspondence feels way too close to feel real, and there is never any mundane communication leading up to the “contract” to even sell the beginnings of a friendship. I’ve never built a friendship with someone on OfferUp with things I’ve sold and I’ve had more contact with those people than these two had before introducing the “contract”. It feels forced.

The way they communicate feels forced too, one second they’re talking very properly to each other (over the early internet days), and the next it’s very casual. This happens a lot. Overly dramatic communication to very typical online communication. It isn’t consistent and doesn’t add anything.

The build up to the ending is great, I thoroughly enjoyed the increasing desperation from Agnes with each email, but then the last few moments let it all fall apart. We’re given nothing to go off of — did she kill herself? Did she die from some other cause?

The internet hype over this book is severely misplaced, this isn’t going to scratch your horror itch. I do think it brings a unique style of writing and perspective which I would love to see expanded into larger projects.

I suppose it’s a good book if you’re looking for that sort of thing. However, I did not enjoy this book much. I think I bought this by mistake, because it wasn’t what I thought it was about. Perhaps I confused the blurb with another book surfing for something to listen to.