I’m not sure what that cover is about but that cannibalistic kiddo is not in the book. Sorry, folks. It’s eye catching though, right?

What this book is really about is a family that is on the brink of imploding and we get to witness it in all its glorious ugliness. Yay! From the outside, Karen and Kevin and their two children appear to have a perfectly beautiful upper class life but if you get to snooping and look a little closer you’ll see things aren’t so sickeningly picture perfect. Ah, my favorite kind of story. I love books like this. If you do to, you’ll want to check this one out.

It’s darkly comical, as the best of these types of stories tend to be. Kevin, who is a big kid himself, decides to give the kids (and himself, of course) fidget spinners one Christmas and Karen sees it as the beginning of the end. Of everything. She’s a bit of a dramatic soul. She blames all of her woes on the fidget thingies and refuses to face her true reality. This book is told from Karen’s mostly sloshed POV and she’s a truly terrible person on the inside. Horribly, hysterically, terrible. Her thoughts are often ridiculously bitchy, snooty and mean as well as slightly crazed and I have to admit I loved it there in her head. Granted, no one would probably want to spend too much time there because it would wear on you but this book is only 96 pages. That’s the perfect length of time to spend with someone like Karen, if you ask me.

“I screamed. I tried to help. I tried to save him. Believe me when I tell you, I really tried.”

Lol, I don’t believe a thing this woman tries to tell me but it’s fun listening to her. Please be warned an unforgivable thing happens to an animal. I didn’t like that part at all but that’s the risk you take with books like these.

If you’re in the mood for something blackly humorous grab yourself a glass of Karen’s favorite wine (that would be any and all of them) and settle in for a dark little gem with this novella.

I received an ARC of this story from the author. Thanks, it was a lot of fun!

I read this for Halloween Bingo but am not sure where I'm going to stick it just yet. 

   This is a social drama, a psychological dystopian descent, about the self-destruction of a classic mum, dad, two children and cat family. The story slips genre into black comedy and momentarily into horror of the plausible variety, always so much more disconcerting than ghouls and zombies. This is a novella, which a fast reader may well consume in one sitting. The book could easily have been longer, though possibly that would have diluted the constantly disturbing buzz in its pages.

   This story is very well written, with clear flowing prose and only a few typos. The story is narrated through the first-person mother with a very realistic feeling voice. I felt that I was sitting listening to the mother’s distressed, sometimes questionable, and less that sober first-hand narrative, rather than, as we are directed to believe, a story cobbled together by the author from episodic conversations.

   My only complaint about the story was the abrupt ending. I would have liked to hear the completed story of the family from the tragic peak we are left on. I feel a need to know if disintegration or renovation of the mother to child relationships was the eventual outcome.

   I had a sort of personal interest in the story that only added to its poignancy, one that is all too common in western culture. I have lost a parent through the ravages of alcohol. But believe me, such a direct connection isn’t a required ingredient for one to get the full taste of this sad tale.

   I have an issue with the cover as on the book at this date, September 2017, in that it really doesn’t reflect the content. The big youthful, blood-smeared, smile gives the impression that one is in for some sort of zany horror comedy. That isn’t the case. Too many books are falsely sold, or not, by misleading covers. This book doesn’t need a creepy cover to sell it, just the publicity it deserves, which I like to think will be boosted by this and other reviews. True or not, the family disassociations and disintegration explored in this social drama are tragically reflected to varying degrees in many real lives.

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