*Trigger warning for gore, sexual assault, necrophilia, pedophilia, and general grossness.

After surviving her vicious attack, Vera is struggling to put her life back together. Her marriage is on the rocks, her home is a mess, and she struggles to find work due to how badly her face was mutilated. And what’s worse, the son she gave birth to may be more like his twisted sire than she’d realized.

I guess it’s meant to be ironic to start the blurb for the book with “Vera Harlow is a survivor,” only to spend the book destroying this woman all over again. While I expect the blood, guts, and excrement, it was the hopelessness that soured me to this book. Even Playground had a glimmer of hope and a cathartic ending. The writing makes you wince at the disgusting events – as it should – so, I can’t fault the skills here but, yeah. I didn’t enjoy this one simply because of how Vera’s story ends. 2 out of 5.

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June 30, 2025August 3, 2025 atthequillsmercy

Lenni Reviews Challenge Edition: “The Slob” by Aron Beauregard

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*This book is recommended for mature readers. Trigger warning for murder, gore, and rape.

While Vera grew up in a hoarder’s house with her parents and mentally unwell sister, she now lives with her disabled veteran husband, Daniel. With a baby on the way, Vera decides to become a door-to-door vacuum salesperson for some extra cash until she knocks on the door to the wrong house.

I understand this was meant to be extreme, and it succeeds in that the descriptions of the Slob and his home are gross and the sexual violence is disgusting, but this felt try-hard. I couldn’t get into it like I could with Playground or Tender is the Flesh. It’s as if there was a checklist of “Gross Stuff” and every other sentence was about ticking a box off. There’s even this random bit about some gay guys who kill people, as if the checklist included “People We Need to Offend” and overall, I feel cheated that I didn’t feel what I think the book was trying to get me to feel. I do have to say, Vera is a great character. I’m not sure if I’m becoming desensitized to all this, but in the end, it was a giant “Meh.” 1 out of 5.

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February 28, 2025March 9, 2025 atthequillsmercy

Lenni Reviews Challenge Edition: “Playground” by Aron Beauregard

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*This book contains VERY adult themes. It is not for children or the faint of heart.

Geraldine Borden offers the chance of a lifetime for three low-income families to test out her state-of-the-art playground equipment in exchange for a substantial payout. Little do the parents know that these new devices are deadly, putting their children in grave danger.

Trigger warning for… Everything.

You ready? Yeah, no you’re not.

Okay… I had to sit on this review for a while to ponder where I am considering this book. I was prepared for the gore and the dead children. The plot and cover give those away. Yes, being a parent did have me getting angrier than perhaps a non-parent would be (especially since some of these parents fucking suck). However, I was NOT prepared for the disgusting sexual content (rape, incest, uncleanliness) and shit eating. To say Geraldine is disgusting is an offensive understatement. Brace yourself cause I’m gonna spoil this so, skip the rest of this paragraph if you want to avoid it… Not only did Geraldine harbor incestuous feelings for her own mother (who seemed to be a perfectly normal person), she acts on these desires by masturbating with her mother’s feces and is responsible for her mother’s death because when her mother was on her death bed, Geraldine sat on her face and rode it until her mother smothered to death. The book also goes into great detail about how Geraldine does not believe in properly cleaning her privates or her sex toys and that it’s so disgusting; Rock (her unfortunate adopted son – an adult at the time of this book) is so disgusted by what he is force to do to her, he uses his own bile as lubricant. I gotta give it to the writing because I had to hold back from gagging and desperately needed to take a shower.

Ya’ll still with me? Need a breather? I did when I read this. Geraldine is hypersexual and later on in the book when her attention is on the children, I actually prayed to go away from any further sexual scenes with her and back to the child murder. She has a Nazi scientist, Fuchs, as her assistant and I kinda found that to be cliche. That’s a common trope in horror: death/torture machines made by a Nazi to bring to mind the actual atrocities committed. It makes sense in that of course Geraldine would have a Nazi in her back pocket but still.

The descriptions of what physically happens to the children are properly harrowing. It gives a very Squid Game vibe with how the group either stays together, falls apart, or brings the best/worst out in each other. The kid’s personalities are so well done! You get to know them and they – as well as their parents – all are written well enough that I was very much invested. So, after all that, all the horrid blood gore and wishing I could bleach not only Geraldine’s physical descriptions out of my head but powerwash her body as well, this book as the fucking gall to end on this tragically beautiful note. Or perhaps it rewards me after putting me through that rank ass snatch. So, where do I stand with this? I mean, I got what I came for: extreme literature. I can’t give the book a low rating for that, especially if it’s written well enough that it makes me react so vicerally. I was rooting for the kids, I got attached to them and the parents that weren’t awful, and again, that ending…

I am going to give this a biased 2.3 out of 5 because how dare this book make my bisexual ass hate vagina by being so disgusting, I’d rather read about children being mauled.

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