extreme literature

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Lenni Reviews – Challenge Edition: “Son of the Slob” by Aron Beauregard

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*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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Lenni Reviews Challenge Edition: “The Groomer” by Jon Athan

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Andrew McCarthy and his wife, Holly, have a typical life with their kids, Max and Grace. That is, until they notice a man named Zachary sniffing around, and Grace goes missing. Frustrated with the police, Andrew embarks on his own violent mission to find his daughter.

Well… Overall, this is Taken, but if we spent more time on the most awful parts of human trafficking, torture, murder, and snuff (trigger warnings for all of that, by the way). We don’t get the catharsis of a “win” after going through all this darkness; just bitter emptiness. A family is destroyed, and all the revenge gore in the world won’t make the demented fruits of these monsters go away. It’s just a downer, especially with what’s going on in the world now (perhaps that impacted my experience). Even if it’s not the perfect ending where everything is fine, there could have been some kind of hope at the end. The writing is fine, the descriptions of violence are visceral and real, but I can’t say I enjoyed this. 2 out of 5.

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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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Lenni Reviews Challenge Edition: “Woom” by Duncan Ralston

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Determined to end the pain of all his accumulated trauma, Angel rents Room 6 of the Lonely Motel and enlists the services of a plus-sized prostitute named Shyla.

This book uses Angel and Shyla’s “date” as the wrap-around to a bunch of other stories having to do with the motel and Room 6. Each story is leading up to Angel’s ultimate plans for Shyla, which I will not spoil, but there’s a reason why her being plus-sized is important. I’m not gonna lie, I expected SOOOO much worse. After “Cows” and “Playground” this was a cake walk. In fact, it was almost tragically beautiful because it’s all about Angel dealing with his pain and rage. And I will spoil a tiny bit where I don’t think Angel’s penultimate plan is… Biologically possible? I wasn’t about to Google that. I’m probably on several watch lists already. I appreciate not having graphic descriptions of rancid female private parts but it is graphic; detailed descriptions of shit, vomit, and gore. No spoilers, but I was not expecting the outcome of the prom date gone wrong. It also read fast and in the end, I just felt bad for Angel. I finished it in an afternoon. 3.5 out of 5.

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Lenni Reviews – Challenge Edition: “Cows” by Matthew Stokoe

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*Trigger warnings for gore, sexual assault (of people and animals), and fecal eating, animal death, child death.

25-year-old Steve lives in poverty with his mother, who he affectionately calls The Hagbeast, and his dog named Dog. With dreams of a life like the shows he sees on TV, he starts a new job at a slaughterhouse where he quickly discovers it’s no ordinary place to work.

What is with these “extreme” books and poop-eating? And describing lady parts as smelling like fish? Is it a trope to just go for the easiest gross-out content (I can’t really say “humor” because it’s not funny) because I think the gore and animal fucking were plenty to accomplish that. There are obvious themes about the cycle of abuse and institutionalized abuse because I got the feeling in the slaughterhouse scenes that it was expected to do such out of pocket things to your coworkers and the cows while on the job. It’s normal to the men in the slaughterhouse to drill holes into a living cow and use it as a disgusting Flesh Light but Steve has to be initiated; taught that this is a normal thing.  Also, ew. Overall, this is not about Steve triumphing over this cycle. It’s a gross book with a depressing ending that didn’t even give me the feeling of horrid beauty that Tender is the Flesh did. Is it silly to expect more than just over-the-top gross stuff and have more meat (no pun intended) to these types of books? 2 out of 5.

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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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Lenni Reviews – Challenge Edition: “Tender Is the Flesh” by Agustina Bazterrica & Sarah Moses (Translator)

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If you’ve been on my blog for awhile, I do movie reviews on occasion and have a side thing of “Challenge Edition” where I watch extreme movies. Now that I know extreme books are a thing you know I have to do that, too.

This book is a dystopian world where a virus has rendered all animal meat inedible. A worldwide campaign is launched to acclimate everyone to accept eating humans instead; classifying them as “head” that as strictly regulated. Marcos runs a slaughterhouse and in addition to his wife leaving him and his elderly father losing his battle with dementia in a nursing home, he struggles with the realities of what he does for a living.

I totally get the allegory; treading a certain class like cattle, the mental gymnastics to justify this, the tole it takes on people to eat people, Marcos desperately trying to hold on to his sanity in a world where humans are just buying time before they end up on a plate, cruelty is normalized, and everything is permeated with an undercurrent of fear. The writing is great and that ending? Woof… But my suspension of disbelief was tested. Because I’m a writer, librarian, and general nerd; I know the little factoid that cannibalism in humans causes diseases and is not a viable replacement for traditional meat. I had to keep pushing that aside and plow on but it was worth it. It’s depressing because, not too spoilery but damnit Marcos:

This book is good, I loved the prose. And the graphic descriptions of the slaughter of humans for consumption will turn your stomach if you’re sensitive. But if you’re in the mood, this is a great book. 3.5 out of 5.

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