My parents died in 2020 and 2021, respectively. I immediately went into what psychology calls "acute grief," and I was stuck there probably until this year. Part of it was that they died under very unjust circumstances. I probably only started coming out of it this year. Reading the author's note at the end, I couldn't understand how much one person could suffer like that. Knowing how hard it was for me, it was impossible for to imagine even more grief. It sounds unbearable to me, and yet the author survived it and wrote this book! He made the parallels between the book and his life clear in his note. This was something I appreciated.

The book was weird and good as far as horror goes. It's the kind that would make a good movie, the kind that is eerie and keeps me guessing as to what is actually real. What I liked most about it was the open truth of human nature outside of the main characters - how we are truly ugly and awful to each other. You know how bullies often put other people down to make themselves feel better? Well, I think this book does an excellent job of showing how we are all guilty of doing that - judging other people in comparison to ourselves and our moral compasses, just so we can feel better about our own life choices. It makes me really hate a lot of people out there, but I know I do that too, even if I really hate admitting it. I probably judge others about how they spend their money, how they raise their children, how they yoyo diet, how they fail to cover their mouths when sneezing, how they do anything that I think is even a little bit disagreeable or otherwise morally questionable. I hope I do it a little less each day, and I hope that when I screw up, I can learn from it. I hope. But where are my blindsides? If I was confronted with someone in a wheelchair with postpartum and a chip on their shoulder, how would I react or approach them, or would I even try? What would my inner dialogue be? And that's what's so great about this book to me. It's less about the content and more about what it makes me ponder.

The content of the book is probably worth a four, but because of how it makes me self-reflect, I bump it up to a 4.5.

Oh, and I just realized Nat Cassidy also wrote Mary, which I loved! I really need to find more of his books next year!!

PS, diatomaceous earth is amazing stuff!!!! So many uses, and yes, as gross as it sounds, people eat it for health purposes. I used it to get rid of a caterpillar infestation at an apartment several years ago. My brother told me about it and told me his friend also took it to lower his blood pressure! These days, I have drying mats made out of them that I use for my dishes and for the bath/shower.

This book started off feeling like it'd be a 5 star read then slowly went downhill until it reached an unsatisfying ending.

Something fantastic about this book was the authors ability to create an intense feeling of isolation in New York City. The setting is fantastic - so ominous. Our FMC is in a wheelchair which I thought was quite clever as it added to her isolation. The pacing was also quite good. The author didn't reveal too much too quickly. There were quite a few genuinely scary and unsettling moments!

There are a few issues with this book and Id say the one that struck me the most is that I didn't feel like the author didn't really capture parental love well in his writing. The FMC had basically no maternal instincts. This isn't entirely a spoiler but

the FMC is resentful towards her baby because a very difficult birth left her disabled in a wheelchair. I thought this added an interesting dynamic but my problem is that I think that was a character flaw that she should have overcome by the end of the story. It kind of seems like she will but she doesn't

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The reveal of what's happening felt a little too much like an info dump after a nice slow build. I didn't like that in the end

the dad, who has been a mostly great dad for the whole book decides that he should just let the vampire gargoyle leech people have his baby. Why have him searching so desperately for a way out just to make him change his mind about it in a whim then kill him off. Also the wife didn't seem traumatized enough by basically killing her husband. Her whole world fell apart and she just seems fine at the end. So dumb.

I hated Frank. More specifically, I hated that frank existed as a character. He feels like he was inserted for political reasons because the author wanted to write about a stereotypical far right extremist but he genuinely added nothing to the story. I think it actually would have been more effective if

instead of being a horrible ex landlord who wants revenge of the couple for moving out and damaging his apartment, he instead was an excellent nice landlord who was seeking the couple out to return some belongings they left behind. What happens is he goes to their apartment to kill them because the dad swore at him, the couple is Jewish, and Frank is a bad person. Then he immediately gets killed by the monsters at the same time the FMC is trying to escape elthe building. What's the point? If he was a nice neighbor, he could have helped the FMC escape and then his death would have had a huge emotional impact.

Anyways, I get annoyed when it feels like authors are trying to hard to insert a political message that didn't fit naturally into the story. One more thing that bothers me is that

after the physical therapy woman gets killed/ goes missing (which was a great scene, by the way. Truly spooky), why the fuck did no one reach out to the FMC? Her coworkers would have known that was the last place she was working. Does no one notice this lady missing?

Can we also talk about how the history of the building is shrouded in mystery, but for some reason every delivery or Uber eats employee refuses to enter the building? Why do door dash employees seem to know it's a bad place but no one else seems to know?!