This is a frustrating one, because I think what it does well is really speak to how the crisis of the pandemic made all of us excruciatingly, frustratingly, devastatingly more OURSELVES yet also made us different people entirely. I also sincerely did not reread any of the flap copy or glance at the blurbs before diving in, so once I picked it up, I was going in blind, which is not how I typically go into books. About halfway through, as I was getting frustrated with the pacing, I did read the blurbs, and from the "no spoilers" line I immediately began running my brain through what a spoiler might be, and then I guessed nearly on the money but somehow less so because what I guessed was more pedestrian and horror movie than what it turned out to be, which was not horror movie at all but also somehow extremely worse than my guess, somehow? That got me to finish the book faster, which is good, because it's the kind of book you really don't want to be inside for a long time.

I guess I think it's too early for pandemic books even now, because I was staunchly against pandemic books (aside from picture book explainers for children) three years ago and it still feels too soon now.

I also have a problem with books and horror movies that deal with adoption or foster care as a device to explore non-adoptee, non-foster child psyches and psychosis and neuroses and shit, because I find the pretty much every author or screenwriter who writes the stuff tends to be someone with absolutely no real world experience or connection to actual adoption or foster care, and as an adoptee I find it extremely off-putting, disrespectful, and unethical, so while people who don't know shit about that world might just find this an interesting psychological exploration, I'm combination not into pandemic literature and also personally offended when people decide to capitalize on marginalized experiences they know nothing the fuck about to do a little thought experiment about something hardly even connected to the marginalized experience they're stealing, and if it seems like I'm digressing a bit and yelling at, say, James Wan instead of the author of this book, sure, maybe a little, but I'm also pointing a finger at the author of this book.