This was so good! It’s chilling though, especially if you had narcissistic or abusive relationships/parents. I was lost for a bit but glad I stuck it out. Highly recommend starting off with your analytical brain turned off and just going with the flow.

 

Energy: Biting. Insightful. Peculiar. 

 

The atmosphere and setting. Symbolism and commentary. How believing that all people are inherently good often allows the worst ones to thrive. The dry, understated tone. The writing and narration style.  How it captured that eerie dissonance when you grow up and realize the narrative you were told by someone you trusted was a lie or isn’t the full story.

 

Scene: 🇺🇸 Set in a Victorian mansion in Pennsylvania.

Perspective: We mostly follow a 16-year-old trapped in their large home with their father, aunt, and younger brother. Their mother, a punk rock musician, watches them from a series of tubes when given permission to by the father. 

We also get snippets of song lyrics, stage play script, and a diary of home movies written by our main character, and post cards received from their mother while on tour. Oh and an omniscient rat. 

Timeline: 🍂❄️September 2024 - March 2025).  Also get home movies from 1999 to 2025

🔥 Fuel: Emotional investment in MC and the family dynamics. World building and atmospheric tension. Catharsis and nostalgia. Almost all of this is mysterious but gets solved along the way as we come to understand things.

📖 Cred: Surreal hyper-realism

 

Applesauce day. Woodsmoke. Crisp air. Blizzard light. Pneumatics. Systems. Bathroom eyeliner conversation. Board game night. Suitors.  

 

Content Heads-Up: Pandemic, COVID-19 (lockdown, remote learning, recall; anxieties). Controlling, toxic family members (covert narcissism, gaslighting, emotional abuse, triangulation, enabling substance abuse). Domestic abuse (psychological, emotional incest, physical violence). Abuse from child (toward parent; violence, name calling, hatred). Financial insecurity. Infidelity. Alcohol, alcoholism (underage drinking; intoxication and addiction). Attempted rape, drugging (implied). Sexual harassment (unwanted, aggressive advances). Sibling abuse (recall; brief, off page). Patriarchy (generational effects, systems). Overdose/suicide attempt (discovered; on page). War crimes and trauma, refugees (brief recall). 

 

Rep: American. Serbian American. Cis. Non-binary. Hetero. Lesbian. Pale, porcelain, and dark skin tones.

 

📚 Format: Library Digital