This horror novel follows multiple characters in a small town and the events that surround the town's funeral home. The events of the book kick off with Pris, a 50 year old single woman, who has developed overtime a hoarding tendency in her home. Note: Pris is never formally diagnosed, but her friend does mention her home turning into a hoarder's house. Pris's dog, Weenie, starts bringing home unexpected finds from the funeral home and cemetery next door. We also follow funeral director Gerald and his two employees as he tries to keep his unconventional business practices under wraps. Small town domestic life gets a horrific spin in this story and everything connects back to Sommerville Funeral Home.
TW/CW: necrophilia, hoarding, gore, cheating
This book was only 224 pages, but it sure managed to pack a lot into a relatively small space. I think a lot of my issues with the book could have been alleviated if we had about 100 more pages, but I still liked this book a good amount. The main issue I think could have been fixed with a longer page count is the telling vs showing. During the beginning 20% or so, when we are being introduced to all the different characters, there is a lot of telling in the narrative. This makes sense from an outside perspective because we have a lot of information we need to know about these characters and very few pages in which to get that information to the reader. However, I think the overall narrative would have been greatly improved if the book was longer and we were able to get some more showing to find out aspects of these characters. Even if the page count were to remain the same, I still think we could have traded off some of the telling portions for more showing. For example, we know from the get-go that Pris has a hoarding problem because we are told a description of her home and how cluttered and, in places, dirty it is. However, I think it would have been a lot more impactful if we were to have a quick few lines showing maybe Pris coming home from work and accidentally knocking over a few piles as she tries to squeeze down the path in the living room.
I really liked the characters in this story - I thought they were all interesting and complex. I really liked how the characters were older which I think is just a perspective that we don't get a whole lot at least in the books I usually pick up. Pris is described in the book's summary as being middle-aged and I was really expecting her to be like 35ish so I was pleasantly surprised when she was 50. I also loved her friendship with Wanda and Kelly and how supportive the women were of each other. Especially how Wanda kept trying to help Pris even with Pris didn't want to be friends anymore. The men of the book - Gerald the funeral director, Ethan who is Kelly's husband, and Bruce the necrophiliac funeral home worker - are unique in their own ways. I do wish we would have gotten more of all the characters interacting more before the main events of the book kicked off especially since it is a small town. I think that could have been a good way to get some extra characterization in, especially if there were tensions already there for other reasons. I thought Pris was a very sympathetic character and her hoarding was handled pretty sensitively. I can't speak to the representation of a hoarder or living in a hoarding situation, but from what I've seen and read in other books this was right along the same lines. Later in the story, we do get a bit of detail into Pris and the way her mind works to somewhat explain how her home got to this state. I think the most powerful part was how helpful and accepting her friends were when she was struggling.
Plot wise, there was just a bit too much happening in such a short amount of pages for me to really feel satisfied with how things turned out. It was almost like once we got started, the book was wrapping up. I normally reach for books that are at least 300 pages but 400ish seems to be my personal sweet spot for thrillers, specifically. Since I don't normally read shorter fiction, this might be 100% a me-issue, but I had an issue with the pacing. This book felt like the first half of a really solid thriller. We get a good amount of set up, some initial conflicts that build tension and throw other plot points into action, and then there's a big event that ends up as the catalyst for all the different plot threads to come together. The 'big event' happened around the 75% mark in this book and the story wrapped up pretty quickly from that point. I was expecting to have to sit in the consequences of that event for longer, see how characters might initially try to deal with the fall out. I think the general pacing out of the different events was good for most of the story but it just felt rushed and cleared up too quickly. In my opinion, I think not having the characters sit in this reality more really put a bit of a damper on the potential character development and conflict that the story could have had.
Finally, let's talk about the horror aspects. For me, this book was a pretty good level of gore but I was surprised there wasn't more. I know everyone has their own limits to horror, especially gore, but I felt this was a pretty mainstream level of gore that I think most readers would be okay with. The descriptions were short and to the point and almost clinical in nature which was interesting. I think because of these descriptions of the more gore heavy elements, the part that actually grossed me out the most was the descriptions of Pris's living situation. This could just be me, but reading about mice running around and Pris's dirty bathrooms grossed me out significantly more than partially decomposed bodies (but again, I think mileage may vary on that point). Now onto the sort of elephant in the room - the necrophilia. We aren't given any real sort of reason behind why Bruce does the things he does to the bodies - it almost comes across as just a thing he does. The necrophilia is on-page and I believe there are about 4 very short scenes where, again, the description is very clinical. Obviously, necrophilia is a very taboo subject and I didn't feel like it was glorified or glamorized in any way. I do wish we would have gotten some more explanation in to Bruce's feelings or maybe how this all started for him, but there just wasn't enough book to explore all that. It almost felt like it was added in as a plot device simply to further the story (Bruce needed to have a reason to be alone with a body late at night for certain plot events to happen). Because of this and because of the types of descriptions we get of these scenes, it would be pretty easy for a reader to skip over these mentions if they wanted to and it wouldn't cause them to lose out on any of the other plot points in the book.
Overall, a pretty good horror book for me. I didn't find it any more horrifying or gory than a slasher movie or episode of a show like Criminal Minds. I like the characters and thought the plot was really good at ramping up the tension. However, I think the book was trying to do just a big too much in the low page count and I think it could have been much more successful with around another 100 pages added in.
Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the ARC in exchange for review.
Publication date was April 21, 2019
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