Review: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

TW/CW: Animal abuse, animal death, child murder, grooming,

 

I finished reading this story on June 2^nd, and have sat here for the past 2 months and wondered repeatedly to myself, “Wtf did I just read?” In Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Eric LaRocca has written a story unlike any I have ever read before, and probably will never read again. Just kidding, I’m totally reading this again.

In just 102 pages containing a few emails and instant messenger conversations, LaRocca built a story that started out as one human being helping another human being who was going through a rough time and quickly turned into a person giving up their freedom, autonomy, and safety to a stranger. Voluntarily at that! The dynamic between Agnes and Zoe ramps up to pure madness. We know from the very beginning how Agnes’s story will turn out, but getting to the how and why is brutal and harrowing.

I read Eric’s first novella, Starving Ghosts in Every Thread, and would have begged to review this book if I had to. LaRocca’s prose while exquisite, has a way of chilling me and digging down into my brain and camping out. While I thought the first book was also beautiful and unsettling, I clearly had no clue what was to come next.

 

Highly, highly, highly recommended

5/5 Stars

 

Thanks to the author and his publisher Weird Punk Books for providing me with a eARC of this novella to read and review. I have also purchased a copy of this novel at my own costs from Amazon. All thoughts and opinions are my own.