Small town America with religious trauma on one hand and homophobia on the other. 

This short novel consists of two narratives running parallel and they don't intersect until the very end. One story veers heavily into the supernatural with magic and spirits, while the other is more on the thriller side and deals with unfortunately very real-world violence. 

Both POV characters deal with trauma and call themselves "monsters" for different reasons, but really, there's nothing disturbing about these guys compared to some of LaRocca's other characters. There is also a tenuous link around having children, which to be honest seemed forced into Malik's story just to have that parallel with Ghost, as it was dropped almost immediately. I enjoyed each character's story on their own for the most part, but there wasn't anything to link them together and there should have been to justify this being a standalone novel.

There is plenty of violence throughout, and one *TW*

on-page rape scene leading to off-page gang rape

. However, the chapters are extremely short so nothing has particular time to linger. 

This wasn't as disturbing as some of LaRocca's other short stories, but it was a quick read and I still enjoyed my time with it.