First off, I am not a horror reader so there was a pretty good chance going in that I was not going to love this as dearly as I have loved other books. I basically wanted to push myself to read outside of my box and wondered if I might surprise myself. I did not. That being said, a lot of my issues with this book were not genre-specific. I managed to read through the first story from beginning to end. It was written as a series of e-mails and instant messages which is a narrative style I generally dislike because it never feels very immersive to me - too much tell, not enough show. The story though, I honestly do not know what to make of it. What was I supposed to feel (other than queasy)? Is it a psychological mind fuck with a nod toward the unhealthy aspects of quickly formed online attachments? Was it some sort of commentary on so-called "breeder" types? The relationship between the two characters, who never actually meet, is break-neck quick and it doesn't, in my opinion, develop with enough realistic sincerity for me to understand the grisly ending. Without spoiling the story, I can't get into specifics so I will just say that maybe the end was inevitable but the method and all the madness leading up to it, it does not compute. I started on the second story and within the first 10-15 pages I knew where it was going and completely lost interest. A quick Google search determined it was going exactly where I thought it was. To which I ask, does Eric LaRocca have a thing for crucifixion? What is going on there?  Actually, elements of the first story were kind of predictable, too.

From the moment Zoe asks what Agnes has done to deserve her eyes today, I knew she was going to lose her eyes at some point. I did not know when or how, but I knew it was going to happen.

There was not much subtlety in the half of this book I did read. Long story short, horror maybe isn't for me. This book definitely wasn't for me.