 Hello and welcome back to my channel! If you missed my recent community post, you may be wondering where I've been over the last month and the short answer is I don't feel it's right for me to update on the current season of American Horror Story in the way that I usually do while this unprecedented double strike is affecting so many people's lives and livelihoods in the film industry, including the very people that work on American Horror Story. And while in this video I am giving you my spoiler free review of Danielle Valentine's latest novel entitled Delicate Condition and while this is the source material for the upcoming season, I will strictly be talking about the book and I won't speculate how this book may be translated onto screen. With that being said, if you want to support these writers and actors and other people in the film industry who are striking or are out of work because of the strikes, there are some resources in the description of this video. Once these strikes are over though, I am eager to discuss this book in all of that full context so don't worry, we're just going to have to wait just a little bit longer. All right, with those disclaimers out of the way, let's talk all things Delicate Condition, no spoilers of course. The premise is Anna Alcott, an on-the-rise actress, has been struggling to conceive a child with her partner Dex through IVF, but when her luck seems to flip around and she's with child, some very strange and sinister things begin to happen. Her appointments are being messed with in her phone, a stranger sneaks into her bed and wraps their arms around her, and she is convinced she's being followed. The cover of the book boasts this as the feminist update to Rosemary's Baby we all needed, and while I initially turned my cheek at that quote as Ira Levin's novel Rosemary's Baby is what I would call a feminist story to begin with, especially for the time that it was published in 1967, I actually ended up agreeing with this quote all things considered and seeing what they meant by that. But the Rosemary's Baby parallels are undeniable, in fact for about half of this book I found myself wondering how this would deviate from the path set by Rosemary's Baby. For some parts of it, it felt like a modern retelling of Rosemary's Baby rather than a reimagining. That being said, Delicate Condition really comes into its own around the halfway mark, and at that point the book got very hard for me to put down. And by no means am I saying that Delicate Condition ended up being a retelling of Rosemary's Baby as that is far from the case. Like all good mysteries, this book doesn't show you all of its cards until very late in the game, and the intense build up led to some very satisfying payoffs in those final chapters. I enjoy reading, but rarely does a book make me want to sit down with it all day so I can know all of its secrets, and that's exactly how I felt with Delicate Condition. When I finally relished in that sweet satisfaction of the mystery being uncovered at the end of the book, I found myself genuinely impressed with how well Danielle Valentine was able to present the reader with many possible solutions to the mystery of Anna's unordinary pregnancy. I will say that I was entertaining multiple possibilities in my mind about what the true source of all Anna's issues were going to turn out to be while I was reading it, and I did call some very large parts of the revelations very early in the story. But by the time I was at the ending, the author had convinced me that my own theories were a little far-fetched, and that's another thing as this novel is written in first person from Anna's perspective, we follow her as she tries to piece everything together, and we join her as she goes down the wrong paths and gets convinced of truths that aren't actually all that true when all is said and done. Danielle Valentine messes with the reader's mind as much as Anna's mind was being messed with, and for good reason, into such great effect. I said I had called part of the ending, but that doesn't mean that the ending is not shocking. The pieces I put together in the beginning were among many other pieces that Danielle Valentine wanted us to connect, and a lot of them turned out to be red herrings. I am a bit obsessed with how this book ends, so that's why I'm dwelling on it a bit, but let me digress as I'm sure it's frustrating to hear me talk about the ending if you haven't read it, and trust me, there's a lot more to love about this book than how it ends. The characters in this book are very fun, but my favorites are of course Anna, but also Io Preacher, Chauvin, and the haunting and elusive Meg. For a good chunk of the book in the middle, Anna is very isolated, and we don't really get too many scenes where she isn't alone with her thoughts. This is effective in portraying how alone and lost Anna felt during this time, but I think we could have used a couple extra scenes around this point in the book to flesh out some of those side characters. As aside from a very select few, we don't learn much about these minor or recurring characters' lives or their desires. I only say that because we are presented with such a large array of interesting characters, and for most of the book, we're really only with Anna and Dex, and I still would like to know some of these other characters' stories. That being said, another area where delicate condition really shines is in its flashback chapters. Throughout the book, there are a handful of short flashbacks to some very drastically different time periods, and in each of these flashbacks we get a small peek into some brand new characters, each going through something with some sort of parallel to what is going on with Anna. I think these flashbacks do a great job at fleshing out the story world and the wider universe of these characters, and I really enjoyed figuring out just how these flashbacks would inform our main story. Now before I leave you, I also want to touch on how great the horror is in this book. When you least expect it, Danielle Valentine slaps you across the face with some of the most intense mental images your mind will ever create. From home invasions, grotesque body horror, and eerie surveillance footage, I was literally like James Mariston in that one scene from jury duty at a handful of the horror sequences in this book. All in all, I read delicate condition over this span of six days, and I had a complete blast. If you're looking for something fun, disturbing, and immensely satisfying, definitely check out delicate condition wherever books are sold. If you're a fan of this channel, I definitely think this book is up your alley and a worthwhile read. I'm excited to hear what you guys have to say about delicate condition in the comments below. Let's just try to keep it spoiler free because for those who haven't read it, I really think you should experience all of its twists and turns for yourself. Thank you guys for watching. I have some more horror content coming your way very soon, like videos on The Hills Have Eyes and Suspiria, as those are films that are some of my favorites, but they're also not produced by any of the AMPTP studios and thus are not struck work by any means of the definition. I also am starting a second channel for times like these where there's too much crazy shit going on in the world and I just want to talk about Drag Race or Big Brother, so go over there and subscribe and hit that bell notification if you're into that. And with that, I will see you guys next time. Thank you guys so much for watching.