 Hello children! Hello, I am Julia from the future. I'm going to kind of be your master of ceremonies for this video because I fully finished filming and got most of the way through editing and then realized that I never filmed an intro or an outro and there's some other stuff that I wanted to say so you will be seeing me again. So I don't know if you've noticed that horror is kind of my entire personality but it is and so when I'm looking for a book that's gonna keep my attention I often look towards creepy or disturbing things. So when I'm online and I hear someone recommend a book that's very disturbing I look it up to see some reviews see if I'll maybe like it but it happens so often that the reviews for these disturbing books don't review the book. The reviews end up boiling down to just this book is so disturbing this fucked up thing happens in it and then this fucked up thing happens and oh my god and then this fucked and then by the end of it I know nothing about if this book is going to be a fit for me. All I know is that the book is disturbing which I knew already because why else would I be googling it. So I decided to start a series called Disturbing Book Reviews. I'm hoping to give these books an actual fair review which I feel like just by their nature of covering taboo topics they're they're just doomed to never get and I don't think that's fair. So if you can think of some horror books or books that you find disturbing comment them and I might review them in a future video. Anyway the premise of this video that I did not set up or introduce it all is that I'm going to be doing my makeup while reviewing two disturbing books. And the first book that I'll be reviewing is... Do you want to be in the video? Bebo. Oh shit. Hero. Oh this is unrelated to the book or the video or anything. I just want to talk about this somewhere. Recently an account on Instagram who I don't know I've never interacted with them sent me a DM and told me that I look like Kyle Rittenhouse when I'm not wearing makeup. That was humbling. I'm gonna be real that gave me a lot to think about. So things have gotten worse is set in the early days of the internet when everything was still like I ams and chat rooms and stuff. It's about two gay women who meet over kind of like an eBay transaction and form a relationship that then escalates into something said a masochistic and very fucked up. Oh and be sure to comment about how pulling on my skin is gonna give me wrinkles and that's a bad thing because a woman is only worth anything when she's youthful. There's a lot of discourse surrounding this book for a lot of reasons. I'm only gonna touch on a couple things because it's not relevant to the actual quality of the book. Some people are upset because it's a book about a gay relationship but the relationship is very abusive and fucked up and it's portraying gay people in a negative light. I personally disagree with that for a few reasons. One is because it's very clear that the author is critical of the relationship. He's not portraying it as a good thing. I'm speaking as someone in the LGBT community. If we want more gay representation in media that means sometimes there's going to be gay characters who are really fucking bad people and that's fine. Like you know it's reality. Some gay people are fucking awful exhibit A. Also there's so many books about messed up straight relationships and it's like that's fine as long as it's like looked at with a critical eye I don't see anything wrong with that. Now that I'm done passionately defending this book I'm going to talk about why I did not like this book. Okay now I'm not gonna be a hater right off the bat. Let's start with the stuff that I liked about the book. If there's one thing that the author is really good at it's voice and characterization. Initially because of the format of the book I was worried I would have trouble following along because it's formatted like a chat room. Like it's not their names it's their user names and stuff I was worried I wouldn't be able to tell who is who but that was not a problem at all. Both the characters have such distinct voices that by like a little ways in I didn't even have to look at their user names to know who was who. Zoe speaks in a very like professional to the point way you can tell that she's older whereas Agnes speaks with a lot more energy and emotion which is also relevant to their characters it's who they are. I think the author did a fucking great job at establishing who they were without having to say that much. Another thing the author is very good at is he's great at giving descriptions. He's great at making you feel like you're there or seeing what people are talking about and that's a good thing because as we're gonna get into there's a lot of that in this book. Another positive I know this isn't about the writing but I think the cover is gorgeous. This is one of the few books where I think the cover is perfect for the story and I think it like enhances it. It's also just cool. It's beautiful artwork. Now that I look like a silly little clown let's talk about some of my criticisms. I truly think this book's biggest weakness is just its length. It's so short. I was able to read it in a couple hours and definitely kept my attention the whole time but it's because it's so short it means that all the events just kind of happen in really rapid succession without much buildup between them. This rapid fire pacing kind of results in the book losing some of the suspense because things just happen so quickly and you're just kind of holding on for dear life trying to keep up. It also results in a few moments that should have been really impactful for how creepy they were being funny because it feels like they just come out of fucking nowhere. So for some more context Zoey and Agnes get into a relationship and Zoey reveals to Agnes that her fantasy her sexual romantic whatever fantasy is to have complete control over someone as in she would take care of them they would never pay rent they would never worry about anything she would buy them all that they need but in return they have to be completely obedient to her including giving her like access to their bank account and all of their information so that they are truly at her mercy. Again that's a really fucking cool idea and you can see so much potential about like seeing a relationship go downhill of this terrifying power play but because the pacing is so fast it loses a lot of the building dread like once they're in this established subdom relationship um Zoey gives Agnes like assignments the first assignment she gives Agnes is take your panties off and leave them in a public rest room where everyone can see them you know just like some sexy little exhibition thing like ooh what if i get caught um her next assignment is go to the park find a salamander and then crush it to death with a rock. I remember when I got to that part I literally laughed out loud it's like this moment should have invoked so much dread about like oh my gosh the person in control is actually really fucked up but instead I was like where the hell did that come from? Like Zoey's character goes from being a fairly normal person a little eccentric she has an unusual fetish to like a week later a full-on psychopath demanding that someone kills a small animal for her pleasure and then like 50 pages later she's the voice of reason she's like this relationship is unhealthy we shouldn't do this but no shit you fucking weirdo I'm not saying that the killing animals part shouldn't have been in it I just think that if you're going to have a character demand something like that it kind of explain why they want that I don't know it happens so fast and so out of nowhere that it's like another one of the bigger problems I have with this book is it does this thing kind of a lot where it like bring up an idea discuss it in detail and then move on and never fucking talk about it again when you're reading these things it feels significant because like why are they spending multiple pages describing this event this must have something to do it must be a metaphor for their relationship it must come back later in the story and it just never really does here are just a few examples of that the tie burial thing at one point uh Zoey talks in depth about a thing she saw on the travel channel about how you can go to Thailand and simulate your own funeral that never shows up again baby christ little christ or whatever agnes tells a really long story about a thing she saw on tv about a baby that got killed by his older brother I don't fucking know the zoo story at one point agnes tells a story about a back in college um she went to the zoo and saw a rabbit give birth and then eat its babies good good to know uh the cat and the priest the priest and the cat whatever agnes tells another story about how one time she saw a priest run over a cat in his car and she was sad about that awesome thanks because it happens so much it feels like this book is just built on red herrings like subverting your expectations like you thought you thought we were talking about something important but we're not and also like maybe i'm just too stupid to understand how these things are relevant to the story but i i've read this book multiple times now and i just i can't get it it just makes me feel like a large portion of this book's very limited uh length is wasted so the pace of this book it goes back and forth between just zooming through really cool story ideas and then just slamming to a halt to spend several pages describing something that isn't relevant or maybe again maybe it is relevant maybe i'm done all in all would i recommend this book um i don't know if you're curious about it check it out if you can handle these trigger warning things then check it out see what you think about it let me know did i miss something i want to hear what other people think i don't hate this book it's very interesting and intriguing i just wish that it had taken its time more one thing that i know for absolute certain is i want to see more from this author when they come out with more stuff i will absolutely read it because he has real talent real talent and i want to see more of it i just hope he learns and grows from this next let's talk about dead inside um there's no way that i can really describe the premise of this book without sounding like i'm trying to be shocking on purpose so i'm just gonna say exactly what it is dead inside is the story of a necrophiliac who works as a security guard in a hospital so he can have sex with the dead bodies in the morgue who forms an unlikely friendship with a maternity ward doctor who is addicted to eating dead babies are we all good are we all good to move on okay now from that description you might think this book is just a lazy gore shock fest at at times it is yeah but there's also a lot more there so to start off with things that i like this author is great at characterization specifically the narrator our protagonist his voice is just awesome he's an asshole he has no empathy he has no emotion he has no love for anyone he's completely unapologetic in his heartlessness and in his crimes and lifestyle choices and it's so entertaining like not only is he completely unapologetic about his love for having sex with dead bodies but he believes that it makes him superior to other people it's fucking hilarious he's kind of like the embodiment or the patron saint of those people who are like i'm different and that makes me better i'm desensitized i'm dark i'm oh i'm not like other people i never once got tired of his voice and i was never once confused by his actions he's a very consistent and well-written character and i really like that another awesomely written character in this book is helen the cannibalistic maternity ward doctor who is a complete perfect foil to the protagonist unlike the narrator she is apologetic for what she does she is remorseful she is ashamed she has worked so hard to try to fit into society she is a well-respected member of the community she has friends she lives in an affluent neighborhood she has a successful career but she just can't stop eating babies this results in a lot of actually really engaging and thought-provoking dialogue this book is at its best when it's just conversations between these two discussing their outlook on life discussing their opinions of themselves and of the society that surrounds them the narrator encourages helen to just give up on being normal of fuck society and be a freak recluse like him whereas helen as a friendship begins to form between these two urges him to accept that he's human accept that he can find joy in things other than death he can have friends he can be happy as their relationship progresses and the narrator realizes that he likes helen like he doesn't hate her he enjoys her company he like panics because this means that his entire identity this whole persona that he built for himself isn't real see i told you this wasn't just going to be a cheap gore fest there's that when you give a book a chance there's actually some really cool stuff in it i would recommend this book um with the huge caveat of if you can handle very descriptive scenes of necrophilia also i want to give a specific warning that there is a scene at one point where um you know that one scene in serbian film that got cut from most versions of it there's a scene of that except it's not cut it's very graphically described hello future julia i told you we'd meet again i just wanted to pop in here and address something that is both relevant to dead inside and is going to be relevant to other disturbing books that i might review in the future i was talking to my friend about the premise of this video and i got to the part where i brought up that i give dead inside a good review because spoilers i enjoyed the book and they were like oh okay just be careful i mean won't people find it kind of iffy that you're talking about how much you love a book about like necrophilia so let's talk about this let's talk about enjoying the media with taboo subject matter i want to establish that first of all i go into every video that i make operating under the assumption that my audience are intelligent adults who are capable of critical thinking and able to come to their own conclusions without me spoon feeding it to them i mean obviously you guys are intelligent you have to have a very high IQ to understand my videos second of all i hate the mindset that liking a piece of media means that you have to like the subject matter and i feel like i shouldn't have to spell this out but this is a mindset that a lot of people have you like american psycho so you like murdering people you like the godfather while are you aware that the mafia is bad i think that this mindset aside from just being annoying really throws away a lot of the work that authors put into their writing taking everything at such face value disregards the possibility that an author was using sarcasm or satire to criticize the characters through their actions or there might be an unreliable narrator in fact at least for me these fucked up characters make for some of the most engaging stories i've ever read it challenges the reader to see the world through the eyes of someone who thinks nothing like them i think that's fascinating if you disagree with my review of dead inside that's perfectly fine you don't have to agree with everything i say but if you use my review as evidence that i am a necrophiliac you i i don't know what to tell you go ahead think that about me i don't care anymore anyway a little rant over back to the review now contrary to how i sound right now i don't think that this book is perfect i do have some criticisms with it um my main one is that i don't like how it ended i feel that the ending was disappointing and unsatisfying and predictable kind of because like i said the best part of this book or at least my favorite part is uh the conversations that it has the way it looks at taboo and society and you see these characters getting their ideologies questioned and they're put into places where they actually have to like look and think and change things about themselves and then in the ending i feel like all of that all those really cool ideas just kind of fell away and they weren't really used the main character kind of just went back to being exactly who he was at the beginning of the book and maybe that's what the author intended you know maybe this is just supposed to be a very bleak story about how you are what you are and you're never gonna change like here there's no chance of becoming a different person if that was the intention then kudos i guess you succeeded made me frown also the twist or i don't know reveal whatever i'm using that term very loosely because i i think anyone could see it coming basically at one point a little over halfway through the book this one character very minor character gets introduced and as soon as he gets introduced i'm like okay i know exactly how the story is going to go from here and i was right it happened exactly the way that i predicted so yeah i don't know i didn't love that um i found that kind of cringe despite not liking the ending i honestly think that didn't really ruin the book for me because i went back and reread it for this video and i still enjoyed it so would i recommend this book honestly i think yeah if you can handle graphic descriptions of these things i think it's a very dark and entertaining way to have a very intriguing conversation that i feel like a lot of people don't have that's all i really had planned to talk about um i'm gonna review those two so uh for the rest of the video it's gonna be you and auntie julia having a little chit chat right i love you ben how's school mmm yeah make any new friends wizard have you guys seen squid game i know i'm like super fucking late to that conversation but squid game hi ghost of christmas future back again i never filmed an outro for this video i also never filmed the final makeup look that i was doing for the whole video so you're never going to see that and if you're asking julia how could you have made such a large oversight like that um the answer is that i'm a bad youtuber