I read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This story is dark. How dark? Well, I’m not a fan of trigger warnings. I actually make a point of skipping them because I find they act as spoilers to my reading experience. I like to go in blind. However, when I hit some areas of His Notes that would clearly have warranted trigger warnings, I went straight to the front of the story to check what exactly author Wolff wrote in regards to triggers a reader might come across in her story, because… Whew! And I’m not referencing the kink readers encounter at the onset of the story. No. lol This story drags the reader down a dark alley, and all sorts of crazy stuff happens there. I don’t mean paranormal, or fantastical science fiction stuff, either. I mean dark, gritty, violent, human-inspired cruelty with descriptive language and detailed scenes that evoke images, and even revolting smells, in the reader’s imagination. There’s no comfort in Caspar the Friendly Ghost committing these crimes. There’s no invented science fiction as the cause for suffering here. This horror feels real because the perpetrators feel real. Here’s a quote from His Notes that explains what I mean:
“Monsters are everywhere in the world, they are not even hiding because they look like
you and me. They live on our street and work next to us in the office. They sit next to
us on public transportation and pay their supermarket bills like everyone else. They
stalk us on our social media, like our comments and photos, and they spy on us from
cameras we never knew were there. They look inside our houses from the outside and
sometimes they are even our relatives, people we grow up with, never knowing the
little dirty things they do when no one is looking. Because that’s the thing about real-
life monsters, they don’t necessarily really look scary to the eye, or have something so
clear on their faces that tell us they are there to make us suffer. Oh no, real monsters
hide in plain sight, they are also those degenerate mothers and fathers, abusive
brothers and sisters, and people who you would never expect to be the ones
responsible for the suffering to come. Real monsters look like everyday people. That’s
why they are so scary.”
Did author Wolff go too far in writing her story? No. She just went. She told her dark story and she showed no sympathy for the reader who turned a page in her book and entered into a nightmare of violence. And why should she, anyway? She’s an artist who uses words to create her art. She’s self-publishing her art and writing and editing it in her second language. (Keep that in mind when you encounter a minor error or two.) Can’t all be ‘beach reads’ or ‘holiday reads’ or have romance tropes to make you swoon. This is something different. This is something with anger.
While reading some of the more shocking scenes in His Notes, I remembered watching Season 2 of American Horror Story. Yeah, remember that season? That was intense! Here’s something else about His Notes, I didn’t guess the ending. I was all over the map about what was going on. The breadcrumbs were there, but my mind kept living in the moments I was reading, hardly having time to ponder what the ending would reveal. If you’re looking for very dark story written by an author who isn’t overly concerned about dragging you through hell, definitely pick up a copy His Notes.