Cute Aggression

by Emily Lynn

In a quiet town in Thailand, a schoolgirl’s strange obsession with her teacher is festering.The nameless schoolgirl can’t stop thinking about her kind, young history teacher. But her fixation on him isn’t an ordinary teenage crush. She doesn’t want to be with him the way the other girls do. She wants to have him the way one wants a pet.On the last day of the term, she abducts Teacher and keeps him strung up in the attic apartment above the one she and her half deaf-mother live in. The excitement of finally acquiring him, however, is short-lived. The botched abduction has harmed Teacher. As his days of captivity go by, he continues to deteriorate. Her desperate attempts to fix him soon devolve into acts of cruelty as she finds herself confronted by what drove her to obsess over him in the first place.

Genres: Horror

152 pages, Paperback

Published April 5, 2024

Reviews

[✮ osanna aoki ✮ · Rating 4 out of 5]

She liked him the way a girl likes the posters on her wall, the singers in her favorite band, the actors on her TV. He was someone she could look at, but someone who wasn’t meant to look back at her.

This is a story of deranged obsession. An obsession so deep— that a young schoolgirl believes her only reason for existence is to see Teacher.

And at sixteen years old, she’s tired of just spying on Teacher. After four years of snooping and incessant voyeurism— our unnamed student would like to acquire him.

Keep him as a pet, maybe?

So on the last day of the school term, she beats him with a hammer into unconsciousness and holds him hostage in the vacant attic apartment above the one she shares with her mother.

But in the span of just a few days— things begin to go wrong. Our depraved schoolgirl’s obsession begins to dwindle as she realizes Teacher is more than his pristine beauty— but a human in a state of absolute suffering. A human with a body that is capable of obtaining extreme wounds, can bleed and ooze, urinate and vomit, slip in and out of consciousness… and rot. With the condition Teacher is put in by this student, he’s alive— but decaying before her eyes.

He is just a pile of meat.

And as schoolgirl realizes this, her obsession becomes something like disgust mixed with anger. She begins to make things worse— losing her mind and resorting to excruciating violence when she recognizes Teacher is no longer the perfect pet.

When reading books on obsession, you often don’t get a plot where the obsessor eventually falls out of their constant preoccupation. I thought it was very creative of Emily Lynn to take a common trope in horror and spin it. You get to watch the main character dwindle and spiral— contemplating with herself while at the same time, torturing an innocent victim.

At first, I wasn’t into the writing style. But as the book progressed, I got into it more. The story really took off.

It’s a fairly vivid read— and has many descriptive body horror elements. I thought those scenes were written well, and at times it made me feel pretty disgusted. Great job there, for sure!

I’m definitely an Emily Lynn fan now, and I’m looking forward to more in the future. ★ ★ ★ ★ out of five stars for me.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

This debut needs way more of an audience. This is a disturbing well written novella about a Sociopath set in Thailand. Warning: This is a very graphic story.

[Andersen Prunty · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing debut. Smart, dark, and profoundly disturbing.

[Avalon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first time reading a book in this genre and it was so good! The writing was so descriptive and vivid I had to take a break at times. This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole way through!

[Amiste Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn’t put this book down. The slow disconnection from her obsession was fascinating to watch play out. I felt tense throughout the entire book. Absolute madness. Loved it. Can’t wait to read more by Emily!

[Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very imaginative plot. Amazing and difficult book to write. Throughout the novel, Lynn. describes what the main character, a disturbed teenage girl, is experiencing as she carries out her horrific, yet, strangely enough, well meaning acts. It is definitely a page turner and , since it's only around 150 pages, it can be easily read in one or two sittings.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading this was so stressful but it is so well-written and intriguing that I had to keep turning the page. The things poor Teacher endures while he's trapped in the attic are awful. :( I look forward to reading more stuff by Emily Lynn.