Dreaditation

by Andersen Prunty

Who will become enlightened and what will be left of them?

Scott Champion knows the meaning of life. And his life is great. He has everything a guy like him could a beautiful wife, a precocious daughter, a nice house in the perfect location, a great paying job that’s so easy he doesn’t even know what he really does, and a trust fund to help with his long-term goals. If he has a problem, it’s other people, not himself. He’s as surprised as anyone when he downloads the world’s most popular meditation app and actually starts using it. He’s even more surprised when his wife notices the results. She begins using the app too. It isn’t long before they are receiving threatening and accusatory notifications from the app. When the app’s founder and guru shows up at their house, Scott thinks this is going too far. Nevertheless, he and his wife find themselves on a plane headed to a spiritual retreat hosted by the app. The retreat is not at all what Scott thinks he is paying for and it isn’t long before he’s reverting to his past behaviors. As the retreat becomes more sinister than enlightening, one thing becomes Scott Champion is a winner and he will do so at any cost. Even if he’s at a spiritual retreat.

Dreaditation is a grotesquely absurd horror comedy exploring the limits of excess, deprivation, hack pop philosophy, belief, and tolerance.

272 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 11, 2022

About the author

Andersen Prunty lives in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He writes novels and short stories. Visit him at notandersenprunty.com, where he posts a free story every Friday.

Reviews

[Peter Topside · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was just ok for me. The premise of being forced into a cult via participation in a mindfulness app is definitely unique, but that’s about where the interest ended for me. The beginning was very choppy, as the main characters, Scott, and his wife, Corrine, quickly devolved into heavily relying on things like substance and alcohol abuse, after being intimidated and swayed by the app and its leader. And I know that the author was trying to show more than tell, but it became confusing at times, for example, when Scott kept referring to his daughter by random names. It was done to depict his quickly diminishing psyche, but it just made things hard to follow. And it didn’t come across to me, as the reader, as experiencing the character’s journey, but more so as just reading a jumbled bunch of events. I think that it just needed to be retooled a bit to get the ideas and impact of everything across in a more coherent way. And speaking of their only child, Wendy, I felt she was almost pointless being in the story. There was such little development and disregard towards her, that I feel like she could have been easily written out. Definitely a very large, opportunity. Anyway, so the story continued, with Corrine and Scott eventually at the retreat/cult grounds, which occupied the strong majority of the book. This dragged out terribly, and I had a great deal of difficulty staying focused on the story. I believe Prunty’s intention was to do this purposefully, in order to make the reader see the psychological breakdown of the participants, and how vicious the cult was. But again, the telling as opposed to showing actually worked against the author here. The conclusion also was more of the same. Fans of psychological thrillers and cult-focused stories may be a target audience, but I strongly disagree with the book description of it being a horror comedy, as it is not accurate at all.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last Prunty novel I read, Squirm with Me, was also about a pathetic middle age man who lusted after a hippie girl but was so mopey that it ultimately put me in a literary funk (I still think about it, though). His newest as of now, Dreaditation, however, couldn't be more different in execution. It crosses the line into outright bizarro territory many times, and my head is still spinning. Gross, madcap, unpredictable, painfully awkward, and frequently hilarious.

[William · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prunty does it again.

[Tip of The Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a wild fever dream Prunty gave us. A very captivating story of enlightenment. A great read the whole way through.

[Christopher Lesko · Rating 5 out of 5]

i get prunty’s unusual humor and keep coming back for more. often it’s the little things. like in this story it was having the characters eat a wet lettuce sandwich. and character names Blastneesh and Jorry—so perfect for them too! haha. the dialogue for each character is so spot on as well that it makes me wonder if they are real people prunty actually encountered and secretly recorded. then when he goes off the wtf deep end of sick and twisted crazy, it’s best to let go of the world you thought you knew and see how far he’ll take you. trust him, he’ll make it work … and make you squirm (or squirt lol). i flew this book and think it’s probably one of my favorites of his. or perhaps i’ve been brainwashed to think so.