Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

By: Eric LaRocca

Narrated by: Laurie Catherine Winkel

Length: 2 hrs and 14 mins

Publisher's summary

Sadomasochism. Obsession. Death.

A whirlpool of darkness churns at the heart of a macabre ballet between two lonely young women in an internet chat room in the early 2000s - a darkness that threatens to forever transform them once they finally succumb to their most horrific desires.

What have you done today to deserve your eyes?

©2021 Eric LaRocca (P)2021 Fireside Horror

I’m not that easily disturbed

As a fan of horror I’m not usually disturbed by much, but this book left me speechless. Someone on tiktok recommended this book and I decided to listen and I can tell you I’m gonna be thinking about this for a long time. Not for the faint of heart (or stomach) but will keep you hooked the entire time.

Very intriguing but would work better as a book

The story is overall pretty interesting and well told however does not lend itself well to an audiobook format as it’s mostly exchanges between two people over email.

Something that annoyed me about the performance was that the narrator kept saying Ray instead of RE when talking about a response email. Example:

Subject: Ray: I’ve been thinking of you.

It was very annoying.

What the Actual f!

Well not what I would normally read, but excellent never the less.
It actually made my stomach turn, but I actually connected to this text in another level.
The power some people can have over other people is scary, and the length that some individuals are willing to stretch themselves for love and validation, is just weird.

Good!

Great book! It was riveting. The repetitive reading of the email addresses for each email was incredibly annoying though. Overall, very good!

Jesus Christ

I knew exactly what I was signing up for going in, because a friend warned me of the content, but I still managed to be completely left horrified.
An enjoyable horror experience, I'll be left haunted by it for the rest of my life, thank you.

it's okay I guess

I finished it relatively quickly as it isn't that long. everything happens far to fast to build any real tension and the format through which the messages are read is so repetitive it became like nails on a chalkboard for me. I actually contemplated not finishing it, but if was so short it'd be a waste not to. there's some disturbing imagery and dialogue, but the end didn't feel all that shocking to me. Overall it was okay but really fell flat.

Weird, people are weird. Lol

It was short, it wasn’t bad. Makes you wonder how many people out there do crazy on the regular and you don’t even know it.

Not to easy to swallow short story

This wasn't nearly as gross as the reviews I've read but it's a fun short listen.

harrowing

this is a tale that shortly becomes a distant terror for both main characters, tragically.

Wow...

This is not for the feint of heart. This short story packs more disturbing, repulsive, and twisted material into the roughly 2hr run time than even the "worst" of splatterpunk horror novels. Don't let the first few minutes deceive you, this is a roller-coaster ride you'll be happy to get off, and still feel a little queasy. Because of the short runtime, I can't really say more without wading into spoilers, but if you are a fan of Poppy Z. Brite, this is probably right up your alley.

The narrator did an amazing job conveying the two characters individually and capturing the roles of their relationship to each other. She was expressive and clear, and despite the format of the book being transcripts of emails and instant messenger chats (which could have been incredibly dry) she made you feel the intent and the unique persona behind the keyboard.

If I had one complaint (and it is a minor one), it would be that due to the email and IM format of the book, the extremely regular and repeated reading of the full names, full email addresses (both to and from), and the subject line of each email before getting into the meat of it did become rather tiresome. But given the format of the written story, it makes sense and weirdly, it will both annoy you and create a feeling of suspense between each correspondence that isn't there in the more conversational IM chats. A sense of, how much worse is this going to get...? And then regretting wanting to know.

If you like crazy, grotesque, and just plain wtf and have a couple hours to spare, give "Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke" a listen. Then ask yourself, what have you done today to deserve your eyes?