Book Review: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke

Things have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca

The story is told by two women via longer emails and short back and forth chat rooms in the 2000s era cyberspace. Much of the story is the characters' dialog between each other in this context. The characters tell each other stories of news events of morbid tones. I do not mind visceral descriptions when it's part of the plot in a book for a purpose but the descriptions in this narrative are more for shock factor of two individuals having sickening conversations not events actually happening (for the most part) The book is voyeuristic, dark, and morose in tone. The characters are ill defined which just came off as lonely miserable women seeking some sense of toxic companionship. This book was recommended to me after reading The Troop by Nick Cutter, which also has a grotesque quality, however I did not enjoy the short story due to the characters having little emotional depth to empathize with and there is never a sense of hope that the story will end well, or even knowing the end is doom and gloom, I did not care that these characters suffer because they seemed to enjoy suffering and make no effort. Any outside characters are unimportant You do not learn much about the main characters either.