Title: The Groomer
Author: Jon Athen
Year Published: 2020
Link to Buy: Amazon
Genre: Fiction, Horror, Splatterpunk, Thriller, Crime, Extreme Horror
Summary:
In the original book, No One Rides For Free, by Judith Sonnet, there was a warning halfway through the story, which told readers to be cautious with the foul, disturbing, and disgusting material they were about to encounter.
This time . . . YOU DON’T GET A WARNING!
The twisted Otis Bateman and unhinged Judith Sonnet have joined forces to bring you a book that goes ALL THE WAY. NO ONE RIDES FOR FREE (ABSOLUTE CHAOS) is an exploration of evil and wickedness, unlike anything you have read before. You’ll swear you can smell the blood on the pages!
A group of college students stop by a roadside attraction on their way back from spring break, only to become trapped in a life-or-death fight with two roaming psychopaths, Buster and The Man! Fiends, whose bloodlust knows no boundaries!
If you are at all easily shocked or offended, this book is going to BUTCHER you!
Ten(ish) Sentence Review:
In this second installment, Judith Sonnet and Otis Bateman evolve The Man from a gas station carjacker to a legendary serial killer with a ride-or-die partner and decades of notorious history. The authors expertly expanded his character from the first novella, No One Rides for Free, while keeping his goals and desires relatively simple: to cause as much misery and carnage as possible. The addition of his partner Buster, and the constant reminder that they each unconditionally support the different pleasures their partner gets out of each attack, humanizes them both in a way that almost makes the reader root for them even as they remove girls' body parts with rusty blades and scratch their disease-infested balls.
If there was one thing I found especially gratuitous (within the forest of gratuity that was the entire book), it was the unrealistically high number of orgasms. Maybe I'm outing myself as someone with a low sex drive, but I find it hard to believe that anyone would have an unwanted, accidental orgasm in the midst of torture and abuse. Even if she has a secret, excitingly taboo incest fantasy; even if he's a horny virgin with a micropenis who's never gotten a blowjob; even (ESPECIALLY) if it feels kinda food but she is fully aware that tongue belongs to her dog. The only orgasms I can realistically believe are the ones had by The Man, Buster, and Cunningham.
I also have a complicated relationship with all the euphemisms for body parts throughout both the narrative text and the dialogue. I love how diverse they are because it makes the near-constant descriptions of vaginas, anuses, and penises less repetitive, but it also gives the narration a comical element that I'm not sure the writers were aiming for. I can only hear terms like "beef curtains" and "chocolate starfish" so many times before I start picturing the whole gory, tragic story as scenes from some bizarre snuff cartoon from the dark web. 10
The most important thing I can say about this book is: don't read it. If you're not prepared, seriously do not do this to yourself. The only splatterpunk theme not shown in graphic detail is baby eating, but even that is mentioned more than once. However, if you're already a fan of extreme horror and splatterpunk, and if you TRULY understand what you're getting into, you should absolutely give this book a try. If you can get past all the bodily fluids, it's a masterpiece of intricate storytelling.
I'm pretty excited to see if there will be a third installment to the series, especially after leaving this one's ending on an infuriatingly tantalizing cliffhanger.
Also, this is a spoiler, but shout out to the lesbian being the final girl <3
3.5/5, rounded up to 4 for Goodreads.
