The Slob by Aron Beauregard

Please note that this book is classified as extreme horror and will not be suitable for all audiences. If you are interested in reading this book, make sure to check out the trigger warnings beforehand.

What is it about?

Vera is a young woman who comes from a troubled background. Her parents lived in a disgusting home and she suffered severe mental trauma living at home, particularly due to an incident involving her sister. As an adult, Vera is obsessed with cleanliness, and uses this skill/ obsession to make some extra money for her newly growing family. It is on one of these excursions that she meets The Slob, the evil titular character who forces Vera's survival instincts into action.

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What's good about it?

It's certainly creative. It's been a while since I first read this book and I remember most of it from beginning to end, which is saying something. Most times when you read a book, only certain passages stand out. Not so much with this story. It is so grotesque, the visuals really do stand out.

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What's not so good about it?

Because the story is so extreme, it isn't particularly relatable and neither are the characters. As a woman you might be reading through the description on Amazon and thinking that a woman obsessed with cleanliness is relatable, but I promise that you're wrong. The book works on an entirely different level. It's the sort of cleanliness that doesn't sit with the average persons compulsion to need something to be clean. With more time and energy gone into the prose, it could have been so much better than it was. It could have found a way to align with it's audience and improve the horrifying emotional connection with readers, making the book so much worse. It could also have created a better ending. It does lead I suppose onto the second story, but I was so taken by the final few chapters that I was annoyed they weren't included in the rest of the book. I'd have felt more compelled to read the sequel if this book didn't feel so disjointed.

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Why should I read it?

If you are bored of regular or classic horror and want to push boundaries into the more extreme side of horror, this book won't be a good starting point for but will be a good early entry into the genre a few books down the line.

It's a great form of escapism. We read stories in the news all the time that are real, and awful, and we doubt that people can be so unbelievably cruel. We hide our minds from the worst of it, making exuses for it. With books like this and this book in particular, we can confront the worst things that people can do without it being real. It's not the most bizarre or the meanest book I've read by a long shot, but it is still very inventive and very graphic. And it's quick to read (or maybe it's just so easy to digest because you feel that constant need to know what's going to happen next, even though you don't really want to know.)

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Should I read it?

Again, if you're into the genre? Yes. Beauregard is very well respected author in some indie horror circles, and Playground has also come highly recommended by other followers of his work. If you have a weak stomach then this book won't be for you, but I'd have a look at the trigger warnings before you dive into it either way. If you don't have much of a tolerance for books that aren't very literary, this is not that type of book. But it's engaging and entertaining either way, so you still might get a kick out of it.

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