A.W. Rene

Elbowing elderly women in the face during a ham sale should have alerted the residents that something was wrong with Madeline Auger of 43 Maple Drive.

Madeline Auger embodies the epitome of motherhood perfection. Yet, sinister murmurs of her beloved Amelia’s contamination ignite an internal revolt, where maternal instincts metamorphize into an ominous entity lurking in the shadows. Something with teeth.

When doubts and mistrust shatter one’s reputation, even the most maternal and nurturing demeanor cannot conceal the malevolent forces that are lurking beneath the surface, ready to cause harm and destruction.

Amelia

Julian

Sometimes, in the dead of night, the meandering notes of a soft lullaby crawled through the gaps in the cardinal wallpaper, weaving nightmares that not even the moths could silence.

                                                                        Love,

                                                                        Mom

This kinda felt like a criminal minds episode (positive)

Jasper

bucky

A.W. Rene has done it again. And you might be asking, “Bucky! What has she done?!”

Freaked me the fuck out. That’s what.

I don’t mean this negatively, either. Rene has a tendency to get under my skin with her writing, and while I loved A Tainted Soul and all of its gore-filled glory, this book, Amelia… well, it reminded me that there is something to fear about humanity.

The contents of this book are not for everyone, and they were hardly for me – I struggled to get through this and not because the writing was bad. I love that this was told through letters and important police documentation, and I especially love the stream of consciousness layered into this. The way that Rene strays from traditional formatting and grammatical rules to showcase the mental decline we bear witness to is reminiscent of Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves on occasion, and I’m nothing if not a fucking sucker for breaking rules.

Anyway, back to the contents (my little ADHD brain needed to go on that side quest): I am begging you to read the content warnings before you pick this novella up, and don’t take them with a grain of salt! The author herself states that this was draining for her to write, and y’all should LISTEN! If there is ever a book that you actually heed the warnings of, PLEASE let it be this one.

Overall, I’m giving this a solid 4 stars for both StoryGraph and Goodreads. I can’t wait to keep reading books from the mind of A.W. Rene, and I hope you all love them as much as I do.

Thank you to the team at BDA Publishing (..heh) for this ARC. On to the next.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I appreciated the content warning at the beginning of the book; I enjoyed the way AW Rene wrote it as a warning letter to the reader, integrating it with the story without spoiling the content while also providing an explicit list of content and trigger warnings at the end of the novella.

Amelia's premise intrigued me, particularly with its unique format of being written in the form of letters from Madeline to her daughter. However, I found the prose to be awkwardly descriptive, feeling more like an atmospheric third-person narrative than a letter. The story was repetitive, and due to the letter format, it failed to evoke much emotion. I didn't feel the horror or disgust with the imagery as I had expected, as I felt detached from the narrative. 

My favorite parts were the Incident Reports, it was a very unique way to inform the reader of what may be going on outside of Madeline's narrative.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I appreciated the content warning at the beginning of the book; I enjoyed the way AW Rene wrote it as a warning letter to the reader, integrating it with the story without spoiling the content while also providing an explicit list of content and trigger warnings at the end of the novella.

Amelia's premise intrigued me, particularly with its unique format of being written in the form of letters from Madeline to her daughter. However, I found the prose to be awkwardly descriptive, feeling more like an atmospheric third-person narrative than a letter. The story was repetitive, and due to the letter format, it failed to evoke much emotion. I didn't feel the horror or disgust with the imagery as I had expected, as I felt detached from the narrative. 

My favorite parts were the Incident Reports, it was a very unique way to inform the reader of what may be going on outside of Madeline's narrative.

Amelia

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