“I believe pain lingers,” Angel said. “Do I believe in spirits? In the supernatural? Probably not.”The Lonely Motel holds many dark secrets… and Room 6 just might possess the worst of them all. Angel knows all about pain. His mother died in this room. He’s researched its history. Today he’s come back to end it, no matter the cost, once and for all. Shyla, a plus-sized prostitute, thinks the stories Angel tells her can’t be true. Secrets so vile, you won’t want to let them inside you. But the Lonely Motel doesn’t forget. It doesn’t forgive. And it always claims its victim.
Dark bleatings everyone! Let me start with this…. Woom, what the f***?
So, Woom. My first Duncan Ralston book. Of course, I’ve been hearing about it for years – it’s very popular and well-known. There are a number of reason I haven’t read it before now; I typically don’t read extreme horror, I have a never-ending TBR, I didn’t physically own it yet and I’m on a permanent ban from buying more books until I’ve cleared my TBR. Obviously, I routinely find reasons to break that ban.
Going in, I knew absolutely nothing about the plot of this book – not a sausage. It’s never been spoiled for me. Still, I didn’t think I’d like it. What did I discover, as I delved in, I hear you ask?
Let me get my criticisms out of the way first. Firstly, I flinched a bit at some of the representation but I don’t think I’m the right person to elaborate on that. Secondly, there are things in this book that involve, or centre around, cis female anatomy. Some of the details about how… er… certain areas work, are not quite correct. We’re not talking “she boobed boobily down the stairs” or anything, it’s nothing like that. It’s anatomy stuff. I noticed because I have the parts he was talking about, but shrugged it off and it didn’t bother me much. Misogynistic weirdness along the lines of “she stared at herself in the mirror, admiring her nipples…. insert three paragraphs about how she gazes at her objectively perfect body, followed by two sentences about how surprisingly she’s also intelligent and shy and modest… that kind of stuff bugs the hell out of me. Men making assumptions about biology that turn out to be wrong, however, isn’t a blood-boiler for me personally, depending on the specifics and the context. I certainly don’t know everything about testicles and penises. Hold on, I believe the plural term is ‘peni’. I learned everything I know from educational TV, like that South Park episode. Since seeing it, I’ve been really careful not to allow my husband to eat gluten, in case his dick flies off.
Moving on swiftly to the positives of this heinous, sick, grotesque, upsetting, brutal, despicable book.
Well…. I realised about midway through that despite my extremely over-sensitive sensibilities, I was intrigued and engaged. I was hooked and invested. I was curious about Angel, and I absolutely adored Shyla. The writing itself, in my opinion, is good. The structure is interesting – the chapters are split into stories that Angel is telling Shyla, and our framing device is that the two of them are in a motel room, with Angel paying Shyla for her time. We cut between Angel’s stories and them in the room having conversations. It made each chapter fresh and new, and kept the pacing steady.
Story-wise, the tales that Angel tells Shyla are all horrific, positively sickening, and they get increasingly worse with each new chapter. I thought this was a clever touch because even if you don’t notice that, it does plant a subconscious seed that reminds you that we’re building towards something. If these stories are getting more and more disturbing, then where are we headed for the climax?
I hit the last chapter, bracing myself. I liked Angel and was disarmed by his good manners towards Shyla. I had forgotten, up until near the end, that this is a horror story, and though a lot of the events are horrifying in many respects, I had yet to hit what I’d consider “actual horror”. I had the feeling that either Angel or Shyla would suddenly switch on the other and become their worst nightmare. I was pretty excited.
And then the last chapter happened. Omfg, that last chapter. As I realised what was about to happen, I started laughing. I carried on laughing as I read. Now, don’t get me wrong, what happens is absolutely just… like, if this were real life, of course, I’d find no humour in it whatsoever. In a book, I also wouldn’t normally be so thoroughly amused. But… I couldn’t help it here because what follows is so outrageous, so completely insane, and the tone of the writing lets you know that it knows it. I was literally crying – it was so ridiculous and required quite the suspension of disbelief, but in fairness, it was also set up. I never find this sort of subject matter funny but the batshit craziness of it sort of overwrote my moral outrage.
Guys… I think…. I think I loved it. I don’t even know who I am anymore.
I would recommend this to extreme horror fans, obviously. I would say that I wouldn’t recommend it to sensitive readers, but I’m a sensitive reader, so I don’t know. If you’re someone with triggers, I can’t stress enough that you should check the trigger warnings before you consider it.
If you’d like to learn more about the author or get a copy of the book, there are some links for you below:
Happy Goat Horror 
Leave a comment