In this peculiar story, we follow the lives of a few distinctive individuals living in an old apartment building, ranging from angsty youth to middle-aged couples and senior citizens. Sorrows, insecurities, longings, frustrations, and, above all, secrets are concealed within each of these characters in an intricate maze of dysfunctional yet humorous relationships.
The intrusion of an outsider on a serene night unexpectedly impacts the building and its inhabitants, forever altering their lives and strangely mending some of their inner wounds.
Aristotle famously stated that humans are social creatures. The daily interactions among people, intentional or not, play a significant role in shaping their lives. As our characters struggle against it, loneliness becomes the driving force behind the central conflict, acting as the true antagonist.
Dark bleatings, my mischievous tribe! Today, I’m here to tell you about a really fun and odd story. Cristina Mirzoi is not an author that uses ‘paint by numbers’ storytelling. I read another of her works, The Headsman, a little while back and format-wise, that could have been either a novella or a connected short story collection, and honestly I’m still not sure which one it is. However, it really doesn’t matter, because however she does it, Cristina is a really effective and interesting story teller, and I really enjoy the sort of shifting, changeling-like style of her writing.
Anyway, this story is set in an apartment block, and opens with several residents being questioned about the disappearance/death of the building administrator. We’re introduced to quite a lot of characters, which is usually a problem for me because I have trouble remembering who’s who – however, the author attaches details to them that helped me keep it all straight in my mind. We have Hugh and Olivia (Hugh likes to read, Olivia likes TV), Dylan (loves weed), Prudence (apartment manager), Norman (weird asshole), and more.
The narrative works as a sort of revolving door, dropping us in and out of certain apartments and perspectives, and through this we get to try to piece together what’s going on, and who dunnit (if, in fact, anyone did). It’s so much fun because there’s the added element of the apparent rat problem, which honestly I wasn’t even sure was real or if it was some sort of cover for the longest time. What was especially entertaining was that nobody seems to be a reliable witness, because everyone has their own agenda and concerns. At the same time though, there only seem to be a couple of bad apples here, and there’s no real reason not to trust most of them – it’s just we can’t be sure.
Overall, I found this dark and funny, and a lot of fun. I’d say fans of horror and mysteries would really like it the most. A last thing I would like to note here is that I think this author might be one to watch. Cristina Mirzoi is kind of experimental in how she writes, and she’s also very distinctive in her style, and I really like her work.
If you’d like to check out the book or the author, I’ve popped some links below for you.
Bleeeeat!
Happy Goat Horror 
Leave a comment