Mostly, they watch movies together and avoid their “perfectly nice roommate” Jake whom they despise passionately (page 6). As Carla continues to repeat her New Age spiritual jargon to Remy, the ideas infiltrate his understanding of the world around him. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, we find ourselves tumbling with Remy and Alicia into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies. If anyone's read the novel and wants to discuss the spoilers and details I'd love to do so in some spoiler comments I can block out. Like Buñuel, Beth Morgan recognizes that erotic desire is funny in the way it degrades subject and object.

In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia's entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and New Age mantra they know by heart. Even the characters most authentic are still seemingly inauthentic when brought under the microscope. I'm still turning over questions like the main character is very obviously horrible and sexist, is that adequately addressed or did this hit some of the same pitfalls as other stories where the main character sucks? It is confusing for the first 10-20 pages and it's not until even later that you have a full understanding of who Jen is and why she's even relevant to them at all.Jen used to work with Remy and he’s upset that they didn’t stayed friends after the company closed down.

Scouring YouTube and Google for explanations of the book, I came away unsatisfied, with only an author interview between Kristen Arnett and Beth Morgan to help navigate the contents of this book. Enjoyed the beginning of the book when it felt more like a social commentary on parasocial relationships and the kind of miserable people who cyber-stalk and obsess over others. Granted, I am not an avid reader of the horror genre, so perhaps my judgment is ill-informed compared to other readers, but as a mere “light horror reader,” I can say that I did enjoy the book, and that it did not cross the threshold to where I had to put it down in disgust (for reference, I read the preface to The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter and could not read any farther).

I have spent some time bemoaning how little What The Actual Fuck fiction there is written by women out there, but I just read two in a row (the other was the very different but also delightful NIGHTBITCH by Rachel Yoder) and I couldn't be happier. The toxic relationship and vulnerability of Alicia and Remy is especially painful to read, and that’s without factoring in their obsession with Jen. Beth Morgan has a dark and gritty sense of humor and a warped imagination, both of which I fully enjoyed in this impossible-to-explain book.

Unexpected, filled with candor and sarcasm dripping with commentary of modern life, Instagram obsessions, grass is always greeener tragedies, happenstance, an undercurrent of… evil? I got through 4/5 of the novel, having read some creepy parts but still wondering "How is this horror? Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group.After seeing Jen while out and about, the duo get themselves invited to a beach trip with Jen, her partner Horus, and they're group of friends. But cynical, quote-unquote smart people always underestimate the power of something as simple as a positive mindset and openness to the world. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. I talk a lot about awesome horror novels here in passing, but I just finished "Touch of Jen" by Beth Morgan and this book is going to really stick with me in a crazy way. Remy and Alicia are a young couple just living their life, working their service jobs, doing their thing, right?