I have to say, Eugene might be the single most passive protagonist I've ever seen. Not a flaw in the writing: a deliberate character choice. There's depression and all-pervading anxiety, yes, but the level of passivity here - of learned helplessness - was deep enough to be engrossing, to have me wondering: what caused this? How did he get to be this way?

The question is answered. It is one of many questions raised and answered, or first answered and later raised: as short as this novella is, there's a many-layered depth to it that rises the more I think about it.

There's also a very consistent atmosphere to it - thick, oppressive, uneasy; dread so creeping that it feels more like depression than fear. Might be a hard read, if it were longer. Though, again: there's more to it than its length implies.

Selling points: gay, hella atmosphere, depth, for all the purported supernatural horror villains the true horror is what lies in humanity

Warnings: suicide (on page, moderately intense); child sexual abuse; sex (tasteful but explicit); sex used to shut someone up; sex used to secure binding promises from someone without their necessarily noticing; homophobia (especially internalised and religious homophobia, period-typical); gun violence; religion (Christianity (Catholic) as an authoritarian institution and a social force).