Negative Space

Trigger Warning: Suicide. A lot of suicide. I've never read anything quite like Negative Space by B.R. Yeager. It's psychedelic. It's occult. It's apocalyptic. It tells a tale of broken teens, volleying perspectives at a break-neck pace, switching characters several times within a single chapter. (Sometimes a character will only be given a single paragraph or even a single sentence in their part of the story.) It's bleak. It's dark. And it is bloody. But it is one hell of a ride!If you want to know more about the story, scroll the picture and read the blurbs from the back of the book. I went in without knowing anything, and that's an excellent way to go, but I realize not everyone approaches reading the way I do.I enjoyed this book, and I read it quite fast. Yeager does a great job of giving the reader enough information to tell a story without spelling everything out for you. I liked the characters, and the story was interesting. The book is bleak and deals with horrific actions and ideas, but if you can get past that, it is enriching. I recommend it if you can handle this kind of content. You know who you are.

Warning - This Review Contains SpoilersOverall, I thought “Negative Space” was a very good read. It was very weird and different. Also very disturbing. I found myself craving drugs a lot as the book was full of drug use, self harm, suicide, sex, ect. Pretty much all the bad things that teenagers do. There was also quite a bit of magic and the magic seemed very real and plausible, like it was actually something I could go do and see results. The magic centered around this made up drug called “Whorl” which opened one’s mind to the magic in the universe and a whole bunch of strings. I didn’t exactly get the end. Especially the part about the dot in the wall, I didn’t understand that or what it was. I am pretty sure they all died in the end though or became magic haunting ghosts, but what else can you really expect from a horror book? I liked it over all, though, & I read the whole thing pretty much in one sitting, which is rare for me & I’ll only do it with a truly good book so that says a lot. Reading this, I felt encouraged to be myself, my true self, as messed up as we can be.

I admit: I haven't finished it yet.I pick it up every few days, so something can be said just by that.It's an odd book. I like odd, but I like there to be a more compelling "point." There are some important themes here, but overall it just seems bleak and edgy for no reason. The writing style is ok. Some parts surprise me amidst the landscape of "this feels like a teen edgelord wrote it,"Lots of drugs (doesn't really add to the plot, just seems annoying. EdGy.It makes me both bored and uncomfortable. Maybe I am not the target audience (I am 33).I will say: if you are not in a good mental headspace going in, do NOT read this. It doesn't make you feel good. It will make you feel empty. Just keep this in mind.

The book itself was good quality with no problems that I noticed. The printing was as expected.The content of the book was disturbing, strange, and just the kind of thing I enjoy. If you're looking for a book that walks outside the normal tenants of fiction, this is the one for you. If you're sensitive to trigger warnings, or new to Horror as a genre, I wouldn't suggest this one. Definitely not a read for beginners or sensitive folks.

Just finished the novel: confused, repulsed, fulfilled, melancholy, sympathetic. This is surely a new weird fiction novel to check out and I will look forward to returning for a re-read as there is much going on. Like other reviewers mentioned, the beginning starts a bit as a teen-angst drama, but sets us up for the plot to expand in wild, unconventional, thought provoking and disturbing ways. Excellent, unique, and most certainly recommended if you are open to dark and wild ideas. As I was reading, I couldn't shake the feeling that years from now this will be considered a 'significant' (yeah yeah, whatever that means) entry into the canon of weird fiction. Full wet.

This was an extremely different and well written book. I was pretty much hooked within the first 50 pages and it was hard to stop.I think it’s because the book is told from the perspective of 3 different people throughout the story and it starts from high school, through to college with quick jumps in between.I did my my last two and a half years in a small town and could instantly relate to what these kids were doing. The use of drugs and even the language/terms spoke by them was dead on! The author did a great job of setting the feeling of the town.Now, what the story is about..?... it’s kind of hard to describe as there are times when the story is told in dreams and several plots are intertwined. In the end, I didn’t know how to describe this book other than horror. It has some cosmic touches here and there, suicides that are alarming as no one knows why it’s happening and a drug that could make them see the world through another lens. Now, we’re they really seeing and experiencing these happenings? I think that’s for the reader to decide!It’s dark, crazy, fun, twisted and exciting. I can honestly say I haven’t read a book like this.

I just finished it, it had a lot of great potential directions it could’ve gone, but anytime the story had something interesting happen it was immediately pivoted to something extremely uninteresting and never expounds upon the interesting bits. Kind of a pointless book/story, it felt more like a collection of random thoughts and events and didn’t really have a throughline idk I clearly finished it hoping something would actually happen in larger plot sense but I don’t think I could actually recommend it to people. This is one of those stories where if someone adapted it to like and hbo show I actually would WANT them not stray from the source material which is saying something…

Horror de una pequeña ciudad que involucra rituales ocultos y alucinógenos. Oscuro, misterioso y sexy. Me encantó este libro.

Incredible story; the whole time it's as though you are under the influence of the book, some unknown drug to your system with its highs and lows and reflections that come during and after, add an ego death to that too.I wasn't too keen on POV switching at first, but once I got into it, everything came together. I specifically got this book for less sanitized horror, so all the gore and disgusting bits were very welcome and felt freeing. Like a fresh glass of ice-cold water to wake up your senses to real and unreal horrors that are part of life and death cycles and a more supernatural life and death cycle.But one thing—the character, the journey, the like things that I never thought I'd see verbalized so precisely as one does experience them, (like the knives detail was so, "Yes, I know what she's talking about!")—that stuck with me the most, Lu. Lu was really a character that made me the most emotional, she made me so happy, so sad, but also hopeful. I feel like the story takes you to the darkest depths of the human condition, and Lu and later something or someone else show you how there's light in everything.The ending is perfect, too. The final paragraph made me cry, to be honest. Such a perfect ending. Once touched by something so evil, can you truly leave? Does anyone really leave?I finished this story a few months ago, but I still think about it every now and then, like, "What is the weight of the human soul?" But I think this book taught me that that line of thinking is not the path I want, I want to follow Lu's path.

Gostei

Natürlich passt der Stranger Things-Vergleich nicht ganz – aber auch hier geht es um junge Menschen in einer US-Kleinstadt, in der merkwürdige Dinge passieren. Mehr will ich gar nicht verraten. Ein außergewöhnlicher Horror-Roman, der den Horror nicht nur aus übernatürlichen Elementen zieht, sondern auch aus den Abgründen der Kleinstadt. Habe es in einem verschlungen und kann es jedem empfehlen, der sich ein Update von Stephen King wünscht!

Make no mistake. Yeager has tapped into the Zeitgeist of the recent two generations and has shown us exactly what they feel. Nothing. The have the world at the swipe of a screen and a tap of a keyboard. Nothing. The world of art, music, poetry, science, literature, sport, eco-science, charity, religion, spirituality etc. etc. at the swipe of a finger. Nothing. Dead. Never has a novel captured the essence of the cure being worse than the disease than this. This is not an easy read. At times it drags you to the darkest depths of a teenage brain and the darkest threads which bind it. But that was exactly the point of writing this novel. This will make you feel very depressed at times. Again, that is the point.