By Nathan Crazybear
Self-publishing has become easy. With the rise of Amazon and e-books, anyone with a pen, a half-baked idea, and internet access can write a book and send it out into the world. While this is cool, it also has a downside, which is that the market is flooded with not-so-good content. We end up with a ton of poorly written, clichéd e-books, leaving readers to sift through a sea of lackluster work. There’s so much content out there that it’s hard to find books that are actually worth reading.
It’s because of the abundance of subpar books online that I often hear criticism that self-publishing has no value, and that lack of publisher recognition doesn’t matter to real writers. While I completely disagree with this thought, it does make some sense for a market that may already be oversaturated. So how do we find the trash among the treasure? We go digging, my friends. We dig for diamonds in the rough that is the self-publishing world.
This Is Not a Love Song is one of those shining gems. Author Hjdoom’s self-published debut, This Is Not a Love Song is a short, twisted, extreme horror novel driven by two fascinating characters and their unlove story. Hjdoom tells the story of Billy Hate and Sandra Void in a series of short stories in rich, eloquent prose. Each short story documents the twisted thoughts and crimes of his characters, and the fragments of these stories come together to form a portrait of a duo that is every bit as interesting as Norman Bates, Hannibal Lector, or Patrick Bateman.
“This Is Not a Love Song” opens with Billy Hate, and Hjdoom does a great job of developing his character, taking us into the seedy world of Hate’s perversions, relationships, hobbies, and his struggle to fit in with a world he couldn’t care less about. Hate is an outcast, and as we learn about the dark thoughts and bizarre activities that make up this character’s daily life, our attention is drawn not only to our growing fascination with Hate (and his growing cannibalistic urges), but also to how weird the world is in his eyes.
Hate’s story reaches a turning point when he meets Sandra Void. Hjdoom then steps away from Hate to tell us her story through another series of short stories. While the seeming departure from our protagonist in Hate may seem jarring at first, Hjdoom’s style and the focus of the story (the fact that this is not Billy Hate’s story, but Billy and Sandra’s) keep the story moving smoothly. Sandra Void is another curious character who, like Hate, holds the reader’s attention. Void is a smart and murderous killer whose cold attitude towards the world is driven by her desire for domination. It is the collision of these two sociopathic characters that turns This Is Not a Love Song into a story created by the communication of two twisted minds.
This Is Not a Love Song is vivid and unflinching. This is not a book you give to a friend as an “easy read” or a book you give to your mom (at least not a book you give to your mom). mine Mom). Hjdoom’s descriptive prose is filled with dark metaphors and stomach-churning imagery that feels as uncomfortable as a razor blade stabbing under a fingernail. His characters tell us sick thoughts that no one would say out loud, and act on those thoughts with cruel joy. Hjdoom’s debut is a well-written work of extreme horror that is not for the faint of heart, and the creation of this work has produced one of many books that prove that the world of self-publishing can produce great things.
“This Is Not a Love Song” is not the story of two outcasts who find meaning in each other. It is also not the story of two murderous sociopaths who struggle to make sense of life and eventually come together. “This Is Not a Love Song” is not a love story… or maybe it is.
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score: 4/5
