Mary: An Awakening of Terror

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Our main character Mary Mudgett is a middle aged woman who feels invisible, who is experiencing perimenopause, and who is pretty alone in the world. Disappointing because the opening line of “there’s a corpse in the bathtub” normally would have my FULL attention. The Author's Note at the beginning and the Afterword at the end pretty much say everything I was trying to *do* with this book--and the former also offers some spoiler-free content warnings if you'd like them. You can watch him battle giant mutant cockroaches and twentysomething malaise in the horror-comedy film "They Will Outlive Us All," available for streaming on this very site. And, when her delusions are casually dismissed as a “textbook” menopause case, Mary proves herself capable of rewriting her entry—in blood if necessary.

That probably sounds worst than it should, I didn't hate my time with the book I was just mildly bored, the writing wasn't bad but I didn't feel engaged or invested in anything happening. This is a bad attempt to be the next Stephen King, the gratuitous violence is pointless, women enact more violence against each other than the men who have power, and the plot holes are as numerous as the specters. But being back home brings something ugly and angry back to life in Mary, and she slowly starts to try to investigate the town's history and her connection to a serial killer who was shot dead by the police almost 50 years ago. Playwright and podcaster Cassidy’s razor-sharp horror debut explores women’s roles as either prey or predator and cuts deeply into the societal structures that promotes the split.The final 10% of this book were pretty good, the other 90% was like a party that's not great but not quite bad enough to make me want to leave. I did like that Mary who is going through peri-menopausal incidents right now is dealing with trying to tamper he rage down. There are so many fantastic problems brought up in this book and that's something I adore about horror. This was gory and horrifying and had some images/scenes that will surely stick with me for a very long time. The main character is probably the most bland, unlikeable character I’ve ever encountered, and the absolute clusterfuck of a plot redeems nothing.

If you look for my bookshelf label "MARY Influences," you can see a whole motley batch o' books that helped inspire MARY.Honestly though look at the world what's the difference because this stuff and worse happens every day to literal children. NAT CASSIDY has been an off-off-Broadway playwright of speculative works that have been well-received by drama critics. I felt like we were spending 85% of the book in Mary's insecurities instead of any action or outside eeriness being addressed. or 5 star is that this book is too long and certain issues were drawn out to the point of feeling tedious. With the titular Mary being an unremarkable woman in her late 40s, there's a constant compare and contrast between society's lack of expectation and desire for unmarried women in that age, and her gradual control and understanding over her supernatural power.

I won’t spoil anything, but there were three vivid moments where I was fairly put off by what I was reading on the page, and one in particular where I almost stopped reading altogether.

Not because its about a woman going through peri-menopause, but because of its insight in to the female condition. Instead, visions of terrifying, mutilated specters overwhelm her with increasing regularity and she begins auto-writing strange thoughts and phrases. This book also dives into social topics that aren’t really discussed to much—perimenopause and the treatment of women once they reach a certain age.

I really didn’t like the author's writing style and his characterizing, it just felt very one dimensional (especially the main character). There are some doctor scenes in this book in which Mary’s problems get repeatedly dismissed as menopause and these scenes are especially significant, many women of any age will recognize this kind of dismissal of symptoms as either period or eating problems. He has won the New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Solo Performance for a one-man show about H.

I am a perimenopausal middle aged woman after all so I felt Mary was like a kindred spirit of sorts. I did not anticipate the heightened violence (maybe take caution if animal cruelty is a trigger), the fantastical tone of its narrative (the novel starts out ominous and haunting but quickly becomes something more 'lively' and bombastic), and finding a particular antagonistic character ultimately endearing and likable. Along with the hot flashes and body aches, she can't look in a mirror without passing out, and the voices in her head have been urging her to do unspeakable things.