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Negative Space
Four teens in a New Hampshire mill town abuse a bizarre hallucinogen called WHORL in order to cope with a devastating suicide epidemic.
364 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2020
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May 23, 2023
5 supernovas ⛧⛧⛧⛧⛧
"𝐈'𝐦 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰. 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐈 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐈 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐈 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐮𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞. 𝐈 𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬, 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐈 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤."
Have you ever heard of a tidal disruption event? It is a rare astronomical phenomenon that occurs when a star gets disrupted by a strong tidal force centered in a supermassive black hole.
𝙉𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙎𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 is a book-shaped black hole.
Caution.
It will claw its gravitational grasp, pull you into a dark fever dream, and it won't let go. It will crawl into your thoughts and wrap them in bleeding hallucinations. It's been over a week since I finished reading this book, and I can still hear it whispering like a night wind that blows free through my skull.
𝘉.𝘙 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳's hauntingly beautiful prose made every reading moment feel like it streamed away, ceaseless, like waves that keep on seeking the shore when the light of day is fading and a darkened sky gathers. Yeah, this is not just a book to read. It's an experience to be immersed in. A dark one, yet magical nonetheless.
Set in Kinsfeild, a small town plagued by suicide, a group of nihilistic teenagers are trying to cope with the aberration of the world by entering a realm where the mortal flesh and human era's meaning are a blur. Occult magick and a mysterious drug create a portal into an atmospheric, catastrophic voyage between realms.
𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳 has created a generational soundtrack. It echoes melodies of lost youth and grief in a decaying world. The characters and world building are mesmerizing, and if you pay close attention, you might be able to see fragments of your youth reflecting through the pages. I know I did. Books like 𝙉𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙎𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 are the reason i love reading. They push beyond the mediocre and reshape a genre. The outcome is an outstanding, bleak story that swallows you whole, spits you out into the void, and leaves you wrapped in mystery and wonder.
"𝐈'𝐦 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰. 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐈 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐈 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐈 𝐦𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝. 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐮𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞. 𝐈 𝐥𝐚𝐲 𝐦𝐲 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬, 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐟𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐈 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤."
Have you ever heard of a tidal disruption event? It is a rare astronomical phenomenon that occurs when a star gets disrupted by a strong tidal force centered in a supermassive black hole.
𝙉𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙎𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 is a book-shaped black hole.
Caution.
It will claw its gravitational grasp, pull you into a dark fever dream, and it won't let go. It will crawl into your thoughts and wrap them in bleeding hallucinations. It's been over a week since I finished reading this book, and I can still hear it whispering like a night wind that blows free through my skull.
𝘉.𝘙 𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳's hauntingly beautiful prose made every reading moment feel like it streamed away, ceaseless, like waves that keep on seeking the shore when the light of day is fading and a darkened sky gathers. Yeah, this is not just a book to read. It's an experience to be immersed in. A dark one, yet magical nonetheless.
Set in Kinsfeild, a small town plagued by suicide, a group of nihilistic teenagers are trying to cope with the aberration of the world by entering a realm where the mortal flesh and human era's meaning are a blur. Occult magick and a mysterious drug create a portal into an atmospheric, catastrophic voyage between realms.
𝘠𝘦𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳 has created a generational soundtrack. It echoes melodies of lost youth and grief in a decaying world. The characters and world building are mesmerizing, and if you pay close attention, you might be able to see fragments of your youth reflecting through the pages. I know I did. Books like 𝙉𝙚𝙜𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙎𝙥𝙖𝙘𝙚 are the reason i love reading. They push beyond the mediocre and reshape a genre. The outcome is an outstanding, bleak story that swallows you whole, spits you out into the void, and leaves you wrapped in mystery and wonder.
December 28, 2021
I just devoured the last two thirds while they devoured me. It feels heavy, highly unwell, and perhaps the most pristine depiction of a literary black hole. Absolutely incredible.
December 5, 2022
I went into "Negative Space" not knowing what to expect other than the fact that it was about a bunch of disillusioned youths experimenting with drugs in a small town, and seeing as I'm ostensibly part of a group of those people, I thought "huh, that sounds interesting enough". What I was nooooot fucking expecting was a novel that reads like a Harmony Korine film smashed at light speed into an A24 horror movie injected with a barbed syringe of postmodern existential nihilism and a grotesque poetic sensibility that's all perfectly integrated into a story about the slow and mundane decay of simply being alive in the modern world. This is the real deal - horror literature that acknowledges the genre's history (the tropes are there well enough) yet pushes the artform forward in a way that feels intoxicatingly and truly new, something to help potentiate a push toward greater heights the genre has not yet reached. This is a book people will discover and talk about extensively and I can see influencing authors from here on, and it's exceedingly rare for me to formulate this feeling about a piece of work as I am engaging with it.
"Negative Space" is built around three woven narratives that ultimately tie back into the character arc of their peer and friend Tyler, who acts as the crux these narratives rely on. They're all eccentric, beautifully drawn characters, each with sharp, distinct voices and compelling arcs, and Yeager has an absolute mastery over sickeningly lyrical and dense imagery that pushes this nightmarish narrative forward. Events are fractured and surreal, distorted and mangled at points beyond recognition, with much of this anchored by the setting of Kinsfield itself. As I was reading it the town itself almost felt as dissociated and detached as the characters living in it, and the more I read the more the town's geography seemed to morph and shift in on itself (bolstered by the interweaving narratives) in kind of an "Inland Empire"-style compression, like the world itself was being squeezed (and there's lots of claustrophobic imagery in this, too, further aiding this interpretation). It's an oppressive book, monstrous in its scope yet simultaneously compact in a way that made me genuinely physically queasy, like a serpent coiling in on itself (and that's also an intentional use of words *wink wink*).
Talking about that all at length kind of strikes me as window dressing though. It isn't by any means - these aspects are radically important and a huge reason why this novel works as well as it does. The same goes for the characters of Jill, Ahmir, Tyler and (especially) Lu, who as I said are wonderfully written and characterized. But what really stuck with me about this book, what really crawled into my core and made me unable to stop reading to the point where I set aside an entire day to finish it, was how I *knew* these characters, and this dying town, and felt like I always have.
And this leads me to my next and the most cogent point I want to make - this is possibly the best (fictional) literary document on Generation Z ever written, or if there is one better, I either haven't read it or it hasn't been written yet (and I suspect the latter). This author clearly understands how we think and feel and the generational existential anxieties that plague us, to the point where I at times felt like I was reading out of a diary from someone my age or a few years younger. Sure, there's the surface level stuff - references to Discord and usage of modern slang and references to "The Last of Us" and trap music etcetera, but it probes much deeper than that. I see myself in Jill's existential despair over connection and finding meaning, I see myself in Lu's neurodivergence and reckoning with gender identity, I even see myself in the aimless frustration and anger of Ahmir and the anarchistic goth rebellious streak of Tyler that defines him (for as vile as he is).
I felt like I knew these characters so well, because I essentially *do*. I've not only met Tylers and Ahmirs and Jills and Lus, I've hung out with them, I've smoked weed and done psychedelics and ate cough medicine with them, I've gone to parties with them, waxed philosophical with them and made dear friends with them and on and on. Not to say my friends are anywhere as fucked up as some of the characters in the book, but they come from the same place of youthful existential malaise unique to the 21st century, and looking at many aspects of them was like looking at a mirror into my own life. I'm one of them, too, and while I obviously can't speak for everyone in a generation there is between me and my friends always this shared feeling of awareness toward the cosmic doom we're all seemingly hurdling to, this doom we face with reckless abandon because so many of our other options feel expended in the face of a future that more or less looks to be completely fucked. It's that exact feeling of knowing that we live in dying small towns in a late stage capitalist hellscape that's slowly killing us, and all we can do is face against the coming eye of the storm with the late-night comforts of recreational drugs, video games, cartoons, fringe politics - and each other.
And that's why this book is as terrifying to me as it is. It's not just because of the violence and hallucinatory narrative, or the grotesque occult leanings and bodily disfigurements and subtle gestures at cosmic horror (brilliantly done in a lowkey, simmering fashion that disquiets the gut slowly the way all the best cosmicism does, as well as modernizes the genre better than even the other greats of weird fiction this century) - it's the fact that B.R. Yeager understands and empathizes with the bleakness clouding our generation and the dark uncertainty of our future, and its this uncertainty that shrouds every page of "Negative Space" like a veil. We are constantly plugged in, constantly desensitized, constantly tuned into one unspeakable tragedy after the next, battering our brains until we are numb and the capitalist zeitgeist swoops in and siphons what remains of the life from us as we fight between idealism and nihilism while teetering on the precipice of total collapse. It is a future we must fight, and we do, but one that at worst feels like we are woefully unequipped to handle. How, after all, do young disillusioned people fight with real pushback against a global system that has failed us and the grind of a machine that profits from and rewards violence? How can well-meaning individuals with no institutional standing hope to challenge hegemonic power structures that are upheld by the ruling class we have nothing in common with? How can we do all this and more when all of us struggle the way Jill, Lu, etc. struggle so potently, every single day, even when the suicide count racks up and the black strands come to claim us all?
I'm not hopeless (or a "doomer" as one in my generation might say). I don't think B.R. Yeager is either, nor do I think that was the message intended to be gleamed from this book. I believe a better future is possible, but aside from theory and praxis, I truly do not know the answers to the anxieties that plague us, and that is what makes "Negative Space" scarier than any creature feature or "nobleman discovering dark secret" type story. It reflects the reality of a future that, while not devoid of the possibility of change, seems relentlessly despairing, and it does not shy away from portraying this in all its ugliness and uncertainty. I don't know what the future holds. Nor do Jill, Lu, Tyler, Ahmir, my friends, anyone. I do know, however, that this book is terrifying, not only for its surface level horrors, but also because of how it shines a reflective mirror I don't want to look at - a mirror of me, my friends, my family, our future, and the future of this world and where humankind is going.
I don't think I will be sleeping soundly tonight. Make way for the new generation - B.R. Yeager is at the frontlines, and hopefully, if I can muster the talent and courage to make my voice and the voice of the people with less privilege and similar anxieties to me heard, I'll be right there with him.
"Someday I'll wake up and it'll be like my life's already over, because it'll be dozens of years from now already and I'm still the same. Sets of mirrors facing each other, expanding space and me and every moment I've been here. Nobody knows me, because I haven't left anything for them, and I can't stand to look half of them in the eye."
Review 3/30/'22:
"Negative Space" is built around three woven narratives that ultimately tie back into the character arc of their peer and friend Tyler, who acts as the crux these narratives rely on. They're all eccentric, beautifully drawn characters, each with sharp, distinct voices and compelling arcs, and Yeager has an absolute mastery over sickeningly lyrical and dense imagery that pushes this nightmarish narrative forward. Events are fractured and surreal, distorted and mangled at points beyond recognition, with much of this anchored by the setting of Kinsfield itself. As I was reading it the town itself almost felt as dissociated and detached as the characters living in it, and the more I read the more the town's geography seemed to morph and shift in on itself (bolstered by the interweaving narratives) in kind of an "Inland Empire"-style compression, like the world itself was being squeezed (and there's lots of claustrophobic imagery in this, too, further aiding this interpretation). It's an oppressive book, monstrous in its scope yet simultaneously compact in a way that made me genuinely physically queasy, like a serpent coiling in on itself (and that's also an intentional use of words *wink wink*).
Talking about that all at length kind of strikes me as window dressing though. It isn't by any means - these aspects are radically important and a huge reason why this novel works as well as it does. The same goes for the characters of Jill, Ahmir, Tyler and (especially) Lu, who as I said are wonderfully written and characterized. But what really stuck with me about this book, what really crawled into my core and made me unable to stop reading to the point where I set aside an entire day to finish it, was how I *knew* these characters, and this dying town, and felt like I always have.
And this leads me to my next and the most cogent point I want to make - this is possibly the best (fictional) literary document on Generation Z ever written, or if there is one better, I either haven't read it or it hasn't been written yet (and I suspect the latter). This author clearly understands how we think and feel and the generational existential anxieties that plague us, to the point where I at times felt like I was reading out of a diary from someone my age or a few years younger. Sure, there's the surface level stuff - references to Discord and usage of modern slang and references to "The Last of Us" and trap music etcetera, but it probes much deeper than that. I see myself in Jill's existential despair over connection and finding meaning, I see myself in Lu's neurodivergence and reckoning with gender identity, I even see myself in the aimless frustration and anger of Ahmir and the anarchistic goth rebellious streak of Tyler that defines him (for as vile as he is).
I felt like I knew these characters so well, because I essentially *do*. I've not only met Tylers and Ahmirs and Jills and Lus, I've hung out with them, I've smoked weed and done psychedelics and ate cough medicine with them, I've gone to parties with them, waxed philosophical with them and made dear friends with them and on and on. Not to say my friends are anywhere as fucked up as some of the characters in the book, but they come from the same place of youthful existential malaise unique to the 21st century, and looking at many aspects of them was like looking at a mirror into my own life. I'm one of them, too, and while I obviously can't speak for everyone in a generation there is between me and my friends always this shared feeling of awareness toward the cosmic doom we're all seemingly hurdling to, this doom we face with reckless abandon because so many of our other options feel expended in the face of a future that more or less looks to be completely fucked. It's that exact feeling of knowing that we live in dying small towns in a late stage capitalist hellscape that's slowly killing us, and all we can do is face against the coming eye of the storm with the late-night comforts of recreational drugs, video games, cartoons, fringe politics - and each other.
And that's why this book is as terrifying to me as it is. It's not just because of the violence and hallucinatory narrative, or the grotesque occult leanings and bodily disfigurements and subtle gestures at cosmic horror (brilliantly done in a lowkey, simmering fashion that disquiets the gut slowly the way all the best cosmicism does, as well as modernizes the genre better than even the other greats of weird fiction this century) - it's the fact that B.R. Yeager understands and empathizes with the bleakness clouding our generation and the dark uncertainty of our future, and its this uncertainty that shrouds every page of "Negative Space" like a veil. We are constantly plugged in, constantly desensitized, constantly tuned into one unspeakable tragedy after the next, battering our brains until we are numb and the capitalist zeitgeist swoops in and siphons what remains of the life from us as we fight between idealism and nihilism while teetering on the precipice of total collapse. It is a future we must fight, and we do, but one that at worst feels like we are woefully unequipped to handle. How, after all, do young disillusioned people fight with real pushback against a global system that has failed us and the grind of a machine that profits from and rewards violence? How can well-meaning individuals with no institutional standing hope to challenge hegemonic power structures that are upheld by the ruling class we have nothing in common with? How can we do all this and more when all of us struggle the way Jill, Lu, etc. struggle so potently, every single day, even when the suicide count racks up and the black strands come to claim us all?
I'm not hopeless (or a "doomer" as one in my generation might say). I don't think B.R. Yeager is either, nor do I think that was the message intended to be gleamed from this book. I believe a better future is possible, but aside from theory and praxis, I truly do not know the answers to the anxieties that plague us, and that is what makes "Negative Space" scarier than any creature feature or "nobleman discovering dark secret" type story. It reflects the reality of a future that, while not devoid of the possibility of change, seems relentlessly despairing, and it does not shy away from portraying this in all its ugliness and uncertainty. I don't know what the future holds. Nor do Jill, Lu, Tyler, Ahmir, my friends, anyone. I do know, however, that this book is terrifying, not only for its surface level horrors, but also because of how it shines a reflective mirror I don't want to look at - a mirror of me, my friends, my family, our future, and the future of this world and where humankind is going.
I don't think I will be sleeping soundly tonight. Make way for the new generation - B.R. Yeager is at the frontlines, and hopefully, if I can muster the talent and courage to make my voice and the voice of the people with less privilege and similar anxieties to me heard, I'll be right there with him.
"Someday I'll wake up and it'll be like my life's already over, because it'll be dozens of years from now already and I'm still the same. Sets of mirrors facing each other, expanding space and me and every moment I've been here. Nobody knows me, because I haven't left anything for them, and I can't stand to look half of them in the eye."
Review 3/30/'22:
May 7, 2021
I absolutely HATED this book. There is nothing scary about it, instead it is just the repetitive ramblings of drugged out kids. It was so depressing and vile. What was the point of any of it?! They all did massive amounts of drugs, performed satanic rituals, were shitty friends, broke their brains with bad trips and they all end up estranged from their families and dead. There was nothing compelling about their stories. The plot was nonsense because it was never fully explored. Why was everyone actually killing themselves in this town? Was it because of the rituals? WHORL? How were they connected? Why were they connected? If you want a book that answers any storyline questions this isn’t for you. In my opinion the characters of this book all deserved the end they received. They were all garbage human beings and were a total waste of DNA.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 24, 2020
this book will fuck you senseless and make you believe in god again
July 6, 2021
"Aw shit yeah I'm back from the dead."
March 6, 2021
Horrifying in a compulsively readable way, Negative Space charts the erratic and disturbing movements of a group of teens living in a small New Hampshire town. For these kids life in this town is a stultifying existence, as evidenced by the copious amount of drugs they consume. They take a lot of drugs, and I mean a lot of drugs. Popping pills first thing in the morning, smoking weed all day long, winding down in the evening with some shrooms or acid…and then there is WHORL.
When WHORL appeared in the book, the first drug that came to my mind was salvia, a drug my friends and I started hearing about probably in the late 90s, early 2000s. First came the rumors of kids committing suicide after taking salvia, and then came actual confirmed cases. The reported details around the high obtained from this drug did not hold much appeal to me, and I think our only interest came from the fact that salvia was legal and relatively easy to access through the mail, unlike other drugs which had to be procured from sketchy dudes you never wanted to actually hang out with, like this novel's character Kai (spot on, that).
I never did try salvia, although if I’d discovered it earlier I probably would have. At any rate, in the novel WHORL is a drug that opens a portal to another realm of existence. This portal can facilitate access to supernatural powers. It’s unclear whether it is the user’s intention or simply their innate nature that determines whether the power will be used for good or evil, but regardless we see examples of both play out in the book. Yeager takes his time in fully explicating the significance of WHORL and the particulars of its use (and abuse), which is good because this uncertainty in the reader’s mind is what fuels the narrative engine.
Throughout the book Yeager displays a keen insight into youth culture and a sharp ear for dialogue. The characters are all somewhat archetypal in nature; this is fine, though, as it helps situate the reader in a teenage milieu many should find familiar, and Yeager imbues each teen with enough personality to make them engaging characters. The darkly poetic cast of his prose adds layers of texture to the narrative. It is a very dark story but not without its shafts of light. However, this is probably not a book recommended for parents of teenagers, unless you want to spend every night sleepless and gnawing your fingernails in the throes of anxiety.
When WHORL appeared in the book, the first drug that came to my mind was salvia, a drug my friends and I started hearing about probably in the late 90s, early 2000s. First came the rumors of kids committing suicide after taking salvia, and then came actual confirmed cases. The reported details around the high obtained from this drug did not hold much appeal to me, and I think our only interest came from the fact that salvia was legal and relatively easy to access through the mail, unlike other drugs which had to be procured from sketchy dudes you never wanted to actually hang out with, like this novel's character Kai (spot on, that).
I never did try salvia, although if I’d discovered it earlier I probably would have. At any rate, in the novel WHORL is a drug that opens a portal to another realm of existence. This portal can facilitate access to supernatural powers. It’s unclear whether it is the user’s intention or simply their innate nature that determines whether the power will be used for good or evil, but regardless we see examples of both play out in the book. Yeager takes his time in fully explicating the significance of WHORL and the particulars of its use (and abuse), which is good because this uncertainty in the reader’s mind is what fuels the narrative engine.
Throughout the book Yeager displays a keen insight into youth culture and a sharp ear for dialogue. The characters are all somewhat archetypal in nature; this is fine, though, as it helps situate the reader in a teenage milieu many should find familiar, and Yeager imbues each teen with enough personality to make them engaging characters. The darkly poetic cast of his prose adds layers of texture to the narrative. It is a very dark story but not without its shafts of light. However, this is probably not a book recommended for parents of teenagers, unless you want to spend every night sleepless and gnawing your fingernails in the throes of anxiety.
Time compresses the older you get. Days turn to weeks turn to months turn to seasons turn to years, until your life resides in just one moment expanding forever, where each step and breath folds wrinkles into your face, carving minute, irreversible wounds between your joints. Pressing down the notches between your spine, driving your ankles and knees to ruin. I feel it now and it'll only be worse in the future.
June 3, 2022
What I didn't like about this book:
-Nothing is explained at ALL, not why the suicides are taking place in this town, the WHORL drug, why the two are connected, what the ritual they keep doing is, literally nothing. It doesn't even bother to explain anything.
-The characters are all the same and all super annoying. There was no point to the multiple POVs because they weren't differentiated at all. No character development or growth. Tyler is literally the worst throughout the whole book and never gets better. I didn't feel bad for any of them.
-None of the side characters are interesting/different from one another, and we never come back to them. There is no point for them to be in the story.
-SO repetitive, literally each page said the same thing. Majority of the book could have been cut out with no reprocussions to the story. Would maybe even be better as a novella.
-Not scary at all. I wouldn't classify this as a horror novel, just some weird fiction. Most of the horror element is shown through animal abuse, and is purely there for shock factor as it's never even explained why there is animal abuse. I don't care about shock factor most times but this was just done badly.
-Confusing and plotless. It started out being all about the suicides and the WHORL and ended up being about cults and rituals. Only came back to the suicides at the very end and it's still never explained. I never felt uneasy, it did not fill me with dread, nor did I find it bleak. I was just confused and annoyed. The writing is fine but nothing special to keep me entertained.
What I liked about this book:
-When it ended.
-Nothing is explained at ALL, not why the suicides are taking place in this town, the WHORL drug, why the two are connected, what the ritual they keep doing is, literally nothing. It doesn't even bother to explain anything.
-The characters are all the same and all super annoying. There was no point to the multiple POVs because they weren't differentiated at all. No character development or growth. Tyler is literally the worst throughout the whole book and never gets better. I didn't feel bad for any of them.
-None of the side characters are interesting/different from one another, and we never come back to them. There is no point for them to be in the story.
-SO repetitive, literally each page said the same thing. Majority of the book could have been cut out with no reprocussions to the story. Would maybe even be better as a novella.
-Not scary at all. I wouldn't classify this as a horror novel, just some weird fiction. Most of the horror element is shown through animal abuse, and is purely there for shock factor as it's never even explained why there is animal abuse. I don't care about shock factor most times but this was just done badly.
-Confusing and plotless. It started out being all about the suicides and the WHORL and ended up being about cults and rituals. Only came back to the suicides at the very end and it's still never explained. I never felt uneasy, it did not fill me with dread, nor did I find it bleak. I was just confused and annoyed. The writing is fine but nothing special to keep me entertained.
What I liked about this book:
-When it ended.
August 10, 2022
... all the way gone ...
July 25, 2020
Real magic. This is the future of horror.
April 16, 2021
I hate to give it such a low score, mainly because I wanted to like it. I love weirdness but not just for weirdness sake, and the language in it is sometimes beautiful, but there is no pay off, at least not to me.
The characters are most unlikeable, constantly making terrible decisions seemingly to keep a cult leader like boy in their lives that at the best of time exhibits anti social behavior bordering on psychosis only to be used up by him.
The boy in question seems to be on some sort of vision quest that effects on the world around him, but that never really pays off, he uses people up, and even does it to himself.
The book is for someone, someone will really get something out of this, that someone is just not me.
The characters are most unlikeable, constantly making terrible decisions seemingly to keep a cult leader like boy in their lives that at the best of time exhibits anti social behavior bordering on psychosis only to be used up by him.
The boy in question seems to be on some sort of vision quest that effects on the world around him, but that never really pays off, he uses people up, and even does it to himself.
The book is for someone, someone will really get something out of this, that someone is just not me.
January 26, 2025
I don't know what to say about Negative Space. I feel that none of my words would be interesting or relevant to the book, and it feels pointless to try.
I loved it, and that's what matters. It glued me to the spot. I'll keep parts of it with me, especially this one question:
"How much does a thought weigh?"
I loved it, and that's what matters. It glued me to the spot. I'll keep parts of it with me, especially this one question:
"How much does a thought weigh?"
July 1, 2020
Heirs to Molloy and Thomas the Obscure, Yeager's characters are drill bits digging away, maybe fruitlessly, at the alienation and brain-dead phenomenology of lived experience that saturate contemporary life.
Yeager devilishly subverts what at first feels like a formulaic, pulpy, teen-horror story, and even at the early stage of its narrative it is engaging.
This book is intelligent, because it is subtle; esoteric, because it is subtle; and queer, because it is excessive beyond identity.
Negative Space is more than worth your time; you may not be worth *its* time. It's something worth chewing on. I apologize for my vague praise, but it's all my pea-brain can offer.
Read my full review here:
https://www.wellerbookworks.com/inorg...
Yeager devilishly subverts what at first feels like a formulaic, pulpy, teen-horror story, and even at the early stage of its narrative it is engaging.
This book is intelligent, because it is subtle; esoteric, because it is subtle; and queer, because it is excessive beyond identity.
Negative Space is more than worth your time; you may not be worth *its* time. It's something worth chewing on. I apologize for my vague praise, but it's all my pea-brain can offer.
Read my full review here:
https://www.wellerbookworks.com/inorg...
June 9, 2021
Repetitive. Leaves you no explanation.
Super repetitive descriptions that drag out. No explanation or history of the occult phenomena. It was like listening to someone make up a story as they go, with no time to explain or wrap up the plot. Waste of time and money.
Super repetitive descriptions that drag out. No explanation or history of the occult phenomena. It was like listening to someone make up a story as they go, with no time to explain or wrap up the plot. Waste of time and money.
June 24, 2021
Absolutely awful. Made zero sense. I did not know what the hell i was reading more than half the time. This shouldn’t even be considered horror.
February 20, 2022
3.5/5
I have mixed feelings about this book.
I appreciate the structure and the author's imagination and craft. But, sadly, I just couldn't stand any of the protagonists. They're self-centered, selfish, and superficial; Basically, they get wasted all the time and obsess over a psycho and a plague of suicides. I accept it may be the whole point to use such characters for social commentary; I just prefer characters more interesting.
Negative Space is bleak and well-written. It contains devastating moments and is, objectively, a good book. That said, I couldn't help but loathe the protagonists, so there's that.
TL;DR: unsettling, psychedelic, non-linear, poetic but with infuriating characters.
I have mixed feelings about this book.
I appreciate the structure and the author's imagination and craft. But, sadly, I just couldn't stand any of the protagonists. They're self-centered, selfish, and superficial; Basically, they get wasted all the time and obsess over a psycho and a plague of suicides. I accept it may be the whole point to use such characters for social commentary; I just prefer characters more interesting.
Negative Space is bleak and well-written. It contains devastating moments and is, objectively, a good book. That said, I couldn't help but loathe the protagonists, so there's that.
TL;DR: unsettling, psychedelic, non-linear, poetic but with infuriating characters.
March 3, 2020
This is one of those books you never want to end. The characters live and breathe and ooze into and all over you. It feels like a dream. It is horrifying in a way that feels familiar.
May 24, 2025
I held my breath the entire time while reading this book. The dreadful atmosphere compelled me to. It’s different from anything I’ve ever read and I’m saying it in the most positive way possible. I know this is the kind of book that’ll stay with me for a while.
April 12, 2021
But I’ve given up on there being a story other than what they say about me now. I will lie down beside her, watching her dreams, looking for my own, until her body falls away. She can’t see me as her body peels away, leaving only a sheet of curling strings. I’ll never see her again but I’ll always remember what she meant to me.
July 11, 2022
(4.5) The vast distance between US adults and their children who are far less deluded than their parents, and far more acclimated to a much more terrifying present and future. The expanding universe as metaphor for the stretching fabric of family-led society and cohesion. Lost souls that often don't want to be found. Very disturbing and full of wrenching truth.
April 9, 2021
This is a difficult book to review because I loved it but I'm having a hard time putting my thoughts and feelings into words. Instead I'm going to make a list of keywords to get you in the mood: drugs, suicide, internet forums, nihilism, existentialism, dreams, nightmares, metaphysics, rituals... are you interested yet?
What I will say is that if you need a structured story with a definite beginning, middle and end where everything wraps up by the final page then this might not be the book for you.
Negative Space is a drug-addled mindfuck that might make you question reality and send you into an existential crisis. Enjoy!
What I will say is that if you need a structured story with a definite beginning, middle and end where everything wraps up by the final page then this might not be the book for you.
Negative Space is a drug-addled mindfuck that might make you question reality and send you into an existential crisis. Enjoy!
November 14, 2020
Every review says this book is the future of horror. That's because it's true.
A rich experimental writing style weaving together age old Satanic-panic fears and their modern day manifestation.
Death, drugs, magic, gods, forums, wannabe rappers, etc. I can't remember the last time a book sucked my into its world and spooked me this well in a long time.
"The truth will never make sense unless you force it to."
A rich experimental writing style weaving together age old Satanic-panic fears and their modern day manifestation.
Death, drugs, magic, gods, forums, wannabe rappers, etc. I can't remember the last time a book sucked my into its world and spooked me this well in a long time.
"The truth will never make sense unless you force it to."
April 15, 2022
This was a weird one!! Do not go into this if you want all your questions (or any of them, really) answered. But I liked it, I like weird horror that leaves me scratching my head and feeling lost.
“4 teens abuse a hallucinogenic drug called WHORL in order to cope during a devastating suicide epidemic”, is not really the book I read.
“3 teens get manipulated by another teen into taking a hallucinogenic drug, and practice occult rituals during a suicide epidemic”, is my summation, but it still doesn’t really do the story justice.
Again, this was just weird. I’d love to discuss it with others that have read it because I really don’t know what to think. More than anything, I thought it was depressing. I read the majority of this last night before bed, and it gave me some pretty wild nightmares.
I recommend this if you like weird horror, cosmic horror, and books about teens dealing with modern issues.
**I usually use storygraph for TWs, but just be warned there is a lot of animal death, self harming, and suicide in this one. Also, lots of weird sex stuff and one instance of SA that I’m not even sure really happened, but it was mentioned.
“4 teens abuse a hallucinogenic drug called WHORL in order to cope during a devastating suicide epidemic”, is not really the book I read.
“3 teens get manipulated by another teen into taking a hallucinogenic drug, and practice occult rituals during a suicide epidemic”, is my summation, but it still doesn’t really do the story justice.
Again, this was just weird. I’d love to discuss it with others that have read it because I really don’t know what to think. More than anything, I thought it was depressing. I read the majority of this last night before bed, and it gave me some pretty wild nightmares.
I recommend this if you like weird horror, cosmic horror, and books about teens dealing with modern issues.
**I usually use storygraph for TWs, but just be warned there is a lot of animal death, self harming, and suicide in this one. Also, lots of weird sex stuff and one instance of SA that I’m not even sure really happened, but it was mentioned.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 5, 2021
Experimental yet approachable. I could highlight the entire book. There's no rug to sweep out from under you, all the dirt and blood on the floor is right there as soon as you enter. Dizzying, unnerving, but - the reason something this graphic and raw works so well? - there's a ton of heart at its core. I love it.
February 23, 2021
B.R. Yeager's Negative Space is an intensely bleak, but supremely fascinating, work of coming-of-age weird cosmic horror. Focused on a group of high school friends (kinda-sorta "friends" for the most part), it deals heavily with topics like depression, self-mutilation, suicidal ideation, drug abuse, abusive relationships, and self-destruction. It's a dark, demanding, and challenging work. It's also an intensely compelling and consistently fascinating page-turner.
The town of Kinsfield, New Hampshire is much like any other suburbia. What separates it from other small towns of its ilk are the uncommonly high number of teenage suicides, a fact recognized by an online message board tracking this peculiar phenomena. Also keenly aware of these troubles are Tyler, a mentally ill teen addicted to an odd plant-based chew called WHORL, a necessary ingredient to the occult practices he ritualistically performs. As his mania worsens, his relationships with Jill and Ahmir suffer under the strain and grow increasingly toxic. And all the while, the Kinsfield body count continues to rise...
Yeager depicts several shocking scenes with aplomb, but the real brutality here lies within these characters and their complicated dynamics with one another. Tyler binds these people together, but none of them really like each other, and each become propped up by their various dependencies. Both Jill and Ahmir love Tyler, to their own detriment, and the boy proves to be every bit as poisonous to them as the copious amounts of drugs they all consume just to get through another day of life.
I'm hesitant to say much more about Negative Space for a few reasons, and not simply because of possible spoilers. As I said earlier, this book is a challenging read and it demands scrutiny. I'm not entirely sure I understood everything or even caught all of Yeager's nuances during my first read, and I suspect this book would open itself up more with a second read-through in order to really closely examine all the various threads and opaque connections. While it's not nearly as experimental or demanding as the ergodic House of Leaves, Negative Space still feels apiece with Mark Z. Danielewski's renowned horror novel with its occasionally brief epistolary detours into message board posts, text messages, news articles, and book quotations.
While none of these instances require a mirror to read or for the book to be held upside down, or otherwise defy replication for its Kindle edition, Yeager's work does require serious effort to make sense of its story and to piece together the narrative as relayed through multiple narrators. We are, at least, told who is who, but the "when" for at least some of these characters in some moments just might be a bit questionable. The climax, fittingly, is downright psychedelic, on top of being strange, weird, and occasionally horrifying. That, in fact, sums up the bulk of Negative Space to a T.
The town of Kinsfield, New Hampshire is much like any other suburbia. What separates it from other small towns of its ilk are the uncommonly high number of teenage suicides, a fact recognized by an online message board tracking this peculiar phenomena. Also keenly aware of these troubles are Tyler, a mentally ill teen addicted to an odd plant-based chew called WHORL, a necessary ingredient to the occult practices he ritualistically performs. As his mania worsens, his relationships with Jill and Ahmir suffer under the strain and grow increasingly toxic. And all the while, the Kinsfield body count continues to rise...
Yeager depicts several shocking scenes with aplomb, but the real brutality here lies within these characters and their complicated dynamics with one another. Tyler binds these people together, but none of them really like each other, and each become propped up by their various dependencies. Both Jill and Ahmir love Tyler, to their own detriment, and the boy proves to be every bit as poisonous to them as the copious amounts of drugs they all consume just to get through another day of life.
I'm hesitant to say much more about Negative Space for a few reasons, and not simply because of possible spoilers. As I said earlier, this book is a challenging read and it demands scrutiny. I'm not entirely sure I understood everything or even caught all of Yeager's nuances during my first read, and I suspect this book would open itself up more with a second read-through in order to really closely examine all the various threads and opaque connections. While it's not nearly as experimental or demanding as the ergodic House of Leaves, Negative Space still feels apiece with Mark Z. Danielewski's renowned horror novel with its occasionally brief epistolary detours into message board posts, text messages, news articles, and book quotations.
While none of these instances require a mirror to read or for the book to be held upside down, or otherwise defy replication for its Kindle edition, Yeager's work does require serious effort to make sense of its story and to piece together the narrative as relayed through multiple narrators. We are, at least, told who is who, but the "when" for at least some of these characters in some moments just might be a bit questionable. The climax, fittingly, is downright psychedelic, on top of being strange, weird, and occasionally horrifying. That, in fact, sums up the bulk of Negative Space to a T.
September 23, 2020
*Trigger Warning: Suicide, self-harm, animal harm.*
I wish I could give this an even higher rating than 5/5, something that transcends the confines of this rating system to match the theme of this unbelievable novel.
I was absolutely sucked into this book from the first page. If you're like me and appreciate novels written about teen angst, the MUCH darker side of growing up and the endless possibilities that go with that topic, this is unabashedly for you. This story is about drug-addled, affluent, complacent teenagers in a town with a disproportionate amount of suicides. These kids are so used to it that they run to see the hanging bodies of people they know so that they can take pictures and share them on social media without delay. When Tyler, one of the particularly disturbed teens, begins to wonder about the pattern of the suicides, he delves into some occult-like (but still pretty scientific-sounding) books and learns about a drug and a ritual that will change his world and that of those around him.
This book transcends time by being in the here and now, the future, and the past all at once.
This book transcends sexuality by presenting these teens as having seemingly no preference in who they love, are with, and are themselves (there is even a character who is often referred to as 'she' and 'he,' making it hard for the reader to know exactly who or what this person identifies as).
This book transcends space by reaching into other dimensions and pulling gods, saints, and nameless (terrifying) black 'string' out of it.
This book transcends feelings too by presenting you with imagery that can make anyone reading it experience synesthesia (Ex. "Arnie slurred his voice all alabaster when he really felt something").
The name of the book itself is never directly addressed (which makes sense, since negative space is generally not directly addressed), yet it encompasses all that you experience and see in this book perfectly when you realize the real subjects might not be the teens, but everything that is going on around them to affect them.
I read aloud many parts of this book because they were so disturbing and intriguing to me. There is one section where a book is being read by one of the characters and the excerpt pertains to corn seedlings releasing a pheromone when they are being eaten by caterpillars, which draws in wasps to eat the caterpillars. So it is forcing the wasps to do the bidding of the seedlings without the wasp being aware that they are being manipulated. Then it asks the question of what that means for humanity and how people can manipulate other people for their own ends, making the person being manipulated think that the idea came from their own head and not some external source. Can you think of anything more terrifying than realizing how easily we can become the puppets of external sources, both human and supernatural?
Along with this existential dread is also the pain of being a teenager in a world where there is only drugs, sex, and death constantly surrounding you. Social media plays a huge part here too in spreading the disease of suicide and darkness. It is frightening to watch how much the teenagers rely on it and all the innocence that can be destroyed through the exploration of its unlit corners.
This specific quote made me ache inside, "I dreamed about a supercomputer that could erase anything in existence. First I erased all the spiders. Then I erased all the people, including myself. I wasn't there anymore, but I could still think and remember, and I wept and wept, wanting to be all the way gone."
I honestly felt anxious reading this book, almost like I could slip into a depression that is deep and unrelenting due to how well it is written and how much it brought back memories of my own teen angst and loneliness. It is so real and tangible and there is so much psychedelic madness present here that it is hard to escape. After finishing this book and trying to go to bed, I thought I heard wasps buzzing in my room. I thought I saw black, sticky string cascading from the ceiling onto my bed like soft cobwebs. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep.
A huge thank you to B.R. Yeager for providing Horrorbound.net with a copy of his book for review. My review is coming soon to Horrorbound!
I wish I could give this an even higher rating than 5/5, something that transcends the confines of this rating system to match the theme of this unbelievable novel.
I was absolutely sucked into this book from the first page. If you're like me and appreciate novels written about teen angst, the MUCH darker side of growing up and the endless possibilities that go with that topic, this is unabashedly for you. This story is about drug-addled, affluent, complacent teenagers in a town with a disproportionate amount of suicides. These kids are so used to it that they run to see the hanging bodies of people they know so that they can take pictures and share them on social media without delay. When Tyler, one of the particularly disturbed teens, begins to wonder about the pattern of the suicides, he delves into some occult-like (but still pretty scientific-sounding) books and learns about a drug and a ritual that will change his world and that of those around him.
This book transcends time by being in the here and now, the future, and the past all at once.
This book transcends sexuality by presenting these teens as having seemingly no preference in who they love, are with, and are themselves (there is even a character who is often referred to as 'she' and 'he,' making it hard for the reader to know exactly who or what this person identifies as).
This book transcends space by reaching into other dimensions and pulling gods, saints, and nameless (terrifying) black 'string' out of it.
This book transcends feelings too by presenting you with imagery that can make anyone reading it experience synesthesia (Ex. "Arnie slurred his voice all alabaster when he really felt something").
The name of the book itself is never directly addressed (which makes sense, since negative space is generally not directly addressed), yet it encompasses all that you experience and see in this book perfectly when you realize the real subjects might not be the teens, but everything that is going on around them to affect them.
I read aloud many parts of this book because they were so disturbing and intriguing to me. There is one section where a book is being read by one of the characters and the excerpt pertains to corn seedlings releasing a pheromone when they are being eaten by caterpillars, which draws in wasps to eat the caterpillars. So it is forcing the wasps to do the bidding of the seedlings without the wasp being aware that they are being manipulated. Then it asks the question of what that means for humanity and how people can manipulate other people for their own ends, making the person being manipulated think that the idea came from their own head and not some external source. Can you think of anything more terrifying than realizing how easily we can become the puppets of external sources, both human and supernatural?
Along with this existential dread is also the pain of being a teenager in a world where there is only drugs, sex, and death constantly surrounding you. Social media plays a huge part here too in spreading the disease of suicide and darkness. It is frightening to watch how much the teenagers rely on it and all the innocence that can be destroyed through the exploration of its unlit corners.
This specific quote made me ache inside, "I dreamed about a supercomputer that could erase anything in existence. First I erased all the spiders. Then I erased all the people, including myself. I wasn't there anymore, but I could still think and remember, and I wept and wept, wanting to be all the way gone."
I honestly felt anxious reading this book, almost like I could slip into a depression that is deep and unrelenting due to how well it is written and how much it brought back memories of my own teen angst and loneliness. It is so real and tangible and there is so much psychedelic madness present here that it is hard to escape. After finishing this book and trying to go to bed, I thought I heard wasps buzzing in my room. I thought I saw black, sticky string cascading from the ceiling onto my bed like soft cobwebs. Needless to say, I did not get much sleep.
A huge thank you to B.R. Yeager for providing Horrorbound.net with a copy of his book for review. My review is coming soon to Horrorbound!
September 4, 2021
"I nodded, even though it didn't make any sense." - Lu (pg. 247)
In Negative Space, four New England teenagers are subsumed by a mysterious force. Tyler, a pink-haired boy with severe green eyes and a history of self-harm, is at the center of the mystery: an epidemic of suicides and a new, highly-addictive drug called WHORL. Those closest to Tyler are increasingly exposed to his strange behavior and to existential struggles of their own. Jill, his girlfriend, watches his descent into oblivion and then leaves for college to try and flee the experience. Ahmir, his boyfriend, tries to live with Tyler but is put in danger when their attempt at dealing goes awry. Lu, Jill's best friend, functions as the independent observer until she takes WHORL and has a unique experience of her own.
Kindly reviewers claim Negative Space is about human "interaction with a nameless, transcendent source", or dealing with grief, or the existential dread of being a teenager in a meaningless, materialist world. These are bold claims for a book in which a policeman threatens someone with a chainsaw, Jill has a dream about kissing a driving dog, and someone is fucked with a corn cob.
Negative Space is an almost-irredeemably bad confluence of Edgelord philosophy and obsessive scatology. The central characters smoke weed all day, have grizzly sex, watch movies and play video games, and are all religiously committed to Tyler despite his having no actual depth or explanation of character. Every setting is described as smelling of piss or shit, blood is everywhere, and semen and vomit abound. In the final third of the book, several of the characters start to participate in a ritual in which they hum and masturbate. It's about that time that the writing gets long-winded and several interesting stylistic elements, like the chatroom and some of the epistolary format, totally disappear. Despite being written in the first-person from the perspective of Jill, Ahmir, and Lu, none of the characters has a unique voice, and the diction is monotonous throughout with little to no attention paid to the quality of writing. The easy allusion Yeager makes to Palahniuk by making his enigmatic lead's name "Tyler" ought to offend the latter, a capable author.
Don't you hate it when a person tells you about their dream at length, and, during the process, they struggle to pick up on visual cues that you're uncomfortable listening to it, and the dream itself winds up being creepily suggestive of that person's own depraved mental state? That's what reading this book is like. Avoid reading it, but check out the cool cover.
In Negative Space, four New England teenagers are subsumed by a mysterious force. Tyler, a pink-haired boy with severe green eyes and a history of self-harm, is at the center of the mystery: an epidemic of suicides and a new, highly-addictive drug called WHORL. Those closest to Tyler are increasingly exposed to his strange behavior and to existential struggles of their own. Jill, his girlfriend, watches his descent into oblivion and then leaves for college to try and flee the experience. Ahmir, his boyfriend, tries to live with Tyler but is put in danger when their attempt at dealing goes awry. Lu, Jill's best friend, functions as the independent observer until she takes WHORL and has a unique experience of her own.
Kindly reviewers claim Negative Space is about human "interaction with a nameless, transcendent source", or dealing with grief, or the existential dread of being a teenager in a meaningless, materialist world. These are bold claims for a book in which a policeman threatens someone with a chainsaw, Jill has a dream about kissing a driving dog, and someone is fucked with a corn cob.
Negative Space is an almost-irredeemably bad confluence of Edgelord philosophy and obsessive scatology. The central characters smoke weed all day, have grizzly sex, watch movies and play video games, and are all religiously committed to Tyler despite his having no actual depth or explanation of character. Every setting is described as smelling of piss or shit, blood is everywhere, and semen and vomit abound. In the final third of the book, several of the characters start to participate in a ritual in which they hum and masturbate. It's about that time that the writing gets long-winded and several interesting stylistic elements, like the chatroom and some of the epistolary format, totally disappear. Despite being written in the first-person from the perspective of Jill, Ahmir, and Lu, none of the characters has a unique voice, and the diction is monotonous throughout with little to no attention paid to the quality of writing. The easy allusion Yeager makes to Palahniuk by making his enigmatic lead's name "Tyler" ought to offend the latter, a capable author.
Don't you hate it when a person tells you about their dream at length, and, during the process, they struggle to pick up on visual cues that you're uncomfortable listening to it, and the dream itself winds up being creepily suggestive of that person's own depraved mental state? That's what reading this book is like. Avoid reading it, but check out the cool cover.
November 22, 2024
Hardly any plot, the characters are all awful, nothing is ever explained or expanded upon, nothing makes sense, everything feels Edgy in a DeadJournal, VampireFreaks kind of way, just for the sake of being edgy. I’m mad I was looking forward to this and madder that I kept reading hoping that something–anything–would happen to make the chore of reading it worthwhile.
EDIT: A year later and this book still pisses me off. Every time I think about it I get so upset. Can you believe someone had the nerve to RECOMMEND this book to me recently?
EDIT: A year later and this book still pisses me off. Every time I think about it I get so upset. Can you believe someone had the nerve to RECOMMEND this book to me recently?
June 5, 2020
In his blurb, Blake Butler cited Dennis Cooper's George Miles cycle and Beyond the Black Rainbow (the Canadian movie, I assume). I'm a fan of both, though the associations with Negative Space are more vague than I expected. Yeager works nicely with the teens' voices, and the magic is uncomfortably messy and (thankfully) not over-explained. I'd prefer a tighter treatment, but then that's my usual preference.
April 22, 2022
I was very excited to read this book. Very depressed commentary on drug addicted horny suicidal teens
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