This week, two crackheads find themselves in a very normal crackhead situation (accidentally eating a baby and discovering a love of human flesh). Join me in a review for Mickey And Mo by Robert Essig and Tomasz Czarny.
What Is Mickey And Mo About?
There’s something inherently spooky about crackheads in the woods. Add some ol’ fashion baby cannibalism to the mix, and the story gets downright terrifying.
Mickey and Mo are a modern Romeo and Juliet (if Shakespeare happened to set the story in the woods of Virginia and include a lot of meth). The couple cook meth out of their decrepit shack, and with only each other to lean on, the two are praying for some kind of way out. Mickey’s addiction is taking control over him. His boss is starting to grow suspicious of him, and he’s growing suspicious of everyone else. Mo’s completely lost to drugs, and when her friend shows looking for a babysitter, she’s not even lucid enough to say no.
When things take a dark turn, there’s nowhere they can go for help. And the worst part? Mickey and Mo don’t want help. One accident has shown them a new, darker part of themselves, and there’s no going back. Mickey’s boss is coming for blood, Mo’s friend is looking for her baby, and the end is closing in. Will these two be able to make it out alive?
What Worked…
I found this book as a recommendation on my bookstagram, which is typically a good source for books for me. Because it was a rec from a friend, though, I knew a fair bit going into it. I was aware going into this book that they’d eat the baby. I didn’t know when it was gonna happen, I didn’t know why it was gonna happen, but the tension was there at the beginning for me. Whose baby? Why? How? And once it started happening, I was just staring at my Kindle going, “Oh no oh no oh no oh no.” I think the fact that a lot of the marketing opens with this creates a great reader experience. To be told upfront what was going to happen created this very strange experience as a reader that was really fun for me.
… And What Didn’t
Before I say this, I want to make it clear that I realize everyone has different limits in extreme horror. And while I can handle rape scenes, there’s almost nothing I hate more than torture porn. I don’t like it in books, I don’t like it in movies, I don’t like it games. If there’s rape, at least have it mean something. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of sexual assault in this book, and it almost never means anything.
There is a rape scene quite early on. There’s probably a number of rape scenes depending on your definition of the word rape, but I’m referring to one in particular. Quite early into the story, Mickey rapes Mo for what appears to be no reason at all. I will give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume this was supposed to show how far from humanity Mickey has fallen or how far the drugs have taken him, but it was just a strange. I can’t see the fall from grace because as a reader, I didn’t know Mickey before. And if this was supposed to show me how traumatized Mo was that she accepts this and just moves along because being violated by your partner is no big deal to her, I don’t know that it does that either. Actual trauma exploration would have come with her fear of living with this man, not in her overt dismissal of it. These are scenes that I feel could have been lifted from the story with zero impact, which is not a good sign.
Final Thoughts
If you’re looking for a gory read to burn through this spooky season, this could be a good one for you. The book is available on Kindle Unlimited (if that’s your poison), and it only took me about an hour. If you can get over the random SA, the book is well paced and just disgusting enough to be memorable. Be sure to let me know if you pick it up and if you have any other extreme horror reads I should check out!