Summary: Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke by Eric LaRocca is a macabre look into the emails and instant messenger chats between two young women, Agnes and Zoe, that meet on an online forum, bonding over an email exchange negotiating the purchase of an antique apple-peeler, that quickly becomes a negotiation of a sadomasochistic contract between the two women, and things get worse from there.

What struck me most about this story is the sudden connection over the internet that quickly turns to reliance, something that can be frighteningly familiar to lonely people looking for any way out, horror elements aside. Agnes and Zoe form a bond over the dark sides they can’t show to other people, swapping their own horror stories and dark desires. Zoe stokes a dark flame in Agnes, pushing her to leave her timid comfort zone in a way that quickly goes from empowering to darkly controlling, beautifully captured by the refrained “What have you done today to deserve your eyes?”
Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke delivers on the horror. It knows when to go into detail, and when to pull back, and let what goes unsaid haunt your mind beyond the last page.

Recommendation: This novella is not for the faint of heart, but if you appreciate depraved horror that explores the downward spiral of an internet relationship gone bad, you should give it a read. I read this book in a mad rush of one late night and one early morning, and I think it’s best devoured all at once.
I especially enjoyed the investigation framing of the novella and the ambiguity it seeds with occasionally redacted messages. This is my first time reading Eric LaRocca’s work, and his work is definitely staying on my list.
I rate this 4/5 stars. I would have loved it even more as a full-length novel with a more drawn-out descent into madness, but I enjoyed it immensely all the same.