Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC.
Anyone who reads this really needs to take the trigger warnings seriously!
While the author skillfully wrote about the main character's spiral into madness, I felt there was a lot of repetition (especially the bugs), which may have been intentional.
I must be a horrible person, because I actually found the first third or so kind of funny...but definitely no laughs after that.
The police reports at the end helped fill in the (incredibly depressing) blanks.

This book was such an adventure to read through. I loved the format and the way that the story played out. It was a fantastic read and I look forward to reading more from this author.

Since being kindly sent ‘A Tainted Soul’ a while ago, AW Rene has become one of my Must Buy authors. I was intrigued when I saw the blurb for this next work, as it looked very different - and so it is.

We read from the perspective of Madeline, a mother writing to her daughter Amelia. At first, it’s standard gossip about the neighbours, encounters at the store, that sort of thing, before we quickly see that all is very much not well in Madeline’s head. And where is Amelia, anyway?

This book flies past with the speed of a held breath. It reminded me of the old ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ stories, moving from the normal to the bizarre almost before you have time to notice. I had an inkling of where things were going, but every twist was like a punch to the gut, until the inevitable sense of ‘this is going to end badly’ ramped up… and up… and when is this rollercoaster going to tip?!

Gorgeously written, this is a slice of suburbia that will make you eye your own neighbours a little more carefully. Nasty fun.

An utterly disturbing and brilliantly written look inside the mind of a woman with psychosis. This book is on the shorter side, but is sure to leave a lasting impact on its readers.

Amelia by A.W. Rene
My Rating: 4 Stars
Themes: Mental Health, Motherhood, Psychosis,

The novella, Amelia is written almost entirely in letters from a mother to her daughter, Amelia. The writing is chaotic and the author does an excellent job of immersing you into the chaos and confusion of the main character's psyche. The tension increases as the main character's mental health deteriorates, alongside the reader's understanding of what's going on.
Kuddos to the author for writing such a visceral and graphic description of the character's experience and events.

A note for readers: be sure to check out the author's list of trigger warnings before reading.

Thank you to NetGalley & BDA Publishing for providing me with an ARC of Amelia to read and review.

There are so many words I want to use to describe this short read:
Surreal, eerie, concerning, uneasy definitely come to mind.

The reader journeys with Madeline as she writes a series of increasingly disturbing letters to her daughter Amelia. There are also 911 transcripts and police reports that give more insight into what is actually going on.

There was a lot of darkness, and I was definitely confused at some moments, but I felt the ending did give somewhat of a resolution. I definitely have lingering anger and sadness, so A.W. Rene really did strike a chord with this reader.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and BDA Publishing for a copy.

This is beautifully and hauntingly written, which I was not expecting for a book of letters between mother and daughter. It starts off as typical letters and slowly delves into worse. A great and quick read.

Thank you NetGalley and BDA Publishing for the early access to Amelia, in exchange for a truthful review.

Amelia is a very short epistolary novella that you’ll be able to read in an hour or so, if you don’t take any vomit breaks - so maybe two or three hours.

The narrative is delivered (mostly) in the form of letters from a mother to her daughter, with occasional procedural breaks - breaks that start to feel like gulps of fresh air in a fetid room.

Make no mistake, this is a claustrophobic, very disturbing novel, increasingly surreal and constantly delusional, building to a trigger-warning happy finale.

Got a little repetitive for my tastes, I always feel like less is more when it comes to maggots.

Stomach chruning and very truly disturbing. Amelia is easily one of the best short horror stories I have ever read. The is almost entirely made up of letters from the main character Madeline, written to her daughter Amelia. It's clear from the beginning that Madeline is not well, but the reader gets to read a bit between the lines to figure out exactly how deep her illness runs and what exactly she isn't saying. It certainly isn't the most subtle of writing, but paired with the intense bug imagery, horrendous acts of violence and abuse, and the quick pacing I'd say that it definitely works. Make sure to read through the content warnings before going in if you are sensitive to certain subjects. Amelia will not be for everyone but it was for me. I'm sure I'll be revisiting this story in the dark of my nightmares for some time to come!

I'd like to thank the publisher for providing me with a free ARC through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The author did a great job with the trigger warnings at the beginning of the book. I felt like k knew exactly what I was getting myself into.

At the same time, I didn’t know where the narrator was taking us. Sometimes that can be annoying but in the book it was fun. I enjoyed how crazy she was and how you had to read between the lines of what she was saying. I only wish we got a chance to have a little more at the end of the book. I wanted to read the psychological evaluation or something like that so we had a chance to see some history of her or even more details.

Overall, this book was filled with the most amazing imagery. I haven’t read a book like this in a long time. I hope this author writes more because their style needs to be out in the world

This was an unsettling descent into an unraveled mind. The protagonist, a mother of Amelia, journals to her daughter about everyday life, and past memories. What the author hints at with the wanderings of Madeline's words and thoughts is a dangerous Jekyll and Hyde complex-doting mother, on one hand, and deadly predator, on the other. The prose envelopes the reader in a sense of dread, as we wait for the other shoe to drop and the real story to be revealed. The ending slams us with the truth, and it is more horrible than could be imagined. It is the stuff of nightmares, and will break your heart.

This story will not be for everyone because it is not an easy story to digest. It deals with truly awful topics, and isn’t for the faint of heart.

Book review 📚

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5/5
Thankyou @netgalley and @bdapublishing for my arc copy of this book ❤️
I loved this little horror novella. It’s told completely through letters and police reports which made it so interesting.
The letters are all from Amelia’s mother to Amelia and I guess you sometimes don’t know if you believe what the narrators saying or they hint at stuff sometimes so you really want to read on to find out the truth.
It gets really dark towards the end so do check the trigger warnings.
I’ve loved @intheinkpot previous book, now she’s an auto buy author 🤭.

#books #booksbooksbooks #bookworm #bookreview #bookrecommendations #bookrecommendation #bookreader #bookreviewer #bookreviews #bookrecs #bookcommunity #arc #netgalley hi

This was my own fault. I just don’t think this was for me. And had I done a bit more research before requesting it I probably could have come to that conclusion. Although having the authors note at the beginning actually included in the description might help.

Where to even begin with this novella? I rarely find anything creepy or scary, I'm always looking for something that makes me FEEL, and this one did just that.

The story is told through a mother's letters to her daughter, and every letter just gets more and more unsettling. We follow a descent into further madness and I thought I knew how it was going to end, right up until the end, when certain numbers were revealed and changed how I’d been viewing the entire story.

This novella was so poetic, the imagery was beautiful and horrifying and stomach churning. I couldn't get enough.

I want a full novel. I want a full backstory. I would pay for it right now, unwritten, unrated, unreviewed, if it were to my collection and eagerly awaiting any tusther works from AW Rene.

I so wanted to like this one but I struggled to get through its opening pages. I am still very thankful to the publisher, author, and netgalley for granting me advanced access to this one before publication day.

I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I appreciated the content warning at the beginning of the book; I enjoyed the way AW Rene wrote it as a warning letter to the reader, integrating it with the story without spoiling the content while also providing an explicit list of content and trigger warnings at the end of the novella.

Amelia's premise intrigued me, particularly with its unique format of being written in the form of letters from Madeline to her daughter. However, I found the prose to be awkwardly descriptive, feeling more like an atmospheric third-person narrative than a letter. The story was repetitive, and due to the letter format, it failed to evoke much emotion. I didn't feel the horror or disgust with the imagery as I had expected, as I felt detached from the narrative.

My favorite parts were the Incident Reports, it was a very unique way to inform the reader of what may be going on outside of Madeline's narrative.

Amelia uses letters written from mother to daughter to follow the mother's spiral into... well, I don't want to spoil it but I think you can guess with a couple of pages. This book was extremely transparent as to the plot and any twist that could have been designed. For this reason, I found it a little unexciting. The spookiness that was present in the beginning was abandoned pretty early on and the rest of the book just detailed events leading up to a big reveal which I already guessed pretty much every detail of. I praise the writing but the storytelling and plot left something to be desired.

This was wild for a short story!
Whenever I see moths I'm going to be thinking of this book.
I'm not going to lie my heart raced while reading some pages. Gave me chills and the end just brought it all together. Really enjoyed this read!

Amelia is a short story written mostly as letters from a mother to her daughter with 911 transcripts and police reports mixed in. I didn’t care for the 911 transcripts as they didn’t feel really realistic. I found myself questioning the 911 dispatcher’s ability at times just because it felt like they weren’t asking either enough questions or the right questions. There were also certain points that I found really unrealistic and had a hard time believing. The police reports themselves were super interesting to read and I enjoyed those as we get a more rational explanation of what was occurring during these letter’s Madeline writes to her daughter.

The story itself is jumbled and was a little hard to follow on my kindle. There were some parts I could recognize it was probably a writing choice but others it just seemed like it needed some editing. Granted I was reading an ARC so it may change once released or look different in formatting.

Madeline’s mental state is all over the place and we see firsthand how out of touch she is with reality all the while dealing with the hard emotional aspects of her relationship with her daughter. It was a hard story, and the ending left me both heartbroken and destroyed emotionally.

𝐀𝐦𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐚 𝘣𝘺 𝘈𝘞 𝘙𝘦𝘯𝘦
Pub date: May 14, 2024
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𝘍𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘭𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘬 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘳 𝘈𝘞 𝘙𝘦𝘯𝘦, 𝘕𝘦𝘵𝘎𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘺, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘉𝘋𝘈 𝘗𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘥𝘷𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘦𝘹𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸.
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Amelia… what can I say about this book? I wanted to love it. It gave me strong Yellow Wallpaper vibes to begin with. I enjoy unique formats and this is written almost entirely as letters from the main character to her daughter. With a sprinkling of 911 and police transcripts thrown in.
They did wrap everything up in the end but I just found it all to be tied up too neatly, too quickly.
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‌The whole book is only about 100 pages give or take (I read it as an ebook) and although I loved some of the imagery and poetic prose used, it often got lost with the repetitiveness of talking about painting the stairs and the insects. Where it started off strong giving us little nuggets and clues as to what was going on, the unending stream of consciousness became somewhat distracting, especially when paragraphs would just end mid-sentence on multiple occasions. The author thanks their editor in the acknowledgments but this book felt like it didn’t use an editor at all. Even in the acknowledgments, editor was spelled as editwar. It was kind of a hot mess to read at times. And I know this could be a stylized choice made by the author to show Madeline’s descent into madness and her psychotic break I just think it could have been done tidier. Also, I don’t know if it was a typo but the main character is revealed to be 21 in the end, her husband was supposed to be 48, and the daughter Amelia around 6 or 7 which would have made Madeline 12 or 13 when she had her. This made no sense to me and didn’t fit with the narrative. Overall, it was a good story the execution just seemed lacking.