White Fuzz (The Bedlam Bible #2) By William Pauley III

Rating: 7/10

Synopsis

Franklin feels alone in life. One fateful night, he gets a curious text from a stranger, Lynda, another resident of his apartment building. She convinces him to come over, against his better judgment, and surprisingly the night seems to be going great, despite a little awkwardness.

However, it’s clear that Lynda is living with demons that are in desperate need of exorcising, as everything inside her apartment seems to trigger some dark memory buried deep within her psyche. In hopes of helping her escape the prison that is her home, he invites her over to his place, but the problems only get worse, to the point he fears she won’t make it through the night.

Just when he feels the night has reached peak insanity, he discovers her madness is rubbing off on him…

Review

Went with the audio by Connor Brannigan and its very well done. 

This is a very bizarre story. Franklin received a set of random texts from a neighbor he doesn’t know. He’s lonely, so he accepts her offer to come over and hang out. Regardless of the red flags, in which there are numerous, he finds himself staying. She contradicts herself, claiming he’s wrong even when it was a comment she made only moments before—clearly gaslighting him. She seems to mistake him for someone else, and over time it only gets worse. After ignoring a text to take her medicine, Franklin invites Lynda over in hopes of shaking her out of it in a new setting. 

Unfortunately, things only get worse. The night is fueled by arguments, misunderstands, the need for reassurance, sexual endeavors, and even self harm. I do feel like bits of his loneliness and his ability to brush things off resonated with me as at least ‘possible,’ even though I would have gotten the hell out of there wayyyy earlier. I do feel like Lynda’s assaults were not that deftly handled though, as some of her triggers seemed to be the opposite of expectations. That may be the nature of the genre, but it still stood out to me.

Regardless, the ending is even more out of left field than the entire story, and the insanity is catching.