This Thing Between Us by Gus Moreno

​       Every so often a book comes along and just blows your mind. You look for these books, these awesome ventures into the darkest corners of one’s mind, these quietly terrifying tales of descent into madness and sometimes you find them. I found this book. And it blew my mind.
      This is a story of grief made tangible, a devastation manifested physically, this book takes inside emotions and twists them into a force to fight against. Inspired by the author’s personal grief, it absolutely devastates in its emotional potency. Crafted by the author’s considerable talent, it grabs you by the lapels, throws you into a riding car and takes you on a journey unlike no other. A ride you’ll not soon forget.
     This is a story of Thiago and Vera, a nice Mexican American married couple living in Chicago. Thiago is something of a bum with a laissez faire approach to life, Vera is a more type A breadwinner sort of person, but together they work despite or perhaps because of their differences. There’s certainly no shortage of love between them. And then Vera dies, suddenly and tragically, and Thiago is left alone in a world that increasingly seems less rational and more dangerous.
     The entire novel is written in that You style, by Thiago, addressed to Vera, as it follows his Dantean descent into the darker and darker levels of the underworld. It begins with sinister (Amazon like though amusingly renamed) technology that acquires an unpleasant degree of sentience even prior to Vera’s death and proceeds to follow Thiago all the way to Colorado and back, taking stranger and scarier forms each time. Is he possessed by grief alone or if there something more evil at work here, something supernatural, something that wants to be released.
      I don’t want to say too much, because this novel really needs to be read with every stunning surprise in it maintained a surprise. These aren’t fun surprises, either. Thiago is this story’s punching bag protagonist, it punches emotionally and otherwise, above and below the proverbial belt. And it throws punches with such pugilistic potency that it gets right through to the readers. It’s a devastating novel to read, but it’s certainly emotionally engaging, alarmingly so.
     It spirals into the sort of darkness towards the end that might be difficult for some readers, it gets positively trippy towards the every end. And yet, it absolutely commands your attention in the best possible way. It does all the things the best literary novels of dark psychological fiction and nightmares do and with a striking aplomb, especially for a debut, featuring a notable creative confidence and a compelling narrative voice.
    In fact, this might be the novel Reid’s I’m thinking of endings things tried and failed to be, but that’s neither here nor there.
     It’s thoroughly original, though with heavy echoes of (without overthinking it) The Outsider and Pet Cematary and some possession novels. Doesn’t matter though, this is fresh in the best possible way.
      At any rate. This was an absolutely awesome read. Genre fans, this is the one you’ve been searching for. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.