Fractal and fractured

The work this book most reminded me of wasn’t actually a book; despite having no similarities in characters or plot, the FEELING it left me with was exactly like the movie It Follows.  I was done reading this and had the same queasy wrongness that I did after watching the dissonant film about a sexually transmitted haunting.

Sweet Lamb of Heaven follows a woman who begins having auditory hallucinations at the birth of her daughter and the group of fellow sufferers in the hotel where she is hiding from her ex.  …Having written that summary, being stalked by an ex isn’t that dissimilar to a sexually transmitted ghost after all.  In any case, as the book goes on the reader gets disoriented along with our protagonist and it becomes difficult to parse what is real, whether she is the victim of mental illness or the supernatural, whether her ex is a mere psychopath or something even more sinister. That Millet manages to create the sense of instability her character is experiencing is impressive, but off-putting as well. You have a sense that something is wrong without being able to articulate exactly why, as with the nebulous seasons and uncertain era of It Follows.  It makes for an unsettling read.  I didn’t enjoy this book, but I’m not sure I was supposed to.