Read purely because I was doing author research… and now I need therapy.

I specifically wanted to find a book with an average rating below 2.5 stars to understand what makes readers rise up as a united front and say: “Absolutely not” You know….  studying pitfalls, mistakes to avoid, figuring out how a book can go so spectacularly wrong that Goodreads personally apologises when you click it. But then I saw the numbers: Over 3,000 ratings. More than 2,000 reviews. For a novella that is literally 16 pages long. That’s not a book, that’s a push notification. And because only around 1% of readers leave reviews, that means this chaotic little creation sold tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of copies.

At this point, my curiosity said: “I’m reading this immediately.” So I did. In one sitting. Took me longer to boil pasta. And when I reached the end, I sat there in silence, blinked three times, and whispered:

“What the hell did I just read?” 😱 I see why people said this book will make you want to bleach your brain afterwards, because the images it puts in your mind???

Un-SEE-able.
Un-hearable.
Un-sanitizable.

But… I have to admit, beneath the chaos, the creativity is undeniable. The author clearly threw the rules out the window, and somehow that audacious imagination is also part of what makes this book memorable.

How I Would Rate It

Here’s the thing:
If you read this as a romance → ★☆☆☆☆
(You will lose faith in love, science, humanity, and possibly yourself.)

If you read it as a comedy/parody written during global trauma → ★★★★★
(Because it is genuinely the funniest accidental book ever.)

Honestly, I can’t write a normal review because my review would end up longer than the actual book. So instead, I went down the Goodreads rabbit hole…. a place filled with readers laughing, crying, reconsidering their relationship with literature,  and found a review that perfectly summed up my emotional collapse.

Here’s the link: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3572212372 

Context (which makes the whole thing EVEN BETTER)

At the time this book was written, M.J. Edwards had just lost his job during the pandemic. So this novella isn’t just a story. It’s:

• Parody
• Panic
• Pain
• Unhinged creativity
• And the pure financial survival instinct of someone saying,

“I need money and the world is already insane, so why not?” And you know what? He pulled it off.

The book went viral,  spiritually, emotionally, and ironically.

This is one of those works that is so unbelievably, profoundly, cosmically bad… that it becomes iconic. A cultural artefact. A relic of 2020 that belongs in a museum labelled, “Humanity was not okay.”

Final Thoughts

Did this book make me a better person? No. Did it delete a few brain cells? Yes. Did it make me want to bleach my brain afterwards? Also yes. Immediately. Twice. Would I recommend it? Of course, if you enjoy chaos, satire, or the literary equivalent of licking a battery.

But did the author hustle his way into viral fame with a 16-page plot about a woman falling in love with a humanoid version of Covid? Absolutely. And honestly? I respect the hustle.

Plus, he did well enough that there are sequels. So apparently, this fever dream wasn’t just a one-off… it was the start of a whole viral empire.