BECCA ELLEN BOOKS

“There is a despair that goes deeper than existence; it runs to the marrow of consciousness”

Horrifying. More horrifying than any gory or violent story.

The idea of eternity or infinity is especially scary to me, so the Hell described in this book is profoundly disturbing. No escape, no respite, no end, no meaning, nothing new or different. A time span longer than the human mind can even comprehend.

Fear of the unknown is common and daunting, especially when it comes to the afterlife. But one of the things that gets people through hard times is knowing that it is temporary. We tell ourselves that this will not last forever and that everything changes eventually. Everything comes to an end, even if that ending is death.

In this Hell, there are no endings, no new chapters and no power to do anything about it.

As someone who struggles with my mental health, one of the things that often gets me through the hard times is knowing that, one day, something will change. Eventually, my life will look completely different to the way it is now, and I’ll be a different version of myself. The potential of the future and the idea that anything can happen is a great comfort to so many people, even if they don’t realise it. And for those of us who suffer with suicidal ideation, even the knowledge that death is an option can sit quietly in the back of our mind as a last resort and a comfort.

In this Hell, even that possibility is taken from you.

I can only imagine how many residents of this Hell just kill themselves over and over again, desperate for escape. But even that escape is temporary; you are simply brought right back to where you were when you died, condemned to carry on your impossible journey.

I’m sure there is something meaningful and hopeful to take from the love story and the impression Rachel managed to leave despite being such a tiny part of the narrator’s infinity. But against the sheer scale of eternity, it hardly feels significant enough to offer any real comfort.

I also can’t decide whether the task given to the inhabitants, finding the book of their life, makes the Hell better or worse.

There is the promise of Heaven at the end, but considering the impossibility of the task, it feels more like a taunt. The fear that perhaps you have missed your book. The realisation that you will never find it. And yet you keep desperately searching anyway because there is always that tiny, agonising possibility that one day you might escape.

It is not torture or violence that makes this book so horrifying.

It’s monotony. Sameness, Repetition.

And the knowledge that this is forever.

My idea of the perfect worst Hell.