The Readerviews Review and Feature of Insanity By Increments

Care of managing editor Susan Violante, the review of Insanity By Increments is also up on:

http://readerviews.com/reviewinsantiybyincrementscabilingreview

The review initially appeared on Blogcritics.org

The latest review of Insanity By Increments

Here is the latest review of Insanity By Increments with credit from Susan V. of Blogcritics.org:

Insanity by Increments: Stories is a collection of short stories by Alaric Cabiling that call to the darker rudiments of human existence. InsanityByIncrementsThe stories range from morose to vicious, to just plain sadness and desolation, as the characters deal with the inequities and trials of life.

The author takes his readers on an unnerving ride through nine different stories, with a haunting look into the duality of goodness and evil presiding within every human being. One man makes the ultimate sacrifice for his brother after their parents die within a few months of each other. A father mundanely trudges through the motions of life after the death of his only child. A boy is abandoned, first by his alcoholic father, then by his mother, as her plans for a new life don’t include him. Beauty queens long buried deep into the earth will pose for a final photo shoot at the whim of a madman. Cruelty is dosed out by one man in strangled silence over the years, after a tragic accident renders a “normal” life to be just out of reach.

A four-star review for Insanity By Increments

Earl Messer (Reviewer) has just completed feedback for Insanity By Increments.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Full Text: Insanity By Increments is a collection of stories by Alaric Cabiling that is dark yet also thought-provoking. From what seems like nothing more than a summer visit with relatives to a story of a macabre photographer (or perhaps his employer is the macabre one? Or the wife?).

What is particularly effective is the way that the darkness (and there are definitely different shades of darkness here) can inhabit both obvious places, say a room with a few corpses in it, as well as the common places of everyday life such as a family home. Perhaps what Cabiling really shows us is that the darkness resides within us, all of us to some extent. It is when that darkness tries to enter the material world that things can go from strange to downright horrific.

Highly recommended for those interested in the short story form as well as character driven stories. Perhaps one line from "Frailty" sums it up for me when reading Cabiling's words: whatever was not being said...couldn't be pretty.

Reviewed from an ARC made available by the publisher via NetGalley.