Full Brutal By Kristopher Triana

 

Full Brutal
By Kristopher Triana
2018 Grindhouse Press
Paperback, 256 pages

 

                I consider Kristopher Triana to be one of the Big 3 Splatterpunk authors currently at the top of their game, alongside Aron Beauregard and Daniel Volpe. Those three get consistently high ratings in book love and book hate, happy readers and disgusted readers, and mentions within the horror book community. This was my first Triana offering.

 

                Kim White is a cheerleader, a popular, pretty girl, an excellent student, and a bored virgin. At 16, she has it all; money, looks, popularity, a trusting but often absent father, and smarts. When her best friend tells her that losing her virginity was “life-changing”, Kim sets in motion a plan to change her own life. To do the deed, she chooses one of her teachers. Y’see, the boys her own age are drips and the teacher, well, he could give her so much more. And we’re not talking just sex.

 

                She not only successfully seduces the teacher, but she slowly and incrementally breaks him down, threatening him and making him fuck her again, abusing him to make him wish he had never seen her. In an act of extreme cruelty, she also befriends his daughter Caitlin, who is a grade behind her in school. Getting in tight with his family, she tutors the gullible girl to be a cheerleader and gains the youngsters trust completely. Then, she starts work on destroying Caitlin, little by little. Kim doesn’t give a shit. About anything, not even herself. She’s bored and wants to die. Perhaps that is where I related to her so much.

 

                Unbelievably, I was laughing while enjoying the total decimation of the family at Kim’s sadistic hands. She was just so devious and cruel. Poor little Caitlin, her life was falling apart. Mr. Blakeley’s eventual death (Kim did it) seals the deal and Caitlin eventually succumbs herself. Man, that was some rough stuff. But that’s just the first half of the book.

 

                In all honesty, if the book ended right there, it would have been one of my favorites of the year, anyway. The second half is fun, but in my opinion, unnecessary. What could Kim possibly do to make herself even more of a beast. The second half concerns what she does to control the little fuck-demon in her belly. Yup. Ol’ Mr. Blakely knocked her up and her attempts to miscarry were a failure. Human flesh seems to satisfy the little mistake. So, the second half is full of gore and mayhem.

 

                The second half is fun but, like I said, if the book ended after the first half, it would have been a very powerful story of torment and sadism. I look at the second part as kind of a sequel to the first part. At any rate, I give this one my highest marks and I’ll always feel that Kim spoke for me, even if just a little bit.