Shadow Dream Girl - A Bennet the Sage Psychological Horror Tale

[Complicity]

Fat, lame and gay.
And if you ask me if i'm talking about the book or the writer, my answer is

“I don't know.”

The ending truly makes zero sense from what I can tell.

Either Spoony and Orcril both survived, she dumped him, and this Jacob's Ladder bullshit was caused by not letting the dremel go, or they both died, were stuck in the lamest Hell ever, and then she dumped him and moved to a better afterlife.
Fat and gay, fat and gay.

5. Who the fuck was "Lisa" anyway? His girlfriend was named Lauren and aside from red hair(?) they don't seem especially similar. Lisa was some pornbody sex zombie and Lauren was basically normal.

She was the sexy version of the dead wife of the dude in Silent Hill 2. And also the zombie nurse of Silent Hill 2 , why the fuck not.

This book was a colossal waste of time for everyone involved.

Especially us.

So, Ian hit a telephone pole.

IN school of writing:
To make a payoff unexpected, it must be as mundane as possible.

this repeating hell?

Being in Hell is an improvement over being in this book.

I swear to God, we are through! I don't ever want to see you, or your sorry ass again!
You made me waste my life, lyou fuckling

I can't help thinking that Lauren Simonsen is Orcril.
Benito, i'm sorry to inform you that she was a cunt as much as Spoony.
She knew that she was living with the money of her boyfriend's fans, and yet she was on Twatter 24/7, bragging about her Skyrim sessions and how she didn't feel like working more than 2 days a week.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

If Lauren was so done with him, why get in the car in the first place? Screeching at him like a harpy while he's driving is just asking for trouble, and judging by how much we know about Ian he's too big of a pussy to stop her if she just slapped him, turned around and went back to the party.

Bennett White is an American writer and YouTuber. Shadow Dream Girl is his first novel, and was partially inspired by personal events during the Tubbs Fire disaster of 2017, as well as the LNU Lightning Complex fires of 2020.

"I got inspired by events where people burned to death."
How nice of you.

[pibbs]

I think I remember he was caught in one of those California fires. He tweeted about it but I can't remember the circumstances.

[RedLine]

Either Spoony and Orcril both survived, she dumped him, and this Jacob's Ladder bullshit was caused by not letting the dremel go, or they both died, were stuck in the lamest Hell ever, and then she dumped him and moved to a better afterlife.

Her dying and him going crazy because of it could work.
Them both dying and him (or both) being tormented in "hell" could work.
Him having a Picard's flute style "dream life" in between crashing into the pole and sacking up to save her could work.

Were we even actually in the "real world" with the final pages? I don't know what the fuck he did, there's no satisfactory path here for the ending and the lead up sucked more dicks than a DHI member from Nebraska. We probably got more words about pizza toppings than about the Lauren character. This was the worst IN book. Just a massive waste of time.

[pibbs]

Thr plot wouldn't fill a peeRod novel.
It was almost entirely description and Ian whining in his own head.

[Dehbashi]

This may be the worst book by an IN. Lindsey's was funny in that it was her fantasies, Brad was safe due to ripping off a movie, James Rolfe's was hilarious due to how delusional he is, and Erod's was mercifully short and easy to read even though it sucked.

This book from what Pibbs brought up is a slog to read. Pages of unimportant crap that didn't need to be explained and very little on everything important. Seriously, you don't need 3 pages to describe an apartment. And those last 3 chapters confuse the shit out of me. Obviously the previous chapters was him coping with the girl wanting to leave him. But it goes to a flashback of her dying, to him talking to her, to him saving her as if he went back in time, to him waking up to talk to the psychiatrist saying she wanted to move on to greener pastures. My guess is that everything from reading the National Geographic magazine to the final meeting of the psychiatrist was some epiphany at a second chance but it's written so poorly since he was fedora tipping. My guess is that Lauren was also seeing the psychiatrist with Ian crossing paths with her which is why he dreamed up Lisa which is why Luke knew what happened to her.

If he cut out all the pages of describing crap to add to the main plot, it would be much better. But he had his head up his ass and wanted to see if he could break the record on how many words he can use to describe something. It's honestly the worst.

[RedLine]

It was almost entirely description and Ian whining in his own head.

And what was Ian whining about so much? Do we even know what his real life was like?
In the first half of the book it was about him being a sad sack lonely loser. But in the last 10% of the book we learn that he had a long-time girlfriend that he spent holidays and occasions with (always just the two of them, or was there extended freinds/family as well?). And he also at least had a car to crash in real life, instead of being Mr.Bus Ride. The story even made it a point that his depicted lifestyle didn't match the Millie's Video Store job.

But at least we got 20 pages about pepperoni vs green peppers.

[Dehbashi]

1. I guess Luke was "real" but what about Stan and the Brians?
2. Did he work at a "Millie's Video Store" in real life or was that just some nightmare job to waste our time?
3. Why did he hate his real life?
4. What was the deal with all the horniness from Lisa (shopping for porn, being bisexual, acting like a slut)?
5. Who the fuck was "Lisa" anyway? His girlfriend was named Lauren and aside from red hair(?) they don't seem especially similar. Lisa was some pornbody sex zombie and Lauren was basically normal.
6. Why is he in the hospital at the end? The ending truly makes zero sense from what I can tell. Beyond being obviously rushed and having no payoff.

Will skip 6 since Pibbs explained it. Now for the rest.

1) Don't know since according to Pibbs, Ian wakes up after saving her is the psychiatrist's office.
2) Same as 1
3) Because he is Spoony. Other than that, Bennett must not have written anything if Pibbs didn't bring it up.
4) I guess that was Ian's fantasy of a perfect woman.
5) Moron was so up his ass that he couldn't remember his girlfriend's name.

I am just trying to fill in the blanks due to how shitty this book is.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

And still no review on Amazon. We might be the first mortals to see the ending of this.

[pibbs]

My Kindle stopped letting me copy and pasting passages around chapter 25 as I hit the limit on this book..

I may be the only human in history to do that with this book.

Had to start typing them out. Which is just as well. Quoting at first let y'all read the endless descriptions yourselves but later it was just tedious.

I had this happen with Brad's book too.