Messed up, and not in a way that manages to sound interesting, or that makes you reflect on what you just read; it somehow managed to be both disgusting and boring as hell.

["I sucked you off as 'a guy in my apartment building' before" she said. "That was fun, but now i want to suck you off as 'a writer'."]

Mmh. Weird kinks (you could actually just call them a mysoginist's wet dream!) that I would hope to be unrelated to the author.

The only two characters still manage to be as two-dimensional as possible, the woman even more than the man - be it because he's the narrator/pov character or because he's just male. He's a pathetic, condescending incel who thinks he's really being nonjudgemental while theorising diagnoses of mental illness for the girl (as if they aren't on the same boat anyway) and making himself the hero he isn't. There's also the heavy-handed presence of the male gaze and, in typical Pauley style, this time his shitty female character type was the manic pixie dream girl. At least he varies between them, I don't know what else to say.

[I stared helplessly at her ass, at the way the multicolored zebras illustrated on her pajama bottoms seemed in a way to be hugging her every curve. For a split second I fantasized jerking the waistband of her pants down around her knees and burying my face into her wet gash, tonguing hungrily at her cunt, but immediately suppressed the feeling. I was a man, after all, and a man’s brain was wired just like an animal’s. When faced with either hunger or lust, a man has to remind himself to be decent. Those who failed in suppressing their instincts were almost always labeled as monsters, and those who succeeded, well, those were the ones known as good men. I always thought of myself as one of the good men, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had my moments of shame.]

I could quote a million passages (mostly because the whole book is paved by those) documenting the male gaze mysoginist kink thing and you still couldn't see all the squallor I was put through. I'm going to quote only a bunch of them for our collective mental sanity.

[Her knees slipped on the slick surface of the washer lid, pulling her pants halfway down her backside, exposing her naked ass. She screamed as she fell back a few inches. Instinctually, I grabbed her legs to help her regain control, and immediately after doing so, dread sunk in. She’d assume I was a creep for sure. I was a total stranger, hugging her half- naked ass in her bathroom in the wee hours of the morning. Jesus. Why had I come here?
“Is my ass hanging out?” she asked, not sounding embarrassed at all.
“Um,” I mumbled. “Yeah. Yes, it is.”
She laughed and made no attempts at covering herself.]

[Most guys would probably have invited her over for the sole purpose of sleeping with her. I was never like that. I respected women too much. The only way we’d have sex tonight, even with her sleeping over, would be if she threw herself at me. I’d lose all self-control. I’m respectful, but still a man, after all.]

[“I saw your penis earlier. I’m sorry,” she said.
“What?” I asked, even though I heard every word she’d said.
“I watched you while you were in the bathroom,” she said, pushing the key into the deadbolt. “I saw your penis and it’s very nice. You should be proud.”
I didn’t know how to respond.
“I’m sorry. That’s weird, I know,” she said. “But I felt guilty for watching you and thought you should know."]

No element of horror found, if not the one of me asking myself why I was wasting hours of my life on something I neither enjoyed nor found betterment in.

At the end the author seems to think that he did such A Thing™ to finish right back to where he started off; or maybe that he started right where he had finished (pretentious; it only works well when there was plot to begin with). He rushed in all the explanations hoping to bank on that shock value that somehow managed again to make me neither surprised nor satisfied, and on top of it all you have to count it being made to pass as romantic - just like all the instalove that popped out of nowhere every now and then.

[She dissolved just yesterday, and though I can’t fathom ever forgetting her, I‘ve decided to write down the details of our meeting, of those few precious hours, for the hours changed me…]

The ending was not enough to compensate both for what Lynda had to pass through and especially what I had to pass through.
The only element I seemed to enjoy at all was the setting (I'm talking about the tower itself, not even the apartments. Maybe the corridor by the end, it brought me relief more than it did to the slug and the guy both), and only because it was a pre-estabilished one from the other books of the series. But even then it was only quoted a couple of times.
In my opinion, the author should stick to short stories. The shorter the better, I'm serious; looking back to the ones I enjoyed so far, they really were the shorter ones. He's good at those, especially because he doesn't have to make space for women.
Not even Brannigan could make me enjoy this one, folks. If possible, I found the whole thing even more annoying.

I found myself enjoying this audiobook quite a bit. The narrator really brought the story to life and made it that much more gripping.

William Pauley III is one of most interesting writers I've ever discovered and I've fallen in love with everything he's done. Connor Brannigan is the perfect narrator. His voice suits Pauley's writing so well.

I can honestly say I've never read anything quite like this, except maybe The Tower, by the same author. William Pauley III has a very uniquely unsettling yet addictive writing style. Their writing paired with the audio narration by Connor Brannigan is hypnotic and all encompassing. Once you hit play these stories grab ahold of you and just do not let go. I will be haunted by this story for years.

That being said, I didn't enjoy this read so much as I did the first visit into the bizarre world that is the eighth block. This story was wild and unhinged and creepy and gross and left me craving cheese.

I look forward to book 3!

Holy Hell! What an insane story about true insanity. The Bedlam Bible stories have become my guilty pleasure. Weirdly over sexual. Charmingly disturbed. It’s weird fiction meets hilarious horror. I LOVE IT!

I was keen to return to 8th block and kind of looking forward to how the story was going to develop after reading the first Bedlam Bible book, which centered around a bunch of weird happenings in a radioactive semi-sentient building full of unreliable narrators, in sort of like a "slice of life" style book.

This book I did as a netgally audiobook and I will say the narrator, Connor Brannigan did an excellent job with this one as he did with the last. He has a good grasp with the absurdity of the material and moves through it with good inflection and expression, which helps make the whole experience of the story feel more close and realistic. These books end up feeling like someone is unfolding a comic book in your mind.

Into the sunflower nut meat of the thing though, this particular story didn't vibe with me. The weird and interconnected vignette quality of the last book was scrapped for a singular story this time, which in itself isn't bag, but it meant that I felt this story itself ran a bit long in the middle, long after the point about the characters had been made. Another perspective in the 8th block, like we got in The Tower would have made this really click, imo. The stuff that didn't work for me is that I don't find anything especially bizarro about the trauma responses and ongoing mental health crisis of a deeply abused woman. That doesn't hinge on a creepy super/sub natural tenement building--like I have met her, in a university classroom, in a bar bathroom. To a certain extent at times I have been her. So I spent the entire book feeling really sad for Lynda. Like the entire time. Instead of feeling how I was supposed to feel about it I think, which made me kind of wonder of I was meant to be the audience of this book, or any of these books. Which is always a bummer. It was very well written for whoever it is meant for however, so if that is you, I am sure you will like this a lot.

Add to that how damaged she was seemed to serve as a foil for regularly giving us opportunities to be explicitly told how good a guy the protagonist was even though on the whole he didn't seem to be doing good guy things. And that those things were then written off or tossed away with explanations that even the best of guys are absolutely powerless when faced with their biological urges or when asked to take their dick out. As though no man ever when asked this question in the history of time by a cute girl has been physically capable of saying "no thank you." Which, feels like a bit of a convenient excuse for our main character to not have to actually confront the fact that this situation seems to favour his sexual desire while knowing the entire time it does not suit his or her emotional, or social desires, and that consent has been murky between them both the entire time. I can't say whether this was an intentional choice of the author and that we were supposed to grapple with this, but it did sort of feel too me like we were supposed to read her as "crazy" and him as "nice guy" but I was having a very hard time keeping either of those concepts so simple.

Leaving it on a high note though, the ending was *awesome*. It was great. I wish more of the book had been about that or like that or them dealing with or grappling with it. I felt robbed of all that great twisty weirdness that it only really shined out at the very end of the book and I was hoping for that to be the main thread through the whole thing. I liked the Bedlam Bible for the off-beat bizzaro sick-sad-world type stuff and I really wanted there to be more of that and less real trauma of CSA victims and how it presents in adults, and like, mental health reactions and self destruction in all it's forms that people who feel unworthy of care tend to fall into.

I'll probably give the 3rd book a listen and see what direction the series is going. If it heads back towards book one I will probably stick with it. If it keeps on writing women this way and leaning into graphic adult content like this book, I'll probably end my visits too 8th block at book 3.

Thanks to Doom Publishing for the netgally audiobook of this title.

This was another messed up story in the Bedlam Bible series and I loved it. Linda was weird and creepy and unhinged but also sad. Now I am off to read The Astronaut Dream Book, book #3 in the Bedlam Bible series.

I love Connor Brannigan's voice and I look forward to finding more audiobooks read by Connor in the future.

SUCH A WEIRD AND WILD RIDE!!

This is the first book I’ve read by William Pauley III. And big will I be coming back for more.

this book is suitable for people who are fans of Junji Ito and Eric LaRocca


It was a quick yet intriguing story about an man who receives a call from a stranger and starts to form an unlikely bond. She has some odd behaviors and requests.

There were parts of this Novella that had me laughing out loud and I went running so fast to tell my friends about it so they could laugh.

“Cum muffin” will forever be an insider between us!

*Audiobook ARC provided by NetGalley was in exchange for an honest review*

While this book is what it says on the tin, I was quickly disturbed by just how graphic and twisted the characters were, their thoughts and experiences going from uncomfortable to disgusting quite quickly. This isn’t a book I’ll be returning to. I wish I could say I enjoyed it, but… I’d be lying. I can see the appeal for some though, getting to experience this thought process without indulging in it themselves, and I do think the writing is of a good standard to allow those who want to, to enjoy this book.

Thank you to Doom Fiction, NetGalley and of course William Pauley III for an audiobook version of this book in exchange for an honest review. This is my second book my this author.

Another weird and twisted story, continuing on in the tower of horror. This was more of a story between 2 residents, meeting up through a phone call. Don't want to give away any spoilers but it was quite interesting and bizarre.
Would be 4 stars but I could do without the sex scenes... just my preference so if that's your thing then you might mark it higher.
Be prepared to discover the eccentricities of the Tower!

I was really hoping to like this, but man, I just couldn't.
I know the justification for the way women are treated is that the MC is Like That, but it comes across more as being the author's damage than the character's, with how it's presented.
I would have appreciated a more specific set of warnings about what was actually in this book, as the summary provided made it sound right up my alley but it really just... Wasn't that.

TW: self harm, explicit weird sex, abuse

Short Lovecraftian/one room style horror. I enjoyed this and it was somewhat creepy. The "want to bake your cum into muffins" made me laugh so much (although I'm not kink shaming). Apart from that, story was somewhat predictable although I liked the ending.

Well that was…. something. The insanity that was The Tower continues in White Fuzz, only it found its way to a more disturbing, more sexual, did I mention more disturbing? level. The layers of absurdity could be dissected for hours…. or you could just give up and add salt.

The audiobook was enjoyably narrated by Connor Brannigan.

Thank you William Pauley III, Doom Fiction, and NetGalley for providing this ALC for review consideration. All opinions expressed are my own

This book was so triggering. Please consider adding some sort of content warnings somewhere, even a link to a third-party site for those of us who want to know what we're getting into because nothing about the blurb gave away what would be included. Incest, SA, bestiality, self-harm and self-mutilation, PTSD/mental health disorders and more--these topics were used for shock value and nothing else.

Narrator was great. The story was rambling and unfocused even for bizzaro fiction. Way too porny. May appeal so some but not for me.

I liked the weirdness of it until I realized it seemed to be a critique of women. The author pretty much admits the male character has no understanding of women and then goes on to criticize them and excuse the main character’s negative behavior. If he would’ve just written a weird story and not tried to make some kind of misogynistic point I would’ve liked it. Maybe the author just wrote the sexist male really well and the author isn’t like that. I hope so.

Wow, what did I just read! This book is a total trip 🤯

After some random texts, Franklin and Lynda decide to spend the night together. Both have some serious mental issues, mix that with a lot of sex, and you've got a bizarre ending.

It's a deep book, strangely funny, yet disturbing. There are certainly multiple meanings to this story. It was interesting enough to read in a couple of hours. I haven't read a novella before. This definitely turned me on to them. It was well written and easy to read. I recommend it to anyone looking for something unique to read.

The narrator had a nice voice and the audio flowed smoothly.

I am no stranger to bizarre horror, even bizarre horror with spice in it, but this book was awful and I could not finish it. The male main character spent the whole time creeping on a SA/CSA survivor basically making her relive the abuse. This doesn't really read like horror and suspense. It reads like a creepy guy's guide to finally sleeping with someone, "find someone really traumatized and re-traumatize her, then you are good to go". This is supposed to be book two in a series, so maybe I am missing some context from book one, but even that would not change how creepy in a bad way this book is. I honestly don't know what audience this kind of book would fit, but it absolutely was not for me.

Franklin is contacted by Lynda, a stranger from his apartment building, and they spend a great night together, despite Lynda's apparent emotional struggles. Franklin invites Lynda to his place to help her escape her demons, but the situation only worsens.

This was another installment of a quick and fun piece of bizzaro fiction. I listened to it in one sitting, narration was great. Story was nothing to stand out for higher rating, but still enjoyable nonetheless. Sex scenes could've been cut out tho, they rubbed me the wrong way in the context of characters.

William….we’re gonna have to talk about this one William. This book grabs you by the throat and pushes itself into you. Claustrophobic and deeply uncomforting.