serious weakness (book)

rating

starstarstarstarstar

date

22 january 2026

genre

horror

author

porpentine charity heartscape

i've been rotating this book in my mind for days now (technically i only finished it yesterday, but i've been actively seeking out other people's thoughts on it for a bit now and reflecting on it). where to even start? probably: if you ever want to read this, check the content warnings here and here. there's one very graphic rape scene here on top of a lot of torture, violence and further sexual assault.

serious weakness is a slimy, grimy oozing puddle of filth, piss, blood and cheap energy drinks. this is not meant to be jugdemental in one way or the other, it just sets the scene well i think. at the base of it, it's a road movie-ish story of two guys randomly meeting, both very stunted people in their own ways and one of them happens to be a murderer slash kidnapper slash art vandal (insul). it's a meet-cute where one guy (trianon) gets assaulted with a tennis racket. it's challenging and unsavory. it very graphically depicts a relationship of one guy taking another hostage, physically and sexually assaulting him and torturing him and yet it's also a love story, which given this context should only end up awful and offensive, yet it doesn't. there's a fucked up sensuality in very non-consensual things. it's gross. it works somehow? i find it very difficult to verbalize my thoughts and feelings about the book despite thinking about it quite a bit.

one thing that really stayed with me is trianon's feeling of utter helplessness in situations that, on the face of it, seem like a great time to scream "hey i've been kidnapped and tortured by this guy, please help". at one point they're at a party at a rich guy penthouse and still trianon rationalizes how any attempt to ask for help will backfire, how this will earn him more punishment. he's in front of his girlfriend, a person he should be able to trust and talks himself out of confiding in her.

i did enjoy the writing style a lot. there's a lot of very specific humor here that you have to be kind of internet-brained to enjoy probably. sometimes it's juvenile, but in a good way. there were a lot of out of context passages i read aloud to my partner that just really tickled me in the right way.

another thing that's not at the forefront but works pretty well is how it's set in an unspecified near-future or maybe alternate present that mostly manifests by less-ignorable and later on plot-relevant signs of climate change to the point of where big natural disasters are an expected thing. at one point it seems like the world is ending, but the characters we see are either in a too immediately-fucked up situation or simply too rich to care about society falling apart and getting washed away.

i probably wouldn't recommend serious weakness to most people. i don't really have a lot of hard limits for graphic and disturbing content and this read was stomach-churning for me at times, less due to the graphic content itself and more due to the fact how it finds a gross sensuality in those situations. as i said, i have difficulty putting it into words, so i'll put it in a very generic way: it made me uncomfortable in a very interesting way.

gonna end this by linking a goodreads review that i think communicates a lot of thoughts i had while reading a lot more eloquently (while coming away with a lot less enjoyment): check it out here.