REVIEW: Controller

Controller
Author: Jesse Kellerman

Controller is the 3rd story in the Warmer Collection from Amazon Originals/Audible. There are 7 stories from various authors in the collection. All have a theme of climate change....sort of.

In Controller, an elderly mother and her son are living together. Both are abusive to each other. Their contempt and disrespect of each other manifests in a fight over control of the thermostat. It's hot outside. The elderly mother who is cold all the time wants the AC off. The son, who is hot, wants it left on. Tempers flare....

I did not like this story. I hated both of the characters. The mother's incessant droning on and on about how having a child ruined her life, how she is old and cold, and nagging her son for ice cream.....OMG I wanted to hop into the story and just scream at her to shut the F up.  And the son, thinking about how he hates being stuck with his aging mother (understandable really as she is completely horrific), is just completely unable to stand up for himself and be an adult. He basically just whines. Two awful people stuck in a hot, awful house basking in their awfulness together. Ick.

I listened to the audio book version of this story. It was just over an hour of pure agony. The narration by Chris Andrew Ciulla is spot on. He does the voices and emotions of the characters perfectly. But....the characters are completely annoying. Therefore, the audio was torture to listen to. It's not Ciulla's fault -- his acting was great. It's the characters that are the problem. I could not stand 5 minutes in a room with either one of them without losing my temper. The whining and complaining mother. The simpering son. Ugh. I'm not a quitter....and I can endure just about anything for an hour....so I listened to the whole thing hoping it would get better.

Nope. Hated it.

Terrible.

But.....a story that causes a real emotional reaction in readers is well-written. If I was rating this story purely on my enjoyment of the tale....I would give this one star and be happy with that. But....this story really made me uncomfortable, angry, annoyed.....so Jesse Kellerman got his point across. I was supposed to feel that way. His characters are both assholes.....I'm supposed to hate them. I don't have to like the point....he's just supposed to make me FEEL his point.

Message received. Two stars. Well-written story -- horrific, unlikable characters.

OMG....that mother. Holy shit. What a nightmare!