When Agnes Petrella sells her grandmother’s apple peeler online, she is convinced that
no one will buy it. Soon, a woman by the name of Zoe Cross decides to buy the artifact. After a
few messages, Zoe gives money to Agnes for her rent. Agnes, shocked by surprise, will do
anything to pay Zoe back for her kindness. The two start messaging each other in a chat room
and all seems to be going well. However, the two soon begin a controversial relationship, where
one has to obey the other. Things start to go out of control when Agnes is forced to kill a lizard
as a part of their relationship. Consquently, the relationship continues and Agnes later decides
that she wants a child with Zoe. Since this isn’t very possible, Zoe commands Agnes to eat raw
meat with maggots in the hopes that she’ll be able to have a tapeworm inside of her acting as a
real child. Agnes obeys, and Zoe later calls off the relationship between them when she realizes
how mentally unwell Agnes is.
I don’t know where to begin. This story was absolutely disgusting in terms of the tasks
that were performed and their entire relationship altogether. I have to be honest, I have no idea
how we started with apple peelers and ended with bloody tapeworms. The author excels at
creating suspense and portraying how manipulative strangers online can be. All things
considered, this was a very short read and I felt sort of underwhelmed with all the actions that
took place. Let’s start off with one fact: I did not like this short story. First of all, the relationship
seemed very rushed, with only five emails being sent that later developed into Zoe sending
Agnes money for rent. The story barely discloses the thoughts behind this except for a brief “I’ve
been blessed with certain things others have not.” Also, this story just was sort of boring and was
not my type of book at all. Things have gotten worse since I’ve read this story.