Hexis

The womayne in HEXIS is kray-kray. She keeps running back her past relationship with one particular MAN in her life so she kan kill him. Over and Over. HOW KAN I KILL THEE? Lemme count the ways. And they are varied. In one scene She busts his head to the White Meat. In another scene: She attempts run him over/winds up putting her knee in his back. And on it goes. All the while she has this internal dialogue with herself attempting to be RATIONAL even tho she is IRRATIONAL. Git it? She is NUTS. Butt thats the fun of this book. Seeing this woman cum unhinged all the while thinking its totally within reason. Why? Because the Man DESERVED it goddammit!! He hurt her. Or as she said in one particular sentence: RUINED Her!! This is a short book butt its full of Angst/Violence/Guilt/Revenge. A Ruptured woman. Its a bold take on a woman's perspective of what Relationships (or is it RELATIONSHITS?) kan do to a person. And MISS ELSBY has her finger on the pulse. Its sad/funny/outright hilarious even--yet tragic commentary on what it's like being involved wit a Man for some women. HINT: it doesnt end well. The whole tone of this book reads like a Psychological Horror movie--and maybe it should be one. Its got the chops 4 it. And Elsby is a talent with the mindset n skills to be a Star. Hell, she is one to me. Long after U finish this book U will still be thinking about it. IT'S DISTURBING. And well worth the read. This is a good thing cuz it primes U well for her current book: PSYCHROS

A thoroughly engrossing read with incredible attention to the detail and an interesting insight into someone’s mind. It felt at times like it’s both a short story collection and a full-length novella at the same time. Really enjoyed it.

To read the back cover text is to understand Hexis. There aren't names, overarching plots, only motive, memory, and the methodical peeling apart of behavior. "He" is every ounce of entitlement, disgust, and poison. Who he is has been ingrained in the past, as with most hauntings, and like a ghost, death is not final. He will be there, one way or another, as our narrator kills and discerns and works her mind at the world around her. Hexis is a strangely clockwork novella if a clock could be built of bones and resentment, and will not chime for all. For for those who hear it, it's a gift that spills passage after passage to highlight and adore.

I would’ve gotten through this one sooner, but I was highlighting portions every other page. The writing voice was superb, and I appreciated all the philosophy involved in the story. I can honestly say that I’ve yet to read anything like this, and that Charlene Elsby is an insta-buy for me now.

About 20 years ago, I read Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being for an upper level English major course. It came on the heels of Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, and I felt like I was wrapped in a whirlwind. Zhivago is a dense Russian novel of love and loss. Kundera’s book is lighter in terms of length but is mentally heavy. Why this trip down memory lane? Charlene Elsby’s debut novella, Hexis, is as dense and heavy as both Pasternak and Kundera’s books. It’s a head trip of love, loss, hatred, and murder.Like a fellow book lover, I too am at a loss to explain this book. The most basic premise of the book is that we are in the head of a woman for whom time is fluid. She meets and re-meets a lover (or a former lover; I am still thinking about this), and, as the synopsis mentions, kills him. Over and over again. I cannot share too much more of the plot both because I am still digesting it and you just need to experience this one for yourself. I don’t think I CAN tell you what it’s about in an absolute sense.There are times in this book when it felt like Elsby was in my head. At one point the main character mentions driving by her old lover’s house and so on, and I absolutely remember doing something similar. There are other moments in which the stream of consciousness felt like it could be my own and I think other readers might feel like this as well. Elsby plucks intangible thoughts from the air and makes them real. Perhaps this is why it is still so hard for me to grasp and hold on to more tangible feelings.Give this book a try. Let go of the need to understand everything with exacting detail. I do know two things. This book was a philosophical experience and I need more from Charlene Elsby.

It kept me captivated … I found myself worried as I started thinking to myself day to day with similar dialogue

Hexis is a slim book but it wasn’t a quick read. It’s told in what I can best describe as a stream of consciousness but it’s a lot more than that and a lot more than my brain can comprehend but I enjoyed it quite a bit! It’s dark and painful and is sometimes even darkly humorous and it tells SO many truths about being a woman in this world we live in.“He just sat there, the most natural thing in the world, drinking his . . . coffee like he hadn’t . . . ruined me.”I don’t think we ever learn names here but we’re told this story by a woman who repeatedly encounters a man who did her all kinds of wrong. He has hurt her, betrayed her, damaged her and she wants him dead, as you do. She is justifiably and fiercely angry and she takes care of business over and over again because this dude simply will not stay dead.There’s sex and there is murder and there’s also loads of internal dialogue. It was rather like being in my own scattered head at times (minus the murdering and some other things, ha). It goes sideways and backwards and then sideways again and it did indeed confuse me but it also fascinated me and kept me reading. Was this real or did she have a wildly imaginative imagination? I’m still unsure but her fury boils over in each chapter and it’s a pretty damn glorious event every single time it happens. But know that this is not a “fun” read as it deals with the aftermath of trauma or at least that’s how my brain processed it.This book was a bit much for my brain. I’m not going to lie. Give it a read if you want to expand your horror horizons and also your brain.