Amy is a spoiled, entitled, petty, and manipulative monster of a woman. It seems only fitting that she’d find her way into the Hoopiverse with Dani Brown’s The Scratching Post.
Arguably the worst quality Amy displays is her solipsism. Her inability to recognize other people as independent, separate beings with perspectives that aren’t her own, manifests in a sort of delusionally cynical outlook and a lack of object permanence. For Amy, other people are only ever motivated by the same things that motivate her. That viewpoint might be less pronounced if she didn’t also surround herself with vapid, terrible people who only serve to reinforce the way she sees things. Thus, if everyone is motivated by the same things, it’s altogether too easy for Amy to see others as nothing more than playthings to be used for her perverse amusement.
For years, Amy got away with being a god-awful person, catered to by her mourning parents and pandered to by her social circle, but then Hoop moves in next door. As Amy’s carefully constructed world of gaslighting and self-deception crumbles around her, there’s no way a reader won’t take pleasure in the revolting and nefariously appropriate comeuppance she experiences.
Dani Brown brings her deliciously wicked and vile imagination to the table in bringing to life what has to be one of the most disgusting miasmas a reader can imagine. You’d be hard-pressed not to smell hints of the corruption wafting from the screen as you read the descriptions she provides.
Like the other installments in the Hoopiverse, we get to witness Hooper forcing empathy onto the monstrous people he sets his sights on. While it isn’t true empathy, being subjected to the experiences of those they’ve hurt, it’s a befitting analog that serves the purpose of showing these hideous men and women the harm they’ve caused in the only way they’ll understand, when it’s hurting them. You’ve got to hit the sociopath where it hurts, and Hooper’s got the skills that pay the bills.

You can pick up The Scratching Post as well as the previous installments in the Fucking Scumbags series by going to http://www.godless.com or by downloading the Godless app to your mobile device. The first season of tales is soon to be collected in a single paperback release if you prefer to wait for a physical book to love and caress with your nasty fingertips, but I recommend picking these up in the meantime. The link is below: