"Johnny forgets things. But I remember."

This is a fast-paced sapphic horror novella that grips you from start to finish. A fever dream I never wanted to end, beautifully written. I am now officially obsessed with Rae Wilde.

My favorite detail: If you look closely, there's a hidden story within the story.

This is a book about a toxic relationship but leans a tad bit more into the thriller than direct horror genre. It is not as grotesque as an Eric LaRocca but it is along the same lines. This is a novella so the story is striking and gets right to the point. You follow the spiral down of the main character while she is obsessed with trying to make this relationship work. It is an excellent read if you can deal with some rough scenes.

I CAN FIX HER is a complicated dissection of obsession and toxic sapphic love. The narrator(s) roles unfurl as the book progresses and any sympathies I had for her are completely gone by the end of the book. The horror and surreal aspects of the book are very well done and keep you on your toes seeing what happens next. The tone, tension, and pacing are good until the ~ 85% mark when it slows down a bit and I saw where the ending was heading. As for the ending, I am personally not a fan of the choice made, though I think it does fit the overall story and themes.

This was such a trip! Not at all what I expected from the first chapter. I loved every minute of this wild, weird ride.

As a huge fan of sapphic horror, I make it a point to read as much as I can from the genre, so when I came across I Can Fix Her by @_rae_wilde on @netgalley , I knew I had to give it a read. Before diving into my review, I’d like to extend my thanks to @clashbooks for granting me auto-approval for their titles-I’ve yet to be disappointed by any of their publications, and this book was no exception.

The story opens with Johnny encountering her ex, Alice, at a cafe. Despite the pain of their past breakup and Alice's ghosting, Johnny is irresistibly drawn back in. A renewed relationship seems possible, filled with promises and dreams. However, over the course of a single week, the world around them begins to fracture, forcing Johnny to question whether their relationship, and reality itself, can survive.

Initially, I found the writing style a bit jarring. The prose felt choppy, almost as if two voices were fighting to describe the same moment in conflicting ways. This made it difficult to settle into the narrative at first, but as the story progressed, the fragmented style started making sense. The plot picks up quickly, immersing readers in the toxic yet magnetic push-and-pull of Johnny and Alice’s relationship. Structured around a week, with each chapter dedicated to a single day, the book masterfully captures the gradual unraveling of both their dynamic and the reality surrounding them.

Wilde's prose is deeply poetic, and the vivid, imagery she weaves throughout lingers long after. The horror elements are beautifully crafted, blurring the lines between the grotesque and the sublime, creating an atmosphere where even the most terrifying moments carry an undeniable allure.

Towards the end, the story took a turn I genuinely didn't see coming—a rare and welcome surprise!

At its heart, I Can Fix Her is a hypnotic blend of psychological horror and time-bending surrealism, wrapped in a deeply toxic love story. If you’re a fan of unsettling, lyrical horror, this novella is absolutely worth picking up.

Well, what can I say about this book?
This book for me is a first for this type of book. I love the way Rae made it seem like we are losing our minds!
She wrote Johnny well and I enjoyed the storyline.
I loved the mind-bending aspect of the story and it does a good job of depicting jealousy and possesiveness.
I read it within one sitting.
5/5 stars from me ! #netgalley #ICanFixHer

Holy shit. Did not expect to be in tears at the end of this one but here we are. A trip in ever sense. Visceral, inventive, brutally insightful. A fever dream.

Engaging from start to finish, and while it wasn't quite relatable to me in some ways, in others it struck every chord. It's a brutal, yet almost too realistic portrayal of toxic relationships, which are still all too common. And while it's well written, it's also quite nightmare-ish and confusing at times - which is also a good thing in this particular case.
Rae Wilde has her taget audience figured out, that's for sure.

“God may love you, but not better than me”
If I had to be concise I’d say that the toxic sapphic horror novella subgenre has never known a bad book and this continues to be the case. I think this book is best gone into as blind as possible (as I did having been sold only by the comp titles), so if Time War x Things Have Gotten Worse sounds good to you, just stop reading here.

What I liked:
The Writing: My god, the writing. It is exactly what you’d expect when you see the comp titles. The gore and the grotesque of Eric LaRocca combined with the flourish and the beauty of This is How You Lose the Time War. Gripping from the first sentence and it doesn’t let you go until the end.
The Characters: We only get to know Johnny and Alice in glimpses, yet it is enough to build those characters up in your mind and meet them at the point. We get an obsessive ex and her emotionally unavailable paramour stuck in a cycle of hurting each other, we see all the ways they don’t fit together, and how they keep trying to reshape each other into something they are not. At the end the horror is as much their relationship as are the supernatural elements of the story.
The Story: An intertwining of a toxic relationship and time that doesn’t seem to flow as it should done as beautifully as it can be done. I don’t wish to say more to avoid spoilers (and with a novella it is hard to do so).

Who I’d recommend this to: The Sapphic Horror enjoyers, you know who you are.

this one was a short little number about johnny who arranges an encounter at a cafe with her ex alice, desperate to fix the things that went wrong with them. success - johnny does end back at alice's, but stuff starts to go awry when johnny starts losing time, alice's dog isn't the dog that johnny remembers, and the world begins to stutter on a cosmic level.

this was a fun, fast read ultimately about obsessing over relationships and interactions with humans when they don't work out, how the more that we attempt to make repairs the worse things turn out to be. yet we can't let go of that connection - why? why are we as humans so insistent on demanding things from the world that were clearly never meant for us?

needless to say i really enjoyed this one and the hypothesis that we're all our own worst enemies, that sometimes in order to be happy we must let go. i really hesitate to call this one horror, but maybe the point is that the real horror is that we can't always get what we want.

"Rae Wilde captured me within the confines of this intimate love affair—the experience is like being suspended in time under the glass of a snow globe. The chaos and energy of the lovers spin all around you in a flurry of emotions. Once things calm down, someone shakes it all up again."
..
My full review will be featured in my upcoming book, Feral & Hysterical: Mother Horror's Ultimate Reading Guide to Dark & Disturbing Fiction by Women. I can't share it yet, contractually, but soon.
I love this book!

My first Rae Wilde but certainly not my last. This queer novella has layers upon layers and as each one gets revealed, the reader is drawn more and more into the story. Anyone who has ever clung to the tiniest string of hope that maybe this time will be different can relate to this story. Wilde's storytelling style is the kind where the tension builds ever so slowly but so well that you may find yourself forgetting to breathe. I think this is the kind of book that I can find something new from it every time I read it.

This was definitely an interesting one. The writing was absolutely beautiful, but I got a little lost on what was happening towards the end. The actual ending though was really good, which is why I’m rounding up for this. But since I kind of lost a little interest 3/4 of the way through, I don’t think I can give it a full 4 stars. Thank goodness it was short, since I might not have wanted to finish otherwise.

If you’re a fan of light horror, with well, just weirdness going on, and delving into hidden meanings, I would recommend this to you. I think it would be a great one to discuss with others, too. I would also try this author again because of how pretty her prose is.

3.5 /5 rounded up

The comps of This is How You Lose the Time War meets Things Have Gotten Worse since we last spoke, and I definitely see where those comps come from, as someone who loved both of those stories. I'd also describe this as The Midnight Library [worst ending].

The narration style initial confused me but by the end, I was stunned, flabbergasted, and had to go stare at a wall. I definitely want to reread this one because I think knowing the ending would give me a new experience.

If you love messy, harmful sapphic relationships, stories that play with time, and being a bit confused, you'll love I Can Fix Her. As this is so short, I don't want to give more of a synopsis.

I Can Fix Her by Rae Wilde is a compelling queer horror book that combines eerie surrealism with dark romanticism. Alice, her ex, hoping for a second chance when Johnny gets back in touch with her. However, when weird, inexplicable events in their environment cause the boundaries between reality and nightmare to blur, what starts out as a hesitant rekindling swiftly devolves into mayhem.

Wilde examines obsession, identity, and the pointlessness of attempting to mend what has already been damaged in this eerie novel with a plot that veers like a fever dream. For lovers of queer horror, I Can Fix Her is a gripping, frightening, and intensely emotional book.

I loved this! So weird and unsettling and sick, with an ugly, sympathetic center. I particularly liked the way things unspooled from reality, first slowly, then all at once into a wild fever dream.

Strange and surreal, I Can Fix Her centres around Johnny and Alice in what I can only describe as a macabre and abuse ridden Groundhogday-esque week.

Told from the perspective of an unseen voyeur watching the events unfold, this story just gets weirder and weirder as the days roll on.

I can't honestly say I understood what on earth was going on at every single point throughout this book, but I can say that I enjoyed every minute.

Thank you to CLASH books for allowing me to read this copy via Netgalley

This is more like a 3.5 for me. The first 60% I was so hooked. The story was filled with dread and I couldn’t put it down but it did lose me a bit after that.

Excellent writing - reminded me a bit of I’m Thinking Of Ending things with the way you could feel something terrible about to happen!

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

This book was hella weird. I was confused in places and the ending was a bit sad....It was perfect! I love little weird books so this was absolutely perfect. Top notch I definitely recommend

3.5 stars (rounded up to 4)

Johnny and Alex reconnect on Monday and things quickly escalate from there. The story is quick and engrossing- once you sink into it, it really sinks into you. By Wednesday, I had really given into the style and narrative and was fully along for the ride. The details were incredible and some of the images are definitely going to stay with me for a while!

(ARC from CLASH Books --- thank you so much!)