Eric LaRocca is one of the authors I jump to when people are looking for books that will hurt them in the best way. Each of their books has gotten increasingly more disturbing and unhinged, and I mean that with all of the love in my heart. We Are Always Tender with Our Dead is the first book in the Burnt Sparrow Trilogy, and what a banger of an entry!  Set in the deeply unsettling town of Burnt Sparrow, NH, a 17 year old kid is subjected to more and more unspeakable horrors following a Christmas Massacre by a family of faceless shooters. In LaRocca’s signature style, this book is transgressive, gory, and upsetting, while at the same time somehow tender and heartfelt and bittersweet. I don’t know how Eric does it, but I will continue reading absolutely everything they write, forever.