Status Updates From They Bloom at Night

Finally!

Except for the shithead in the basement, our protagonist is amazingly useless against men- like, worse than before the transformation.

Why raid the supply closet for a weapon- THERE IS A LITERAL GUN ON THE FLOOR?!

That’s it? Really? You go swimming in the monster water and make a deal with a deity and can do nothing while a man grabs you by the gills shoves you in a tank right before a hurricane hits?! Your mom breaks her arms multiple times in this damn book at least trying, and she doesn’t have any monster powers!

The characters aren’t really reacting the way I would expect in response to experiencing and doing horrific things; it’s ruining my immersion.
I’ve been thinking of the setting of this book as some Silent Hill type of world, although even they had phones…what time period is this supposed to be taking place in??