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kstav's review
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I will never tire of the "Confessions of a Justified Sinner" manoeuvre, where Narrator A says "Here is my account, I was misunderstood in life, but this is evidence that I believed what I did was right." and Narrator B says "yeah this creep showed up and ruined our lives." Stomach-churningly compelling.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Miscarriage, Death, and Gore
keirahelena_'s review
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion and Death
lowercase_em's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Gaslighting, Medical content, Blood, Gore, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Grief, and Medical trauma
Moderate: Abortion
eloisehindes's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Body horror
savvylit's review
challenging
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Orpheus Builds a Girl is a deeply disturbing dual perspective novel. On the one hand, we have Wilhelm who is absolutely deranged. On the other hand, we have Gabriela, the older sister of the object of Wilhelm's obsession. The juxtaposition between the two narrators is incredible, particularly when it comes to their approach to Luci. Gabriela loves Luci as a flawed and three dimensional person. Wilhelm only ever loves Luci as an object that he feels destined to own.
Wilhelm is a Grade A Monster from page one. After Wilhelm manipulates his way into Luci's family as her primary caregiver, his pre-established and unchecked feelings of entitlement, racism, and misogyny become increasingly apparent. Wilhelm never takes Luci's family members seriously, believing them to be uneducated and brutish merely because of their status as Cuban immigrants. Even worse, he's truly convinced himself that Luci loves him even though he continues to have a complete disregard for her wishes. When she protests his advances, he thinks she's just being coy and flirtatious. Sadly, Luci is too ill and weak to assert her dislike of Wilhelm.
Wilhelm is absolutely horrible and one of the most terrifying antagonists I have ever encountered in fiction. (What makes him even more disturbing is the fact that he is based on a real person, Carl Tanzler). However, Wilhelm is not the only thing that's scary in this novel. Parry expertly creates not just one disturbing person but a multitude of horrors. There's the horror of anti-immigrant sentiment and the resulting lack of agency. There's the horror of your loved one's death becoming a spectacle. There are endlessly vivid and disgusting descriptions of a body in decay. Overall, steel yourself to be uncomfortable throughout this excellently crafted novel.
Wilhelm is a Grade A Monster from page one. After Wilhelm manipulates his way into Luci's family as her primary caregiver, his pre-established and unchecked feelings of entitlement, racism, and misogyny become increasingly apparent. Wilhelm never takes Luci's family members seriously, believing them to be uneducated and brutish merely because of their status as Cuban immigrants. Even worse, he's truly convinced himself that Luci loves him even though he continues to have a complete disregard for her wishes. When she protests his advances, he thinks she's just being coy and flirtatious. Sadly, Luci is too ill and weak to assert her dislike of Wilhelm.
Wilhelm is absolutely horrible and one of the most terrifying antagonists I have ever encountered in fiction. (What makes him even more disturbing is the fact that he is based on a real person, Carl Tanzler). However, Wilhelm is not the only thing that's scary in this novel. Parry expertly creates not just one disturbing person but a multitude of horrors. There's the horror of anti-immigrant sentiment and the resulting lack of agency. There's the horror of your loved one's death becoming a spectacle. There are endlessly vivid and disgusting descriptions of a body in decay. Overall, steel yourself to be uncomfortable throughout this excellently crafted novel.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Abortion, Alcohol, Body horror, Death, Animal death, Racism, Violence, and Sexual violence
loz_reads11's review
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Abortion, Blood, and Death
Moderate: Sexual violence
tam's review
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Abortion, and Body horror
jesshindes's review
challenging
dark
funny
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
I came across 'Orpheus Builds a Girl' on Twitter somewhere and I'm glad I did! It's a debut novel from a British author that came out with a relatively small press so I could easily have missed it but it's definitely aligned with my interests; it's closer to straight horror than I generally read, although I've been leaning more in that direction lately.
One of the things I really liked about 'Orpheus' was that it felt like a response to some of the nineteenth-century novels that have been very influential on me: something like Frankenstein or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. At the centre of the story is a doctor, Wilhelm van Tore, who asserts that he's developed a set of scientific protocols that can bring the dead back to life, and sets out both to tell his life story and to offer an account of this breakthrough. Interweaved with Van Tore's account, however, is the account of Gabriela Madrigal, a Cuban woman who loathes Van Tore for what he did to her sister: the 'love of his life', the woman he supposedly succeeded in reanimating. Having the two narratives run in parallel works very well in terms of having this (extremely, sometimes even comically) sinister voice of the establishment giving what purports to be a sort of detached, scientific, rigorously truthful narrative and then a dissenting voice running in parallel giving a different account. It's recognising and challenging the power dynamics that drive the novel (and drive so much of the history of medicine, which is something that I'm super interested in) and like I say, it made me think of Frankenstein where you have the doctor's narrative which tells one story but which looks quite different if you take the creature's point of view. So I loved that, and I liked how dark it was and the sort of relish with which Parry absolutely goes into the horribleness of what Van Tore does - like I say, he's SO awful and at times it's funny but it's like, the blackest black humour. She says in the afterword that her writing group friends encouraged her to make it 'more disgusting' (which I have also been told by writing friends) and it definitely does get disgusting so if you're squeamish about death and bodies and fluids, this is not the book for you. However if like me you are fascinated by people's relationships with 'the body', their own and others, then this is definitely the book for you!
I knew when I read it that 'Orpheus' was based on a true story but I didn't go and read about the true story until after I had finished it. One thing I was curious to find out related to the end of the novel - which was the bit that I found least convincing, in some ways, but I wondered if it was actually quite accurate to what really happened (in that way that the narrative beats of reality don't always line up with what you'd expect in fiction). Anyway, it was. I don't want to spoil by going into detail but basically I was like, 'would people have REALLY reacted this way?' and turns out yes, they would and did. So I suppose that rather blows my criticism out of the water (and it wasn't a serious criticism so much as a sort of feeling, like, this feels TOO awful, but I guess real life is that awful! People are awful! Great). In fact the whole real story of it is EXTREMELY weird and fucked-up so I can absolutely see why you would want to turn it into a novel, and I love the way that Parry chose to do this - that she did it from wanting to give a voice to (or, on behalf of) this woman who is absolutely literally objectified through what happens (and through what really did happen in real life). It's a specific sordid incident but of course, as Parry recognises, it's not really or not just about that one story, it's about what that story means and stands for. And this novel does a great job of exploring that, while also being a very effective self-contained horror. Thumbs up from me!
One of the things I really liked about 'Orpheus' was that it felt like a response to some of the nineteenth-century novels that have been very influential on me: something like Frankenstein or Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. At the centre of the story is a doctor, Wilhelm van Tore, who asserts that he's developed a set of scientific protocols that can bring the dead back to life, and sets out both to tell his life story and to offer an account of this breakthrough. Interweaved with Van Tore's account, however, is the account of Gabriela Madrigal, a Cuban woman who loathes Van Tore for what he did to her sister: the 'love of his life', the woman he supposedly succeeded in reanimating. Having the two narratives run in parallel works very well in terms of having this (extremely, sometimes even comically) sinister voice of the establishment giving what purports to be a sort of detached, scientific, rigorously truthful narrative and then a dissenting voice running in parallel giving a different account. It's recognising and challenging the power dynamics that drive the novel (and drive so much of the history of medicine, which is something that I'm super interested in) and like I say, it made me think of Frankenstein where you have the doctor's narrative which tells one story but which looks quite different if you take the creature's point of view. So I loved that, and I liked how dark it was and the sort of relish with which Parry absolutely goes into the horribleness of what Van Tore does - like I say, he's SO awful and at times it's funny but it's like, the blackest black humour. She says in the afterword that her writing group friends encouraged her to make it 'more disgusting' (which I have also been told by writing friends) and it definitely does get disgusting so if you're squeamish about death and bodies and fluids, this is not the book for you. However if like me you are fascinated by people's relationships with 'the body', their own and others, then this is definitely the book for you!
I knew when I read it that 'Orpheus' was based on a true story but I didn't go and read about the true story until after I had finished it. One thing I was curious to find out related to the end of the novel - which was the bit that I found least convincing, in some ways, but I wondered if it was actually quite accurate to what really happened (in that way that the narrative beats of reality don't always line up with what you'd expect in fiction). Anyway, it was. I don't want to spoil by going into detail but basically I was like, 'would people have REALLY reacted this way?' and turns out yes, they would and did. So I suppose that rather blows my criticism out of the water (and it wasn't a serious criticism so much as a sort of feeling, like, this feels TOO awful, but I guess real life is that awful! People are awful! Great). In fact the whole real story of it is EXTREMELY weird and fucked-up so I can absolutely see why you would want to turn it into a novel, and I love the way that Parry chose to do this - that she did it from wanting to give a voice to (or, on behalf of) this woman who is absolutely literally objectified through what happens (and through what really did happen in real life). It's a specific sordid incident but of course, as Parry recognises, it's not really or not just about that one story, it's about what that story means and stands for. And this novel does a great job of exploring that, while also being a very effective self-contained horror. Thumbs up from me!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Terminal illness, Sexual harassment, Racism, Medical content, and Death
amymcphrsn's review
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Grief, Gore, Death, Toxic relationship, Terminal illness, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Abortion
yearningforpetrichor's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death of parent, Abortion, and Death
Moderate: War, Racism, and Animal death