Reviews

Orpheus Builds A Girl by Heather Parry

bexpaxton's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

what a book! explaining the concept of this book raises eyebrows,, explaining it's based on true stories makes that worse. 
 this book makes you both love and despise humanity, sparks conversations about spirtituality and life after death and lays bare the reality of how women's bodies are treated in both life and death. this book makes you feel uneasy,, as if your soul was the one battling against injustice.
 i loved the discomforting, grusome imagery surrounding death and decay. for a book about despicable actions and despicable people i loved the writing style. the nods throughout to the gothic are superb and bring the genre up to date and relevant to everything that has happened to women in the last 5 years and probably will continue to happen for a long time after. 
 an unforgettable read that will replay in my head with characters who will never leave,, unfortunately.

lindsay_b85's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

3.5

tricia's review against another edition

5.0

Every single character is unlikeable; i love it. 

justice for Gorky

lucyjanewood's review

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

timepetals's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective sad slow-paced

• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

"I'll be your curse, Doctor. I'll haunt you when I'm gone. You won't be able to get rid of me, not ever."

He laughed sadly and agreed, as if it were a joke. 

"Darling, you have been with me for a long time already; you were with me before we even met. It will be the greatest joy of my life to have you with me until I die, until we can be together for the rest of time."

There's no way to rate this, for even by reading you wonder if you are participating in everything this novel attempts to criticize. Someone described it as "Frankenstein" meets "Lolita", and I am very inclined to agree (both theme and narration-wise).

Under the patriarchy, my body is never truly mine. To be a woman is to be reduced to a spectacle, an object men can do with as they please. Assault is masked as true love, for they never intended to hurt, only to protect. And why should a girl protest against one so desperate to save her life? 

Even alluding to this man as Orpheus feels wrong. Yes, Orpheus ventured underground to rescue Eurydice, but he turned around and gave her up, because he wanted to behold her for one last time. Orpheus and Eurydice were in a consensual relationship, one torn apart by time -- this relationship is anything but. 

There's many creepy, icky layers to this novel, made, in turn, even more chilling by the fact that most of it is true. Fictionalized, yes, but heavily borrowing from truth. Which is why even reading it feels like feeding into sensationalism and strong reactions this case is bound to cause. And, yet, it is a story that more people deserve to read, or even hear about just in passing. 

willow2709's review

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

emilyvicb's review against another edition

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

alessandral's review

challenging dark sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

romethegreenwood's review against another edition

4.0

in the same way that tell me im worthless was brewed in a lab for me and my interests, this was built like that for my friend holly (hi holly ily). anyways! a very interesting reflection on the grotesque and the way women particularly women of colors bodies are never viewed as their own. its fascinating to me too the decision to not give luciana’s pov, so that shes effectively voiceless with her sister and the doctor telling her story. horror that actually horrifies! also this is based on true events too : / i did find the doctor’s sections more difficult to read just because of how they were written, but i think it works as a way to show us he thinks this is a factual story. fucked up!

gemmamilne's review

5.0

Where to begin with this glorious book? It gave me the creeps, it made me angry, I couldn’t stop reading it and I was bereft when it was done. The characters feel so real, so horrifyingly believable. The dual-narrator structure was clever and stunningly executed - if only every terrible act usually told through the lens of the ‘victor’ could have the record righted somewhat. I’m excited to see what else Heather publishes, so I can be left pondering more of life’s horrors in what feels like a productive, somehow beautiful, way.