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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This isn't one for the faint of heart. I found myself wincing at some of the descriptions. There's a fair bit of gore mentioned in detail.
However, I loved how the stories of all the women in this book were told, they felt real. An excellent example of a story written from the female gaze! These women had real struggles that weren't put on show like trauma porn. Thier stories were respectfully told with a clear undercurrent of feminism that I found very refreshing.
However, I loved how the stories of all the women in this book were told, they felt real. An excellent example of a story written from the female gaze! These women had real struggles that weren't put on show like trauma porn. Thier stories were respectfully told with a clear undercurrent of feminism that I found very refreshing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Rape, Sexual content, Blood, Cannibalism, Abortion, Pregnancy
i know it's part and parcel for the time the book is set in but dear god how many times in one book can the main character, a 28-30 year old woman, bring up the fact that she's so old and unwanted because she's so old.
“Wisdom. War.
We are beyond such things.
We are teeth and skin, spit and hair, bones and blood.”
I was absolutely torn on this review, on one hand, I stayed up till the wee hours devouring the story….
On the other, I really wasn’t a fan of the main character Ada. She ground my gears, she was stubborn, lacked communication skills, was so desperate for love she literally changed herself, and just became completely unrecognizable from who she was at the start of the story. However, knowing her family history and traumas, the repression of women at the time (1901 is when the tale transpires), I can also see how the transformation could’ve occurred after all the pressure and loneliness broke her.
The creature itself was a mystery; eerie and ominous, transcending the known order of things. However, I didn’t like that in its approach of Ada, it was so forceful. Even though Norah said she could choose, the actions of the creature and it’s fervour implied that she really had no choice; it drove Ada to ruin her life. She went from being horrified to enamoured which was puzzling to me.
I loved that readers receive this mysterious transcript of events through Ada’s journal. It made me feel even more scared as I read in the night, and I could picture the narrator hovering in the light of a lone candle, the darkness pressing in around her as she scribbled down the creepy and astounding events.
So I chose to give 4 Stars as the author did create a very unique, queer tale of creeping dread and it has haunted my mind since I finished it.
Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and ECW press.
We are beyond such things.
We are teeth and skin, spit and hair, bones and blood.”
I was absolutely torn on this review, on one hand, I stayed up till the wee hours devouring the story….
On the other, I really wasn’t a fan of the main character Ada. She ground my gears, she was stubborn, lacked communication skills, was so desperate for love she literally changed herself, and just became completely unrecognizable from who she was at the start of the story. However, knowing her family history and traumas, the repression of women at the time (1901 is when the tale transpires), I can also see how the transformation could’ve occurred after all the pressure and loneliness broke her.
The creature itself was a mystery; eerie and ominous, transcending the known order of things. However, I didn’t like that in its approach of Ada, it was so forceful. Even though Norah said she could choose, the actions of the creature and it’s fervour implied that she really had no choice; it drove Ada to ruin her life. She went from being horrified to enamoured which was puzzling to me.
I loved that readers receive this mysterious transcript of events through Ada’s journal. It made me feel even more scared as I read in the night, and I could picture the narrator hovering in the light of a lone candle, the darkness pressing in around her as she scribbled down the creepy and astounding events.
So I chose to give 4 Stars as the author did create a very unique, queer tale of creeping dread and it has haunted my mind since I finished it.
Thank you to the author, NetGalley, and ECW press.
A slow building story of female rage at the turn of the 20th century. Ada struggles with her own past while making a place for herself in her new town. Everything starts to go wrong when she starts hearing a whispering voice calling her name from the woods. This channels the popular tropes of the "unhinged female narrator" and the "good for her" horror genre. Though I found the epistolary style of this book took me out of the action, especially when the story ramped up. I think this book could have benefited from a simple first person POV with inclusion of a couple journal entries.
1.75 stars because I feel like this book isn't AWFUL but I also can't quite bring myself to give it 2. I know "female rage" is a compelling topic, but it's only compelling if you write it in a compelling way. I am simply not compelled by someone not showering for weeks and abusing children and assaulting/murdering their only friend just because you say it's "female rage." Also, for a book that touches on patriarchal treatment of women quite a bit (although it did strike me as pretty simple and surface-level commentary), the men that perpetuate this patriarchal treatment receive VERY little consequence or pushback compared to the women that the protagonist dislikes (for, in my opinion, very flimsy reasons). The choice to represent the protagonist's liberation from patriarchal oppression through the murder of her woman friend who is another victim of the patriarchy and has by and large done nothing wrong is just... very odd to me and doesn't exactly scream "feminist literature."
There are some beautiful moments of writing in here, but Jesus, this book drags, especially in the first half. This book does NOT need to be nearly 400 pages, and it does nothing to justify that length. The pacing is so disjointed that you wouldn't even think this book is meant to be a Gothic horror in the first half (and even in the second half, I hesitate to consider this book much of a Gothic story at all). I feel like the social commentary and horror elements would've been much more compelling if they were more interwoven and interlinked, but instead, they just feel kinda smushed together. The weird pacing could've been at least improved with some proper Gothic atmosphere, but I didn't really get any of that.
At the end of the day, I feel like I've heard this story before, and I'll hear it again. I do personally feel like the horror formula of "woman suffers mental breakdown" is tired, especially in self-proclaimed feminist stories.
There are some beautiful moments of writing in here, but Jesus, this book drags, especially in the first half. This book does NOT need to be nearly 400 pages, and it does nothing to justify that length. The pacing is so disjointed that you wouldn't even think this book is meant to be a Gothic horror in the first half (and even in the second half, I hesitate to consider this book much of a Gothic story at all). I feel like the social commentary and horror elements would've been much more compelling if they were more interwoven and interlinked, but instead, they just feel kinda smushed together. The weird pacing could've been at least improved with some proper Gothic atmosphere, but I didn't really get any of that.
At the end of the day, I feel like I've heard this story before, and I'll hear it again. I do personally feel like the horror formula of "woman suffers mental breakdown" is tired, especially in self-proclaimed feminist stories.
slow-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Honestly, forgettable.
“Woulds’t thou like to live deliciously?” The Witch meets, horror movie “The Wind,” in this atmospheric slow-burn (and I mean slow…a little TOO SLOW, at times) novel from Elliott Gish. Ada is fleeing from her past, accepting a teaching position in the remote town of Lowry Bridge. There she takes up room and board and meets her students, she even begins to make friends with the local preachers wife. But there’s something watching her in the woods. Something she hears in the night. As the school year goes on and the trauma of her past begins to creep upon her consciousness, Ada begins to blur what is real and what is not.
This is a feverish novel with “A24 vibes,” slow paced, but eerie and just the right amount of unsettling until things really go sideways in the final act. A novel of forbidden desire, breaking free from the constraints of polite religious society, and embracing the feral animal within.
This is a feverish novel with “A24 vibes,” slow paced, but eerie and just the right amount of unsettling until things really go sideways in the final act. A novel of forbidden desire, breaking free from the constraints of polite religious society, and embracing the feral animal within.