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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
dark
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
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:
Yes
Decent at the beginning and I enjoy the premise of this novel but the final quarter is rather poorly written.
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Grief, Cannibalism, Murder
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Physical abuse, Blood
Minor: Infidelity, Sexual violence, Vomit, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
a lot of reviews here already mention this but the beginning half really drags. there’s a few chapters that feel as if they merely exist to bring the page numbers up. i was over the story by the time i finally got to it.
I liked this a lot! Being a lesbian in oldentimes: not recommended.
- How old was I the last time I kept a diary? Thirteen I think, or fourteen, a girl with her hair in braids, fresh & unbroken as new snow. I can scarcely recall now what I wrote about then, although it all felt terribly important at the time. Perhaps in a year or two, I will reread this passage & encounter the same feeling that arises when I recall those youthful diary entries: a mixture of fondness & impatience, with a dash of incredulity that a creature so young & ignorant could call herself unhappy.
- "There are two gods," she told me once, sotto voce in case our father heard her uttering such an impious thought. "There is the god of inside, the god of churches & prayer meetings & all that; & then there is the god of outside, the god that lives in the trees, & in the dirt, & the insects & the birds, & the things that eat them too."
- I pieced together enough of her pauses & omissions to know what kind of man he was. What is that quote from Othello? What Amelia says about men? "They are all but stomachs, & we all but food. They eat us hungrily & when they are full, they belch us."
- Why is Mrs Greer so set against Norah Kinsley? Is there some bad blood between them, or does she simply suffer from that most provincial of afflictions: fear of a woman alone?
- "I have often thought that spinsterhood combines the worst of childhood & womanhood: all the helplessness of the former, & all the duties of the latter. Widowhood, on the other hand, has much to recommend it. A widow may do as she pleases, for she wears the respectable cloak of marriage about her shoulders still, & yet she has no one to fetter her independence or dictate the company she keeps. If all women could be widows without marrying first, I think that there would not be a single woman in the world who would choose a living husband over a dead one."
- I dared to cut him off. "You have never felt anything for me but contempt. Well, now I have made myself contemptible. You called me a dirty little beast, & I have become as dirty & beastly a woman as ever there was."
- "I have been your defender, Miss Bird," she said, her voice unsteady. "You know, I suppose, that folks have been saying horrible things about you. There have been wild tales about your conduct & your habits, things that might be attributed to a lunatic or a heathen! Anyone who said such things to my face has gotten an awful earful from me, for when I first met you, you were a good woman. You might be a good woman yet, in spite of everything. But this behaviour... you are not well. You are not right." A good woman. How odd that the phrase has such a particular meaning. One might say "a good man" & mean anything. There are as many ways of being a good man, it seems, as there are of being a man at all, but there is only one way to be a good woman. It is such a narrow, stunted, blighted way to be, that I wonder any woman throughout history has been up to the task. Perhaps none of us ever have.
- Her gaze was steady & unblinking. The shadows fell upon her face obscuring her expression. She no longer looked like a little girl at all. "It's been calling you," she said, "ain't it?"
- Muriel watched me for another long moment, then stood. She approached my desk with care; not the care that so many have taken around me these last few weeks, the care a man might show a dangerous animal, but the care one wild thing might show another as they cross paths in the shadow of the forest.
- "She told me that someday the words would come clear. She said that if it wanted to speak to me, it wouldn't do me any harm, that maybe one day when I was grown it would call me to it, the way it called her & you & Miss Webster. Now I can hear it all the time! Faint sometimes, like when you call someone from far away, but it's always there, wherever I am. It makes it easier sometimes when it gets difficult at the house or with Dad. Knowing that it's out there makes the other stuff less..." She paused & cleared her throat, as though embarrassed by her own train of thought. I remembered that awful little house, her father's hideous chuckle, & understood.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
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
Really well done horror that is extremely meaningful in its symbolism
Wowowowie! I really enjoyed this one! While I am just not a slow burn kind of gal, I did really enjoy how much it picked up in the second half, making the slower beginning worth it in the end. Gish’s prose is stunning and easy to stay engaged in the story because of it. Ohhh looooorddddd, I just fawn over the queer LONGING in this 😮💨 it’s delicious and written in such a way that you really FEEL how badly Ada’s desires eat her alive. The societal pressures and expectations from all around her becomes insurmountable and thrusts her into a wild deep dive into madness. How she handles the mounting stress in the last half kept me saying “yes bitch!!!!!!!!!” Ada, my stinky girl, I love you so!!!!!
Outside of the pacing, I just didn’t find this to be a wildly unique story, but I did REALLY enjoy the execution.
4.25 stars. Cheers to women being absolutely insane because we live in a world that constantly challenges our intelligence, our power, and our strength. This fired me UP. I can’t get enough of it.