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3.57 AVERAGE
3.57 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-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
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
reflective
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:
Yes
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship
Moderate: Bullying, Death, Emotional abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Murder, Outing, Alcohol, Sexual harassment
Minor: Homophobia, Lesbophobia
A novel about cults, queer yearning, and the limits of religious zealotry is right up my alley, and this one did NOT disappoint. Burton's characters brim with life, longing, and menace. I'm obsessed with Virginia, the terrifyingly devout and utterly charming girl who leads the church choir. Longer review to come, but I'm absolutely haunted and captivated by this read. I don't think I'll be able to stop thinking about it for months, can't believe it doesn't come out till March!!
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
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
Not a plot line I thought I would gravitate towards, this book drew me in me in. But then again, Virginia Strauss has that effect on people.
This had been on my TBR since it came out, and I finally picked it up because Burton was quoted in Montell's book Cultish for her religious scholarship. This book was enjoyable, if a bit overdramatic at times. Then again, weren't we all a bit dramatic in high school?
This book had no right to be this good! I really didn’t know for sure what I was getting into with this book: I just knew it was about a prep school, involved queer themes, and involved something that sounded like dark academia. (Shush, I happen to love dark academia).
I started reading this stunning and tragic coming-of-age drama and got immediately sucked into it. The story of soft, impressionable Laura and her obsession with a long-dead author and his book both made me sad and fearful from the start. Moving high schools just so you can go to the alma mater of your literary hero? Moving away from your family just so you can live, breathe, eat, sleep, and learn in the same hallowed halls? That’s not a healthy thing for a teenager to do, but somehow Laura managed to convince her parents to let her attend. So she sets out to walk in his footsteps, looking for somewhere to belong, looking for something beautiful and transcendent, and she ends up becoming enmeshed with the school’s choir both due to her attraction to Virginia, their intense and charismatic leader, and because all of the choir’s members are just as obsessed with the same author as she is.
This book isn’t subtle about what it’s trying to be. It’d be kind of hard to pretend like you’re not somewhat reminiscent of “The Secret History” when you’re a mysterious, dark, and philosophical novel with queer themes set in a isolated prep school on the East Coast. But Burton was definitely more overt with the queer themes and upped the ante with a hefty dose of young white men who feel entitled to the women around them.
There is a lot of interesting discourse about the Madonna/Wh (putting the rest of the words there will get me in trouble) Complex, with two women in the story going through that dichotomy. Neither one of them can fully escape being both worshiped by men only to turn around and have those same men blaspheme them. There’s also a healthy dose of both questioning one’s sexuality and some internalized homophobia. All of it makes for an aching angst-fest that could remind some people of what it was like when they didn’t know who they fully were or what they fully wanted out of life.
In the end, all I can really say solidly is that I really enjoyed it. Like, would buy it and read it again.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.
I started reading this stunning and tragic coming-of-age drama and got immediately sucked into it. The story of soft, impressionable Laura and her obsession with a long-dead author and his book both made me sad and fearful from the start. Moving high schools just so you can go to the alma mater of your literary hero? Moving away from your family just so you can live, breathe, eat, sleep, and learn in the same hallowed halls? That’s not a healthy thing for a teenager to do, but somehow Laura managed to convince her parents to let her attend. So she sets out to walk in his footsteps, looking for somewhere to belong, looking for something beautiful and transcendent, and she ends up becoming enmeshed with the school’s choir both due to her attraction to Virginia, their intense and charismatic leader, and because all of the choir’s members are just as obsessed with the same author as she is.
This book isn’t subtle about what it’s trying to be. It’d be kind of hard to pretend like you’re not somewhat reminiscent of “The Secret History” when you’re a mysterious, dark, and philosophical novel with queer themes set in a isolated prep school on the East Coast. But Burton was definitely more overt with the queer themes and upped the ante with a hefty dose of young white men who feel entitled to the women around them.
There is a lot of interesting discourse about the Madonna/Wh (putting the rest of the words there will get me in trouble) Complex, with two women in the story going through that dichotomy. Neither one of them can fully escape being both worshiped by men only to turn around and have those same men blaspheme them. There’s also a healthy dose of both questioning one’s sexuality and some internalized homophobia. All of it makes for an aching angst-fest that could remind some people of what it was like when they didn’t know who they fully were or what they fully wanted out of life.
In the end, all I can really say solidly is that I really enjoyed it. Like, would buy it and read it again.
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.