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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I found the book to be too disjointed and choppy. The writing evoked very strong imagery. I was cco fused how the witches burnt prior made any connection other than as a family tie to the main characters.
Firstly, thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this arc.
I went into this expecting witch hunts and a fight between church and lore honestly and maybe that was my mistake. I felt like I was confused the whole time, lost in the haze and confusion much as Beata seemed to be. It gave Midsommar without drugs and violence yet all the confusion was there.
I did enjoy the lilting melody of the storytelling. It was very lyrical and whimsical. I personally struggle with books such as this as so much is left to the imagination and unspoken narrative.
And the ending — it didn’t seem like an ending at all. So much was left unspoken and an intense moment started and then it ended right in the middle. What does it mean? Where do we go from here? I don’t know and I don’t feel like I’ll ever know.
I went into this expecting witch hunts and a fight between church and lore honestly and maybe that was my mistake. I felt like I was confused the whole time, lost in the haze and confusion much as Beata seemed to be. It gave Midsommar without drugs and violence yet all the confusion was there.
I did enjoy the lilting melody of the storytelling. It was very lyrical and whimsical. I personally struggle with books such as this as so much is left to the imagination and unspoken narrative.
And the ending — it didn’t seem like an ending at all. So much was left unspoken and an intense moment started and then it ended right in the middle. What does it mean? Where do we go from here? I don’t know and I don’t feel like I’ll ever know.
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I received this ARC through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Well, this… wasn’t quite what it says on the tin.
The blurb of Noyes' debut novel caught my eye enough to request an advanced copy - with mentions of witch hunts, the devil, buried history, the patriarchy, isolation, mystery, Gothic horror… but little of that felt of much relevance in the way I expected.
The story opens in the past, as all but a handful of the women in an isolated Northern European island are accused of dancing with the Devil in The Blue Maiden, a neighboring island, and assassinated.
Several generations later, we follow sisters Ulrika and Beata as they grow up with their father, a widower and the community’s Pastor, trying to discover who their mother (an outsider in the island) was and who they could be, living with the stigma of Otherness.
This was a beautifully told story, full of rich, atmospheric descriptions, with a dream-like quality and interesting main characters that we follow as they grow up and their bonds and their place in the world are tested.
Unfortunately, for me, there wasn’t much connection with the history of the wrongfully accused women or the mystery of The Blue Maiden. They existed as a vague threat, neither part of a supernatural horror plot nor directly connected to the sisters in the present. It felt more like a character study than anything else, so if you like that kind of stuff, you might enjoy it. Ultimately, it wasn’t a bad read, but I was expecting a different kind of story.
Well, this… wasn’t quite what it says on the tin.
The blurb of Noyes' debut novel caught my eye enough to request an advanced copy - with mentions of witch hunts, the devil, buried history, the patriarchy, isolation, mystery, Gothic horror… but little of that felt of much relevance in the way I expected.
The story opens in the past, as all but a handful of the women in an isolated Northern European island are accused of dancing with the Devil in The Blue Maiden, a neighboring island, and assassinated.
Several generations later, we follow sisters Ulrika and Beata as they grow up with their father, a widower and the community’s Pastor, trying to discover who their mother (an outsider in the island) was and who they could be, living with the stigma of Otherness.
This was a beautifully told story, full of rich, atmospheric descriptions, with a dream-like quality and interesting main characters that we follow as they grow up and their bonds and their place in the world are tested.
Unfortunately, for me, there wasn’t much connection with the history of the wrongfully accused women or the mystery of The Blue Maiden. They existed as a vague threat, neither part of a supernatural horror plot nor directly connected to the sisters in the present. It felt more like a character study than anything else, so if you like that kind of stuff, you might enjoy it. Ultimately, it wasn’t a bad read, but I was expecting a different kind of story.
The Blue Maiden needs one more round of edits before it goes out into the world. The two main sections of the book--the burning of the island's women and the later narrative--could use more connections, and the relevance of the Blue Maiden itself might be brought forward so that readers better understand how the characters understand it. In the primary narrative, two sisters struggle--along with other islanders--to maintain a subsistence life, and when one marries, she finds that she's married the father of her half-sister. She bears his child and suffers postpartum depression, finally finding roots in motherhood. It's a beautifully written and almost unbearably bleak novel that left me enormously sad for the sisters and the child who will grow up in a family created out of obsession and desperation rather than love.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
slow-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
dark
mysterious
sad
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
This book was…interesting. I very much enjoyed the characters and the mysterious lore, but this book as a whole felt very disjointed at times, especially in the beginning. The author seems to switch between two narrators but it is done in a way that is hard to follow, but in the second half of the book she stuck with Bea, which made the book more enjoyable and accessible. Overall, I feel like this book has a lot of potential that is lost due to a desire to be lofty and aloof. I hope more books that come from this author aim for clarity and conciseness in writing, because truly I think the idea was just lost in translation.