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A review by reader_fictions
The Steep & Thorny Way by Cat Winters
4.0
With The Steep & Thorny Way, I’ve read all of Cat Winters’ published novels, and I’ve been a big fan of every single one. The Steep & Thorny Way is no exception, cementing Winters even more firmly in my must-read author list. In some ways, The Steep & Thorny Way is my favorite of hers so far.
Winters tackles some seriously dark and painful subjects in The Steep & Thorny Way: racial tensions in Prohibition-era Oregon, the KKK, homosexuality, and eugenics to name the big ones. Obviously, I’m not in a position to where I can speak to how well Winters did with the biracial (Hanalee’s mama is white and her daddy was black) voice. From what I can tell, her treatment of everything seemed really good.
Hanalee’s the only non-white person in her hometown of Elston, Oregon (aside from the rumors that the Deputy might be secretly Jewish) and has been since her dad died two years before, killed by drunk driving Joe Adder. For the most part, that’s been okay; sure, some people stare but she has good friends and doesn’t spend much time around the hateful folks. With Joe’s release from prison, though, tensions in the town are increasing and Hanalee’s encountering more hate than she ever has before, while also dealing with the fact that her dad’s death may have been calculated and not Joe’s fault. Hanalee teams up with Joe to figure out what happened that night and prove his innocence.
Where this book is really brilliant is that all of that stuff is fit into a Hamlet retelling. Winters obviously has a thing for ghost stories, and Hamlet fits her wonderfully. This gender-flipped Hamlet isn’t a tight retelling, but it’s very clearly there, in Hanalee’s dad showing up as a ghost and her mother marrying her “Uncle” Clyde. Winters does an amazing job, because the Hamlet framing is a) very well done and b) actually helps to ratchet up the intensity of the book and make the ending more unpredictable, because you don’t know whether she’s going to follow that ending or not.
The only way that The Steep & Thorny Way missed for me was that I didn’t really get hit with the feels. I know that I should have, but somehow that was missing. That’s why on an emotional level, my favorite Winters book is her adult title, The Uninvited, as it’s the only one that’s really walloped my feels. However, I do think that, as a novel, The Steep & Thorny Way is stronger and more original.
Winters tackles some seriously dark and painful subjects in The Steep & Thorny Way: racial tensions in Prohibition-era Oregon, the KKK, homosexuality, and eugenics to name the big ones. Obviously, I’m not in a position to where I can speak to how well Winters did with the biracial (Hanalee’s mama is white and her daddy was black) voice. From what I can tell, her treatment of everything seemed really good.
Hanalee’s the only non-white person in her hometown of Elston, Oregon (aside from the rumors that the Deputy might be secretly Jewish) and has been since her dad died two years before, killed by drunk driving Joe Adder. For the most part, that’s been okay; sure, some people stare but she has good friends and doesn’t spend much time around the hateful folks. With Joe’s release from prison, though, tensions in the town are increasing and Hanalee’s encountering more hate than she ever has before, while also dealing with the fact that her dad’s death may have been calculated and not Joe’s fault. Hanalee teams up with Joe to figure out what happened that night and prove his innocence.
Where this book is really brilliant is that all of that stuff is fit into a Hamlet retelling. Winters obviously has a thing for ghost stories, and Hamlet fits her wonderfully. This gender-flipped Hamlet isn’t a tight retelling, but it’s very clearly there, in Hanalee’s dad showing up as a ghost and her mother marrying her “Uncle” Clyde. Winters does an amazing job, because the Hamlet framing is a) very well done and b) actually helps to ratchet up the intensity of the book and make the ending more unpredictable, because you don’t know whether she’s going to follow that ending or not.
The only way that The Steep & Thorny Way missed for me was that I didn’t really get hit with the feels. I know that I should have, but somehow that was missing. That’s why on an emotional level, my favorite Winters book is her adult title, The Uninvited, as it’s the only one that’s really walloped my feels. However, I do think that, as a novel, The Steep & Thorny Way is stronger and more original.