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A review by dracovich
Rawblood by Catriona Ward
3.0
Iris Villarca, a 11-year-old, is a descendant of two powerfully cursed family lines, and is now protected by her father to ensure her survival. He prepares a set of rules for Iris, which are simple, clear, easy to memorize, as any Villarca who fails to follow the rules will have to face her. Things tumble down when Iris isn't able to see sense in her father's rules, which seemed absurd, silly and stupid.
Rawblood is a gothic thriller, set back in the 19th and 20th century, written with multiple POVs on multiple timelines. An exquisite read. The chapters were neatly packed, the order of the plot was precisely managed, the ultimate revelation was slow, true, hitting straight to heart. More importantly, the characters were brilliant, multi dimensional, varying, with reasonings, judgements, righteousness, crimes and a disturbing past clinging to their sleeve. Every characters were connected, interlinked, making the reading get interesting slowly and steadily as the plot progressed.
Since the book was written about the Victorian era, the labourious effort on the author's part was visible, satisfactory and a much appreciable work of art. Right from the medical terminologies, or the livelihood of people around then, or the women's life and men's life having different effects on their choices, everything was crafted with so much research.
The plot was carried away neatly, and I enjoyed the reveal even when I was able to detect it a bit earlier than I assumed to be. However, it seemed slightly disappointing to think 'the great reveal' didn't give much needed justification for the things that had happened to the Villarca family.
One of the huge flaws of the book was the writing style. It was overly flowery, too poetic, filled with too many words that were written to obscure the plot, and obscured the essence of my reading experience. If this was a literary achievement, I would have read a dictionary rather to read a story. I wanted to know, feel, experience and imagine, not to indulge in cramped up sentences with too many unnecessary words. If one could get over this, the book is an absolute delight with the story, characters, and plot execution.
Rawblood is a gothic thriller, set back in the 19th and 20th century, written with multiple POVs on multiple timelines. An exquisite read. The chapters were neatly packed, the order of the plot was precisely managed, the ultimate revelation was slow, true, hitting straight to heart. More importantly, the characters were brilliant, multi dimensional, varying, with reasonings, judgements, righteousness, crimes and a disturbing past clinging to their sleeve. Every characters were connected, interlinked, making the reading get interesting slowly and steadily as the plot progressed.
Since the book was written about the Victorian era, the labourious effort on the author's part was visible, satisfactory and a much appreciable work of art. Right from the medical terminologies, or the livelihood of people around then, or the women's life and men's life having different effects on their choices, everything was crafted with so much research.
The plot was carried away neatly, and I enjoyed the reveal even when I was able to detect it a bit earlier than I assumed to be. However, it seemed slightly disappointing to think 'the great reveal' didn't give much needed justification for the things that had happened to the Villarca family.
One of the huge flaws of the book was the writing style. It was overly flowery, too poetic, filled with too many words that were written to obscure the plot, and obscured the essence of my reading experience. If this was a literary achievement, I would have read a dictionary rather to read a story. I wanted to know, feel, experience and imagine, not to indulge in cramped up sentences with too many unnecessary words. If one could get over this, the book is an absolute delight with the story, characters, and plot execution.