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A review by kamixliax
A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee
5.0
A Lesson in Vengeance was a delight to read, and here is why it earned five stars from me.
Victoria Lee Understood the Assignment
When -the bestseller seventeen years old novelist - Ellis Haely enters the Dalloway school, the girls gather around her like moth around a flame, she is everything a prodigy girl is; cunning, clever, cut for the job; refuting the existence of magic behind the death of five girls in the Dalloway school. Magic for Ellis does not exist, and everything must have an understandable explanation.
Felicity Morrow is -three days ahead of everyone else- back to school, she is moved from home to the Dalloway school, ushered into her room and urged to remember and take her pills on time. It was so hard for Felicity to come back to her room, let alone step into the school itself, for the ghost of her dead girlfriend lurks there, she is haunting her or so believes Felicity, and her tarot cards cannot lie! Magic for Ellis is part of this world, a macabre omnipresence is bent on following her around, ghosts of dead girls and blood on skulls, unfinished rituals and unbreakable spells this is the world of Felicity Morrow.
When the lives of Felicity and Ellis juxtapose, everything tilts in a twisted way. Ellis asks Felicity to help uncover the mystery of the Dalloway five; the alleged five girls who died centuries ago in mysterious ways, the town claimed them witches descending from an ancestry of witches, while the law claims them to be only too clever, too smart for their epoch.
The setting of the story was very fitting, a school at the highest of mountain, the forest thick and green, the winds are untamed, and the school is built over the bones of the dead. I was entranced by the school's history. It's true that the first chapters moved at a slow pace, meticulously presenting to the reader every corner of the school, the library and the student’s lifestyle. I believe that the setting had a fair contribution in the mood of this thriller, it was macabre, gothic and dark.
The plot was multilayered, because for once, Ellis is trying to write her next top chart book, and Felicity is nothing but trying to finish her thesis and unsee the ghost of her ex girlfriend Alex. Yet, this is nothing but the surface level plot, there is another underground plot *pun intended* .
Felicity is Ellis’ muse, they are somehow spellbound to each other, orbiting around each other, to Felicity Ellis is someone who is always rockhard to her side, holding her when gravity fails and persuading her that magic is nothing but nightly hallucination, therefore she creates the Night Migrations, with three other girls from the dormitory, they set foot in the forest the night, to perform magic, seal pacts, and prove that nothing can scare the Dalloway girl.
It’s too good to be true, personally while I was reading I found the way Ellis tries to convince Felicity that ghosts are not real too rushing, too fast for an actual healing and grief process, and indeed things spiralled out of hand.
I think that Felicity’s thesis is literally what this book dealt with which felt like an inner fourth wall break for me.
Felicity is seeing ghosts sometimes and other times she is seeing specters in her room, in the middle of the night. She reads tarot cards but then denies their validity, she wants to believe in something powerful outside of her, while she fears a malevolent force within her, this heroine is indeed deeply troubled, and we learn later on that she stopped taking her pills, while her relationship with her mother worsens we learn of Felicity’s childhood and her own hallucinations, how she makes up a whole different death story for Alex, yet always blaming herself for her death. Given such findings, there is little trust to be breached with Felicity as a narrator! How much can we trust about Felicity’s point of view? I think this was a genius move from the writer, the gothic spirit, the darkness of the plot was actually more poignant in the mind of Felicity, whence you realize that you are actually inside her brain, seeing the story unfold through her foggy mind, everything starts to feel like magic.
There is more sub-plots to this novel, for instance, social eugenics, Leonie is one out three student in the Dalloway school who happen to be black, she feels the pressure of a system that long ago started inviting smart girls of colors to the Dalloway school not out of equality and fairness but out of prestige, Leonie, tells how her grandmother and grand grandmother were also selected to attend the Dalloway school back in the days. She is in the midst of a rich white girls school, and she is supposed to act like she is part of a chosen social rank. Herein, A Lesson in Vengeance raises the question of race and how it still stains societal norms to the day.
Another remarkable sub-plot to the novel, is the place of women literature and women education in a world ruled by the patriarchy, The Dalloway five were murdered, be it magic’s fault or not, the girl's lives were stolen in the prime age of eighteen, the people seemed to never accept the idea of educating women, a smart women is surely concotting with the devil, just like Felicity too smart for this world it must be magic.
Indeed, there is a strong LGBTQ representation in the novel, Both Felicity and Ellis are lesbians, and things spark to life between them at one point in the story, Quinn the brother of Ellis is trans and goes by they-them pronouns, when Felicity dates Alex she hides it from everyone, but she comes out to Leonie and gains more confidence in her sexual identity afterwards. Yes, A Lesson in Vengeance is a strangers to lovers to enemies trope! and it couldn’t get anymore exciting to pursue.
I have really appreciated every work cited in the novel, the girls at the Dalloway school took their time quoting for the reader their favorite novels and read poems too, which contributed to the dark Academia flair of the story, The characterization was rich and nuanced, they had indeed wore old fashioned clothes, owned no phones, and listened to music in Vinyl, but they also ate Tacos and practiced sports ! they truly contributed to the gothic spirit in the story, ans still left an imprint of youth to it as well.
The storyline gave me chills and left me oh-ing ah-ing at every chapter, some of them were really sweet and others really dark and macabre, I was amazed by the world building, it felt really spooky sometimes, other times I was very nostalgic to my literature classes, we all want a Dalloway school experience, where ghosts lurk in the dark and poetry ignites in the fireside.
The end was so fulfilling, it connected all the loose ends, and completed the puzzle, I would not ask for another way to end it. It was dark and it exposed a grim human character. Are we all that dark? Would you do what it takes to banish the ghosts from your life? And is art worth the sacrifices? There is nothing better than a book that answers you and leaves you questioning all at the same time.
I highly recommend this book for book lovers, lesbians and ghost hunters.
For more reviews like this one, visit my blog kandthepurplemuse.wordpress.com
Victoria Lee Understood the Assignment
When -the bestseller seventeen years old novelist - Ellis Haely enters the Dalloway school, the girls gather around her like moth around a flame, she is everything a prodigy girl is; cunning, clever, cut for the job; refuting the existence of magic behind the death of five girls in the Dalloway school. Magic for Ellis does not exist, and everything must have an understandable explanation.
Felicity Morrow is -three days ahead of everyone else- back to school, she is moved from home to the Dalloway school, ushered into her room and urged to remember and take her pills on time. It was so hard for Felicity to come back to her room, let alone step into the school itself, for the ghost of her dead girlfriend lurks there, she is haunting her or so believes Felicity, and her tarot cards cannot lie! Magic for Ellis is part of this world, a macabre omnipresence is bent on following her around, ghosts of dead girls and blood on skulls, unfinished rituals and unbreakable spells this is the world of Felicity Morrow.
When the lives of Felicity and Ellis juxtapose, everything tilts in a twisted way. Ellis asks Felicity to help uncover the mystery of the Dalloway five; the alleged five girls who died centuries ago in mysterious ways, the town claimed them witches descending from an ancestry of witches, while the law claims them to be only too clever, too smart for their epoch.
The setting of the story was very fitting, a school at the highest of mountain, the forest thick and green, the winds are untamed, and the school is built over the bones of the dead. I was entranced by the school's history. It's true that the first chapters moved at a slow pace, meticulously presenting to the reader every corner of the school, the library and the student’s lifestyle. I believe that the setting had a fair contribution in the mood of this thriller, it was macabre, gothic and dark.
The plot was multilayered, because for once, Ellis is trying to write her next top chart book, and Felicity is nothing but trying to finish her thesis and unsee the ghost of her ex girlfriend Alex. Yet, this is nothing but the surface level plot, there is another underground plot *pun intended* .
Felicity is Ellis’ muse, they are somehow spellbound to each other, orbiting around each other, to Felicity Ellis is someone who is always rockhard to her side, holding her when gravity fails and persuading her that magic is nothing but nightly hallucination, therefore she creates the Night Migrations, with three other girls from the dormitory, they set foot in the forest the night, to perform magic, seal pacts, and prove that nothing can scare the Dalloway girl.
It’s too good to be true, personally while I was reading I found the way Ellis tries to convince Felicity that ghosts are not real too rushing, too fast for an actual healing and grief process, and indeed things spiralled out of hand.
I think that Felicity’s thesis is literally what this book dealt with which felt like an inner fourth wall break for me.
...“Mostly how depictions of mental illness are used to build suspense by introducing uncertainty and a sense of mistrust, especially with regard to the narrator’s perception of events, and the conflation of magic and madness in female characters.”
Felicity is seeing ghosts sometimes and other times she is seeing specters in her room, in the middle of the night. She reads tarot cards but then denies their validity, she wants to believe in something powerful outside of her, while she fears a malevolent force within her, this heroine is indeed deeply troubled, and we learn later on that she stopped taking her pills, while her relationship with her mother worsens we learn of Felicity’s childhood and her own hallucinations, how she makes up a whole different death story for Alex, yet always blaming herself for her death. Given such findings, there is little trust to be breached with Felicity as a narrator! How much can we trust about Felicity’s point of view? I think this was a genius move from the writer, the gothic spirit, the darkness of the plot was actually more poignant in the mind of Felicity, whence you realize that you are actually inside her brain, seeing the story unfold through her foggy mind, everything starts to feel like magic.
There is more sub-plots to this novel, for instance, social eugenics, Leonie is one out three student in the Dalloway school who happen to be black, she feels the pressure of a system that long ago started inviting smart girls of colors to the Dalloway school not out of equality and fairness but out of prestige, Leonie, tells how her grandmother and grand grandmother were also selected to attend the Dalloway school back in the days. She is in the midst of a rich white girls school, and she is supposed to act like she is part of a chosen social rank. Herein, A Lesson in Vengeance raises the question of race and how it still stains societal norms to the day.
Another remarkable sub-plot to the novel, is the place of women literature and women education in a world ruled by the patriarchy, The Dalloway five were murdered, be it magic’s fault or not, the girl's lives were stolen in the prime age of eighteen, the people seemed to never accept the idea of educating women, a smart women is surely concotting with the devil, just like Felicity too smart for this world it must be magic.
Indeed, there is a strong LGBTQ representation in the novel, Both Felicity and Ellis are lesbians, and things spark to life between them at one point in the story, Quinn the brother of Ellis is trans and goes by they-them pronouns, when Felicity dates Alex she hides it from everyone, but she comes out to Leonie and gains more confidence in her sexual identity afterwards. Yes, A Lesson in Vengeance is a strangers to lovers to enemies trope! and it couldn’t get anymore exciting to pursue.
I have really appreciated every work cited in the novel, the girls at the Dalloway school took their time quoting for the reader their favorite novels and read poems too, which contributed to the dark Academia flair of the story, The characterization was rich and nuanced, they had indeed wore old fashioned clothes, owned no phones, and listened to music in Vinyl, but they also ate Tacos and practiced sports ! they truly contributed to the gothic spirit in the story, ans still left an imprint of youth to it as well.
The storyline gave me chills and left me oh-ing ah-ing at every chapter, some of them were really sweet and others really dark and macabre, I was amazed by the world building, it felt really spooky sometimes, other times I was very nostalgic to my literature classes, we all want a Dalloway school experience, where ghosts lurk in the dark and poetry ignites in the fireside.
The end was so fulfilling, it connected all the loose ends, and completed the puzzle, I would not ask for another way to end it. It was dark and it exposed a grim human character. Are we all that dark? Would you do what it takes to banish the ghosts from your life? And is art worth the sacrifices? There is nothing better than a book that answers you and leaves you questioning all at the same time.
I highly recommend this book for book lovers, lesbians and ghost hunters.
For more reviews like this one, visit my blog kandthepurplemuse.wordpress.com