A review by vigil
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

Did not finish book. Stopped at 36%.

bizarre anachronisms, repetitive and boring, stilted and modern tone for characters ostensibly in the 19th century, set in britain of all places with a protagonist from a fictional country with neopronouns and 2020s social justice language, yet also manages to read like an upper class english soldier, making the worldbuilding of the fictional country with absolutely no bearing on the plot even more useless than it is in the story (which is quite useless, aside from the obvious sequel bait, and kingfisher can fuck right off with that shit), incredibly flat characters with the most personally egregious being an elder mycologist who is a thinly veiled english take on a quirky not like other girls character (her second scene in the book draws attention to how bold and blunt and passionate she is, unlike most english women), whose only other personality trait (other than mushrooms) being “someone who experiences misogyny,” and getting sixty pages into a 156 page novella and still having no sense the house, the ushers, thematic purpose or why kingfisher wrote this book. i’m
not in the habit of going ride or die for old dead white men, but instead of reading this boring book, read the original house of usher for free on the internet. 

i could go on for hours just from what i’ve gleaned from 60 pages (only christ knows what i would’ve ended up with had i finished) but i’ll refrain. after trying and failing to read nettle & bone and now this, i think it’s safe to say kingfisher is not the author for me.