A review by estefaniavelez
Master of Reality by John Darnielle

4.0

This book goes by in a flash. I'm admittedly not a Black Sabbath fan, but I've adored John Darnielle's music and, shockingly more so, his writing. Universal Harvester absolutely blew me away and I've been dying to return to the lyricism and emotional gravity of his writing ever since. Master of Reality .. sneaks up on you. The protagonist is so clearly angry, so intensely young, but almost instantly I wanted to protect him- the way, I think, you want to hug someone when they're hurting and know that if you do, they're probably gonna shove you hard for the attempt. There is a moment's time jump in this novel that just devastated me. As someone who saw a family member experience just a measure of what this narrative depicts, I found this heartbreaking, honest, too authentic, almost. I'm a YA librarian and I read YA literature for work. I also work with teens. It's really, really easy to fuck up writing from a teenage POV, but the writing- the tone, the grammar, the turn of phrase- feels believable. It makes the ending portion of this novel especially difficult. You sense a lifetime has passed. You sense there's anger below the surface and tremendous mourning. I wanted, as the protagonist wanted, to wrangle the people responsible into a chair and shout at them, be heard, get an apology for the ways in which apathy and the failures of the mental health system ruin and devastate young lives in need of dignity and empathy. Such a great read.