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A review by mediaevalmuse
My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
3.0
I must have come across this book when searching for more Gothic books. I'm a Gothic girlie, and I'm always up for some messed up little story about a troubled past and possible ghosts. While I did enjoy some aspects of this book, I ultimately found it to be middling on the whole. It seemed to invoke a lot of Gothic elements without tying them together, and the frame narrarive didn't do much to serve the themes.
WRITING: Van Veen's prose is fine. It's not overly atmospheric or lyrical, but it does have some interesting descriptions that keep it interesting. I liked the way she portrayed the spirits; their mannerisms and appearances were almost surreal, and I got the sense that they were both otherworldly yet still strongly tethered to earth.
I do think some of the prose could have been tightened up. There are a few instances when Van Veen seems to describe processes that don't need detail or attention. There also seems to be some repetition (such as constant vomiting) that makes the story feel rote at times.
Overall, it's fine, as I said. Not terribly inspiring, but functions as it needs to and is easy to get through.
PLOT: The plot of this book follows Roos, a twenty-one year old woman living in 1950s Netherlands and has a spirit companion named Ruth. Roos works as a medium holding seances at the behest of her abusive "Mama" - though Roos can see Ruth, she never sees any other spirit, so the seances are a sham to get money. One day, Roos performs a seance for a wealthy heiress, Agnes Knoop, who wishes to contact her dead husband, Thomas. Agnes is immediately drawn to Roos and offers to take her away from Mama, only to plunge Roos into the mystery of Thomas's death.
This plot also exists along a kind of frame story set after Roos has been arrested and committed to psychiatric care. Every few chapters, we get transcripts of a doctor interviewing Roos about her experiences, and frankly, I don't think they did much for the story. If anything, they killed a lot of the suspense (rather than building it) by "spoiling" some of the buildup. These episodes were useful in framing the theme of trauma, but they might have been more interesting had they not dissipated a lot of the tension.
As for the plot itself, I'm of a few minds. On the one hand, I do like the idea of exploring trauma and how it is akin to being haunted by spirits. I also appreciated Van Veen's deliberate choice not to have the antagonists be fully present in the story as another way of exploring how trauma works.
The relationship between Roos and Agnes was also good; I liked seeing Roos become attached to Agnes and Roos's constant need to please felt very much like a trauma response.
However, I do think there were some things just kind of thrown in because they were "Gothic." The stone saints and religious fanatacism felt a bit underdeveloped, and Willemijn (Thomas's sister)'s obsession with dynasty and bloodlines - as well as how that manifests in her racism - didn't feel very integrated. Madness was present, but I feel like more could have been done to explore the link between trauma and women being dismissed as insane (especially through male-dominated institutions, like medicine). To be fair, there was some of that, so maybe I'm just being picky.
Perhaps my biggest gripe is that the last 20ish percent of the story seemed to have an odd pace. I didn't much like that Agnes reveals her past with Thomas as a big monologue, and when things start to go haywire, I felt like the moments that should have been shocking or emotionally weighty just weren't (perhaps because they were spoiled in the transcripts?). The fact that one spirit seems to have different abilities from the others also feels a bit convenient, so I don't know. The end was thematically appropriate (feeling trapped, etc) but narratively a little empty.
CHARACTERS: Roos, our POV character and protagonist, was well written in that she carried her trauma with her in a compelling way. She is constantly plagued by memories of her past and acts in ways that make sense: hoarding food, avoiding male company, etc. Her eagerness to please Agnes also felt like an extension of her trauma, which was appropriate. I guess where Roos let me down was in her general arc: her relationship with Ruth didn't punch me in the gut as much as I hoped, and part of that might be because of the spoiler-filled transcripts.
Ruth, Roos's spirit companion, is fun in that she has a dreadful appearance that is at times quite beautiful, and she has mannerisms that are disturbing and endearing at the same time. I liked this juxtaposition of traits and the way spirits in general kind of felt like cats: partially aloof yet deeply attached to their humans. I just don't think her bond with Roos was possessive enough to make the events towards the end feel shocking or the very end of the book feel like Ruth and Roos were in some messed-up relationship.
Agnes is interesting in that she is also affected by her trauma, but hers also has a racial dimension on account of her being half Indonesian. I liked Agnes's attempts to recover her mother's culture, but ultimately, a lot of it didn't feel fully explored. Her hunt for the family's kris (dagger) felt like an afterthought, and I really wanted a more nuanced exploration of what it meant to have trauma based on racism.
Mama and Willemijn are two antagonists of sorts, and both are generally unpleasant. Mama is Roos's abuser, while Willemijn hurls racial slurs at Agnes and does everything she can to hurt her. Both were believable in their horribleness, but I do think Willemijn's role could have been explored more.
Male antagonists were kept to the periphery very deliberately, as Van Veen discusses in her author interview. I do respect the purpose of this choice: to show how trauma is experienced even after an abuser is no longer physically present. But I'm also not sure if Van Veen still made Thomas in particular feel real.
TL;DR: My Darling Dreadful Thing does some interesting things with trauma and the Gothic genre, but the frame narrative transcripts undercuts a lot of the tension. Some themes, I felt, also could have been explored more, but ultimately, this was a fairly interesting take on the supernatural.
WRITING: Van Veen's prose is fine. It's not overly atmospheric or lyrical, but it does have some interesting descriptions that keep it interesting. I liked the way she portrayed the spirits; their mannerisms and appearances were almost surreal, and I got the sense that they were both otherworldly yet still strongly tethered to earth.
I do think some of the prose could have been tightened up. There are a few instances when Van Veen seems to describe processes that don't need detail or attention. There also seems to be some repetition (such as constant vomiting) that makes the story feel rote at times.
Overall, it's fine, as I said. Not terribly inspiring, but functions as it needs to and is easy to get through.
PLOT: The plot of this book follows Roos, a twenty-one year old woman living in 1950s Netherlands and has a spirit companion named Ruth. Roos works as a medium holding seances at the behest of her abusive "Mama" - though Roos can see Ruth, she never sees any other spirit, so the seances are a sham to get money. One day, Roos performs a seance for a wealthy heiress, Agnes Knoop, who wishes to contact her dead husband, Thomas. Agnes is immediately drawn to Roos and offers to take her away from Mama, only to plunge Roos into the mystery of Thomas's death.
This plot also exists along a kind of frame story set after Roos has been arrested and committed to psychiatric care. Every few chapters, we get transcripts of a doctor interviewing Roos about her experiences, and frankly, I don't think they did much for the story. If anything, they killed a lot of the suspense (rather than building it) by "spoiling" some of the buildup. These episodes were useful in framing the theme of trauma, but they might have been more interesting had they not dissipated a lot of the tension.
As for the plot itself, I'm of a few minds. On the one hand, I do like the idea of exploring trauma and how it is akin to being haunted by spirits. I also appreciated Van Veen's deliberate choice not to have the antagonists be fully present in the story as another way of exploring how trauma works.
The relationship between Roos and Agnes was also good; I liked seeing Roos become attached to Agnes and Roos's constant need to please felt very much like a trauma response.
However, I do think there were some things just kind of thrown in because they were "Gothic." The stone saints and religious fanatacism felt a bit underdeveloped, and Willemijn (Thomas's sister)'s obsession with dynasty and bloodlines - as well as how that manifests in her racism - didn't feel very integrated. Madness was present, but I feel like more could have been done to explore the link between trauma and women being dismissed as insane (especially through male-dominated institutions, like medicine). To be fair, there was some of that, so maybe I'm just being picky.
Perhaps my biggest gripe is that the last 20ish percent of the story seemed to have an odd pace. I didn't much like that Agnes reveals her past with Thomas as a big monologue, and when things start to go haywire, I felt like the moments that should have been shocking or emotionally weighty just weren't (perhaps because they were spoiled in the transcripts?). The fact that one spirit seems to have different abilities from the others also feels a bit convenient, so I don't know. The end was thematically appropriate (feeling trapped, etc) but narratively a little empty.
CHARACTERS: Roos, our POV character and protagonist, was well written in that she carried her trauma with her in a compelling way. She is constantly plagued by memories of her past and acts in ways that make sense: hoarding food, avoiding male company, etc. Her eagerness to please Agnes also felt like an extension of her trauma, which was appropriate. I guess where Roos let me down was in her general arc: her relationship with Ruth didn't punch me in the gut as much as I hoped, and part of that might be because of the spoiler-filled transcripts.
Ruth, Roos's spirit companion, is fun in that she has a dreadful appearance that is at times quite beautiful, and she has mannerisms that are disturbing and endearing at the same time. I liked this juxtaposition of traits and the way spirits in general kind of felt like cats: partially aloof yet deeply attached to their humans. I just don't think her bond with Roos was possessive enough to make the events towards the end feel shocking or the very end of the book feel like Ruth and Roos were in some messed-up relationship.
Agnes is interesting in that she is also affected by her trauma, but hers also has a racial dimension on account of her being half Indonesian. I liked Agnes's attempts to recover her mother's culture, but ultimately, a lot of it didn't feel fully explored. Her hunt for the family's kris (dagger) felt like an afterthought, and I really wanted a more nuanced exploration of what it meant to have trauma based on racism.
Mama and Willemijn are two antagonists of sorts, and both are generally unpleasant. Mama is Roos's abuser, while Willemijn hurls racial slurs at Agnes and does everything she can to hurt her. Both were believable in their horribleness, but I do think Willemijn's role could have been explored more.
Male antagonists were kept to the periphery very deliberately, as Van Veen discusses in her author interview. I do respect the purpose of this choice: to show how trauma is experienced even after an abuser is no longer physically present. But I'm also not sure if Van Veen still made Thomas in particular feel real.
TL;DR: My Darling Dreadful Thing does some interesting things with trauma and the Gothic genre, but the frame narrative transcripts undercuts a lot of the tension. Some themes, I felt, also could have been explored more, but ultimately, this was a fairly interesting take on the supernatural.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Blood, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Body horror, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Cannibalism
Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis