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A review by wordswritinstarlight
The Bog Wife by Kay Chronister
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I really loved the set-up for this book—the framing of the Haddesley’s situation, their family dynamic, the oppressive presence of the bog and everything it represents, all of those were incredibly well written and felt real and visceral and immediate. The problem is that all of that set-up fails to come together in the back half of the plot, leaving the book feeling anticlimactic and dissolute. I know horror stories that just Stop with no real climax or end point are a whole thing, but honestly I don’t like them as a genre trope and I think they’re very frequently an attempt to be subversive just for the sake of being subversive. The concept of Having A Narrative Climax is not a cliche and this book definitely feels like it decided to toss out that particular “trope” for the sake of being mysterious and unusual.
Honestly, after some thought, I think I would have liked the end of the book better if it had gone harder in one direction or the other. As it stands, it’s not quite committed to the bog being truly supernatural, with the contract being real, nor to the idea that the Haddesley familyis essentially a forgery, with the contract being fake. (As a note: yes, their mother is real, and appears to really be a bog-woman, but her return is weirdly disjointed from the question of the missing bog-wife and the issue of the Haddesleys as a whole. If this is a Dunwich Horror plot where the bog-wife has been the same woman every lifetime, repeatedly forced to marry her own sons as part of the compact, I wish more time had been spent on that element.) Instead, the end is a little of one and a little of the other, and it results in a combination that has very little impact. The horror elements set up at the beginning seem to just peter out—neither the fantastical horror of the land as a sentient force nor the mundane horror of the dictatorial rigid family dynamic really gets its moment in the sun. I would have taken either option and, I think, enjoyed it more than the neither-both end result.
In terms of recommendations, What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher is overall a better version of Bog Horror, and something like A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson is a better look at an incredibly fucked up and codependent family Situation, although it lacks the sibling element.
Honestly, after some thought, I think I would have liked the end of the book better if it had gone harder in one direction or the other. As it stands, it’s not quite committed to the bog being truly supernatural, with the contract being real, nor to the idea that the Haddesley family
In terms of recommendations, What Moves The Dead by T. Kingfisher is overall a better version of Bog Horror, and something like A Dowry of Blood by S. T. Gibson is a better look at an incredibly fucked up and codependent family Situation, although it lacks the sibling element.