acg233 's review for:

Everything Under by Daisy Johnson
3.0
What a wild ride. It was difficult to wade through the first third when I truly didn't know what was happening. Once it got going, I was sucked into the story and intrigued. As others have stated, the imagery, the connotations, the symbolism are all beautiful. However, I was left at the end wondering what it all meant- what was the point of all of this?

Summary:
Spoiler A re-telling of Oedipus Rex. Gretel grew up with her mother, Sarah, alongside a river. One winter, when Gretel is still young, a young man named Marcus comes to stay near them. In alternate chapters, in the present, Gretel searches for her mother, who left when she was 16 and never returned. She contemplates what happened that winter. Marcus was actually Margot, who was Sarah's first daughter. Margot was found and adopted by a couple, and formed a relationship with Fiona, a trans-woman who lived next door who had a gift of knowing. Fiona told Margot her future and urged her to run away. Margot ran away, stayed with a man named Charlie for a while on a house boat and accidentally killed him. She became Marcus, the man that stayed with Sarah and Gretel. Turns out Charlie was actually her father, and Marcus definitely sleeps with Sarah- therefore fulfilling the prophecy. In a confusing and seemingly meaningless and depressing ending, Marcus drowns while trying to catch the mysterious creature called the Bonak. In the present, Gretel and Sarah kill and eat the Bonak. Sarah suffers from dementia and eventually commits suicide.