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A review by wanderinghomeward
Penance by Eliza Clark
4.0
★★★★.25/ 5
wow, my second consecutive book about a gruesome murder that occurs in a small town in britain. this one was vastly more tolerable for me, though…
it was a hard read at times, not because it was terribly written, but because it was so steeped in reality. clark really gets her references, internet jargon, and teenage relationship dynamics down to a T. her ability to write from different character perspectives and craft authentic thoughts and motives, as well, was astonishing. this believability combined with an eerie story about both a school shooting and the targeted murder of joni wilson made everything especially haunting, because i knew, despite this specific story being fiction, that this was a very real experience for others.
i’ve been trying to read more books that make you question the society around you, and this book does it WELL. clark urges introspection about our role in the true crime "hype" and our fascination with such gruesome stories. she also emphasize how the troubling overlap between internet fandoms and murderers has erupted in recent years. in fact, this book made me recall seeing a flowery edit of an american school shooter on instagram a couple years back where netizens were throwing “thirsty” comments at him, saying that they would “let him do anything to them” simply because he was conventionally attractive. it was shocking and again, made me realize how real and concerning the contents of this book were.
the unreliable narrator was another one of my favorite aspects of the story. it was introduced early on in the book, and i loved that, as the story unfolded, you come to see just how problematic and dangerous his true motives and intentions are. he purposefully ignores the trauma and abuse these teenagers have endured, blatantly disregards the "female experience" while crafting his story, and instead portrays them merely as unhinged girls gradually becoming obsessed with the occult due to the internet. the journalist, alec carelli, is clark’s golden representation of both rampant sexism and the tendency among older adults to ascribe the perceived "shortcomings" of successive generations to our supposed "dependence" on the internet. carelli also seems to embodies capitalism in literature (i may be reaching here), as authors are expected to capitalize on shock-value and attention-grabbing material nowadays; he finds a deeply traumatic story, milks it for all the gritty content, and cherry-picks only the most egregious parts, because well, talking about women’s experience with abuse isn’t as lucrative apparently
wow, my second consecutive book about a gruesome murder that occurs in a small town in britain. this one was vastly more tolerable for me, though…
it was a hard read at times, not because it was terribly written, but because it was so steeped in reality. clark really gets her references, internet jargon, and teenage relationship dynamics down to a T. her ability to write from different character perspectives and craft authentic thoughts and motives, as well, was astonishing. this believability combined with an eerie story about both a school shooting and the targeted murder of joni wilson made everything especially haunting, because i knew, despite this specific story being fiction, that this was a very real experience for others.
i’ve been trying to read more books that make you question the society around you, and this book does it WELL. clark urges introspection about our role in the true crime "hype" and our fascination with such gruesome stories. she also emphasize how the troubling overlap between internet fandoms and murderers has erupted in recent years. in fact, this book made me recall seeing a flowery edit of an american school shooter on instagram a couple years back where netizens were throwing “thirsty” comments at him, saying that they would “let him do anything to them” simply because he was conventionally attractive. it was shocking and again, made me realize how real and concerning the contents of this book were.
the unreliable narrator was another one of my favorite aspects of the story. it was introduced early on in the book, and i loved that, as the story unfolded, you come to see just how problematic and dangerous his true motives and intentions are. he purposefully ignores the trauma and abuse these teenagers have endured, blatantly disregards the "female experience" while crafting his story, and instead portrays them merely as unhinged girls gradually becoming obsessed with the occult due to the internet. the journalist, alec carelli, is clark’s golden representation of both rampant sexism and the tendency among older adults to ascribe the perceived "shortcomings" of successive generations to our supposed "dependence" on the internet. carelli also seems to embodies capitalism in literature (i may be reaching here), as authors are expected to capitalize on shock-value and attention-grabbing material nowadays; he finds a deeply traumatic story, milks it for all the gritty content, and cherry-picks only the most egregious parts, because well, talking about women’s experience with abuse isn’t as lucrative apparently