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A review by ssn8
Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede
3.5
I was waffling between a 3 and a 4 and decided to round up because I didn’t dislike this book - it was really engaging and easy to read and I honestly loved the ending fourth. That said, I have some issues.
First of all, Maeve is so annoying. I GET that the author is doing a Patrick Bateman/American Psycho thing; I just don’t think it’s successful. The positioning Maeve as a woman who can see how men and women move in the world and acknowledging the power men have over woman makes her seem like a character you are supposed to like and root for, which is antithetical to the American Psycho idea. Now, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have worked I just think it REALLY doesn’t. Instead she seems whiny and pretentious and so within her own bubble that it seems unrealistic that she would be able to exist without notice in the world.
Also, for a book that opens discussing violence against women it’s interesting that the majority of the very graphic and sexual violence enacted in this by Maeve is enacted against women (specifically, that bartender and Liz, but also Hilda and the racist woman). It could have been done this way to show Maeve’s hypocrisy, but I don’t think so. I think it was done this way because the author thought it was so interesting to be lewd and sexually violent for shock value. The first third of this book truly felt like it was just one shock value moment after another; I thought this was building the character of Maeve but ultimately it wasn’t super relevant to her character or reasonings.
Once we met Gideon this book got better, and the back half was successful for me. I really liked Maeve’s end rampage and I thought her breakdown was interesting, even if it didn’t at times make sense. I also liked the location (esp the park) and the world Maeve lives in. The very end was a bit of a let down but also I loved the ramp up and don’t know how else it could have ended without feeling hokey so I do understand why it ended the way it did. It just felt silly that Maeve couldn’t understand the very obvious thing that was going on with Gideon.
Overall: I don’t read books I don’t like, so having finished this definitely says something, as does the fact that I ended up rounding my rating up. It’s just sad that I had to get through the first half to really enjoy the last half.
First of all, Maeve is so annoying. I GET that the author is doing a Patrick Bateman/American Psycho thing; I just don’t think it’s successful. The positioning Maeve as a woman who can see how men and women move in the world and acknowledging the power men have over woman makes her seem like a character you are supposed to like and root for, which is antithetical to the American Psycho idea. Now, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have worked I just think it REALLY doesn’t. Instead she seems whiny and pretentious and so within her own bubble that it seems unrealistic that she would be able to exist without notice in the world.
Also, for a book that opens discussing violence against women it’s interesting that the majority of the very graphic and sexual violence enacted in this by Maeve is enacted against women (specifically, that bartender and Liz, but also Hilda and the racist woman). It could have been done this way to show Maeve’s hypocrisy, but I don’t think so. I think it was done this way because the author thought it was so interesting to be lewd and sexually violent for shock value. The first third of this book truly felt like it was just one shock value moment after another; I thought this was building the character of Maeve but ultimately it wasn’t super relevant to her character or reasonings.
Once we met Gideon this book got better, and the back half was successful for me. I really liked Maeve’s end rampage and I thought her breakdown was interesting, even if it didn’t at times make sense. I also liked the location (esp the park) and the world Maeve lives in. The very end was a bit of a let down but also I loved the ramp up and don’t know how else it could have ended without feeling hokey so I do understand why it ended the way it did. It just felt silly that Maeve couldn’t understand the very obvious thing that was going on with Gideon.
Overall: I don’t read books I don’t like, so having finished this definitely says something, as does the fact that I ended up rounding my rating up. It’s just sad that I had to get through the first half to really enjoy the last half.