lexiraynerkelly 's review for:

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

2.5

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There are elements of this novel that I can appreciate, and many that I feel don't work. The writing effectively conveys an unsettling, almost sinister aura, and the whole book is permeated by feelings of isolation, dislocation, and alienation. The depiction of someone so entirely subservient and self-deprecating, so blunt in their expressions of obedience and self-denial, is very well done. There are some lines I found very poignant and stuck in my mind. At the same time, there were plenty of sections that felt to me like, essentially, word salad. Long, run-on sentences that would end with me going... okay? The setting is sort of ruined to me by it's half-hearted vagueness. The location is unnamed and undefinable, the language she can't speak never clarified, but there are also a lot of very specific references to time and place that are jarring and cut through what could've been an effective ambiguity. And the ending is a damp squib. Hints at the ominous and morbid trail off into an ultimately toothless conclusion, and I feel like the novel loses a sense of intentionality.