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A review by kalventure
The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton
Did not finish book.
DNF @ 12%
I am so incredibly disappointed that this book didn't work for me. I tried, boy did I try... but it was like pulling teeth to get to 10% in the book and then it took me 6 weeks to even try to pick the book back up. I'm super bummed because I absolutely adored Turton's debut The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, but this book is not for me.
The primary reason that The Devil and the Dark Water did not work for me is the pacing and confusing mess of characters. People are introduced with no context and I was either trying to figure out who these people were or raging at the colonialist and sexist narrative. Because ultimately, a book written by a white cis man with characters who may (? IDK) be people of color and a woman's perspective reaffirming her place in society is... off-putting at best and infuriating at worst. I was maybe 2 pages into the book before red flags starting flashing. Two. Pages. I read 12% of the book and have 26 annotations.
The primary reason that The Devil and the Dark Water did not work for me is the pacing and confusing mess of characters. People are introduced with no context and I was either trying to figure out who these people were or raging at the colonialist and sexist narrative. Because ultimately, a book written by a white cis man with characters who may (? IDK) be people of color and a woman's perspective reaffirming her place in society is... off-putting at best and infuriating at worst. I was maybe 2 pages into the book before red flags starting flashing. Two. Pages. I read 12% of the book and have 26 annotations.
"The dowry was too large. Unbeknownst to her, she'd been bred for sale and fattened like a calf with manners and education. She'd felt betrayed, but she'd been young. She understood the world better now. Meat didn't get a say on whose hook it hung from."
The book begins with people being led to a ship docked in Batavia (modern day Jakarta) and readying to return to the Netherlands. Yes, this is historical fiction and true to the era but it is written purely from the white conqueror perspective, whitewashing the towns and not even addressing the issues of colonialism. Indigenous people are referred to as 'natives' a only white people were physically described.
"Thirteen years ago, he'd purchased the village that had stood here on behalf of the United East India Trading Company. No sooner had the natives signed the contract than he'd put a torch to it, using its ashes to plot out the roads, canals, and buildings of the city that would take its place. Batavia was now the Company's most profitable outpost, and Haan had been called back to Amsterdam"
Please take my feedback and experience with a grain of salt as I did not finish the book. I wanted to push through and finish the book because of these issues so I could give a full review on how the book addresses colonialism and sexism, but the pacing is dreadful and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It's possible some of the text was corrected in final publication, just as it is possible that the main character actually challenges the colonialism and sexism which is intertwined in the text, but I won't read the book further to find out.
Content warnings: (for first 12%) inferred spousal abuse, beating, torture, imprisonment, sexism, colonialsm
eARC provided to me by the publisher via Edelweiss for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.