Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by amongst_the_bookstacks
Spoilt Creatures by Amy Twigg
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Well. That was bleak.
I don’t know what I expected from a novel about an off-grid all-female commune headed by a megalomaniac matriarch with a penchant for raw potatoes and rage-rituals, but Spoilt Creatures somehow managed to give me less and more at the same time. Less plot, more mood. Less sense, more simmering weirdness. And weirdly? I didn’t hate it.
Let’s be clear. This is Lord of the Flies, but if everyone was menstruating and quoting Adrienne Rich. It’s a tale of slow-burn disintegration, both communal and personal, with not a single character you’d want to share a meal (or a garden hoe) with. The women of Breach House are feral, yes, but also kind of boring, which is an odd combination. Every one of them seems vaguely broken, vaguely cruel, and vaguely unwashed. And yet, I kept turning the pages.
Iris, the protagonist, is a 32-year-old damp dishcloth of a woman who drifts into the commune after a break-up and... just sort of vibes there for a while. She’s listless, naive, and one step away from being swallowed whole by the mud and moss of the Kent countryside. Her crush on the enigmatic Hazel is what passes for a heartbeat in this story, but even that never fully ignites. Still, there’s something hypnotic about watching her unravel, one muddy footstep at a time.
And then there’s Blythe. Queen Bee. Cult Mom. Swanning around like some post-menopausal pagan god, dictating diets and doling out passive-aggressive wisdom in between slow, creeping acts of psychological warfare. She’s awful. I was fascinated.
The writing is strong, unsettling in a way that sneaks up on you. There’s no melodrama, no real climax, just a slow rot that sets in and never lifts. It's strangely compelling, in the same way that watching mold grow under a microscope is compelling. You don’t enjoy it, exactly. But you can’t look away.
Is it perfect? No. The pacing drags. The characters blur. The female rage theme veers dangerously close to parody at times. And the ending, while disturbing, lands a bit like a wet thud rather than the knife twist I was hoping for. Still, I admire Twigg’s commitment to the discomfort. She leans into the squalor. Into the pettiness and mess of people trying (and failing) to build utopia.
Three stars from me. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it, but I’ll be thinking about it every time I see a group of women doing trust falls in a field. And that, I suppose, is its own kind of success.
I don’t know what I expected from a novel about an off-grid all-female commune headed by a megalomaniac matriarch with a penchant for raw potatoes and rage-rituals, but Spoilt Creatures somehow managed to give me less and more at the same time. Less plot, more mood. Less sense, more simmering weirdness. And weirdly? I didn’t hate it.
Let’s be clear. This is Lord of the Flies, but if everyone was menstruating and quoting Adrienne Rich. It’s a tale of slow-burn disintegration, both communal and personal, with not a single character you’d want to share a meal (or a garden hoe) with. The women of Breach House are feral, yes, but also kind of boring, which is an odd combination. Every one of them seems vaguely broken, vaguely cruel, and vaguely unwashed. And yet, I kept turning the pages.
Iris, the protagonist, is a 32-year-old damp dishcloth of a woman who drifts into the commune after a break-up and... just sort of vibes there for a while. She’s listless, naive, and one step away from being swallowed whole by the mud and moss of the Kent countryside. Her crush on the enigmatic Hazel is what passes for a heartbeat in this story, but even that never fully ignites. Still, there’s something hypnotic about watching her unravel, one muddy footstep at a time.
And then there’s Blythe. Queen Bee. Cult Mom. Swanning around like some post-menopausal pagan god, dictating diets and doling out passive-aggressive wisdom in between slow, creeping acts of psychological warfare. She’s awful. I was fascinated.
The writing is strong, unsettling in a way that sneaks up on you. There’s no melodrama, no real climax, just a slow rot that sets in and never lifts. It's strangely compelling, in the same way that watching mold grow under a microscope is compelling. You don’t enjoy it, exactly. But you can’t look away.
Is it perfect? No. The pacing drags. The characters blur. The female rage theme veers dangerously close to parody at times. And the ending, while disturbing, lands a bit like a wet thud rather than the knife twist I was hoping for. Still, I admire Twigg’s commitment to the discomfort. She leans into the squalor. Into the pettiness and mess of people trying (and failing) to build utopia.
Three stars from me. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it, but I’ll be thinking about it every time I see a group of women doing trust falls in a field. And that, I suppose, is its own kind of success.