A review by hearth_hobbit
Dear Medusa by Olivia A. Cole

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

 

Dear Medusa by Olivia A. Cole

TW: SA, Abuse

I received a free copy of this eBook from Netgalley and Labyrinth Road in exchange for an honest review.

2 Stars: I read it.

Genre: Poetry, Young Adult Fiction

Summary: Alicia mourns her life before she was assaulted by a popular teacher and is intent on building high emotional walls to protect herself from anyone and everyone. When Alicia starts to get notes implying there may be another victim, she begins to notice the signs that point to that being the case.

Thoughts: This book reminded me of the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson that I read as I was growing up. I think that was an important book to read because it shed light on what the aftermath sexual abuse may look like from the point of view from a teen. The main character in that book didn’t speak at all and avoided people as much as possible where Alicia went in the opposite direction. Throughout the book the only time Alicia felt like she was normal was when she was essentially retraumatizing herself by engaging in dangerous and promiscuous behavior. While it was very hard to read, I appreciate that a book like this called attention to that behavior because its not uncommon amongst sexual abuse survivors. There were no graphic details but it is made clear what is happening and for young adult readers (probably on the older side), I think it would be important to know that that could be a sign of abuse/trauma. People react to traumatic events in many different ways and I appreciated that this book pointed that out. The same way Speak was educational for me, this book has the potential to do the same thing for young adults now. 

Alicia had many thoughts and topics she was passionate about that were brought up in her narrational thoughts. On one hand, I thought it was realistic of the character to have so many topics on their mind for someone who was so bottled up that she would be brooding nonstop. On the other hand it did make the story seem a little disorganized and it felt a bit like there was a checklist of topics that the author wanted to bring up in some small way but wasn’t able to fully blend it into the story in a way that didn’t feel forced. 

*Spoiler*

To compare it again to Speak, I appreciated that this book ends pretty abruptly and is open-ended. Speak has a very satisfactory ending. The bad guy gets caught and the main character continues their healing journey. While it would be nice if that happened every time, in reality that’s not always the case. Whether it was to appear more realistic or to be more sensitive to readers who may have had similar experiences, I think it was the right choice for the ending

Also, I take issue with the title. The main character only writes letters to Medusa a few times (like 4 or 5), and I didn’t feel like that made a lot of sense to title this book Dear Medusa. Given the amount of times wolves were brought up in this book, it would have made a lot more sense to make this book more Little Red Riding Hood themed.

Overall, this is not my favorite but I think there are many good things about this book.