A review by m0thmaam
Grey Dog by Elliott Gish

5.0

This was a terribly fascinating story about a woman living at the turn of the century working as a teacher in a small town who begins to crumble under the weight of her secrets, her grief, and the intense scrutiny and expectations of the era (early 1900s). Told through her journaling, we join the narrator as she recounts the happenings of her daily life, and eventually find out the details of her past and the secrets she had been keeping. On the surface it could appear that our protagonist is going mad when really it's through her madness she finds liberation. The format of the story and its perspective reminded me a lot of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper. This story had all the elements of a gothic horror in that our narrator is plagued by ghosts from her past that occupy her mind. Having been confined to small spaces throughout her life as a means of punishment and instances of trauma, it has always been the woods where she has been most at peace. Now though, in this small town, it is the woods that could hold her freedom or her demise.

Okay - look. THIS,. BOOK. HAD. EVERYTHING. A scary unknown entity that could bring our narrator freedom or death. Queerness. A weird lady living in a spooky house in the woods. A curious girl who is super weird. A woman who gives the middle finger to the expectations forced upon her by men and society. This will be an important book for Canadian, Queer, and Feminist literature and I am excited to see how it is received. 10/10 no notes.