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A review by ninoshmino
Lone Women by Victor LaValle
adventurous
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
I’m always impressed by how Victor LaValle slowly builds tension into his novels, where you can see the collision coming from miles away, but that never makes it easier to watch. All the pieces get set up and knocked down, and you know exactly why it happened that way, but you’re still chewing your nails down to nothing as it happens.
I normally think Storygraph’s question of “did you find the characters lovable” to be silly. (I’m reading about people, not inviting them to my birthday party.) But I can honestly say that I did find nearly all the principal characters to be both compelling and lovable, incredibly sympathetic even as they did awful things (and usually paid for them later). This made the last act of the book feel VERY high-stakes, and the ending incredibly satisfying. Good, cathartic piece of slow-moving horror.
My one ??? moment happens near the end, where two characters are quickly introduced in order to impart some aid and information to the protagonist, then disappear from the story after the scene ends. I listened on audio, so this might be a misread on my part!
I normally think Storygraph’s question of “did you find the characters lovable” to be silly. (I’m reading about people, not inviting them to my birthday party.) But I can honestly say that I did find nearly all the principal characters to be both compelling and lovable, incredibly sympathetic even as they did awful things (and usually paid for them later). This made the last act of the book feel VERY high-stakes, and the ending incredibly satisfying. Good, cathartic piece of slow-moving horror.
My one ??? moment happens near the end, where two characters are quickly introduced in order to impart some aid and information to the protagonist, then disappear from the story after the scene ends. I listened on audio, so this might be a misread on my part!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Violence, and Animal death
This is a horror story in a historical setting, and racism is baked into it. Slurs are minimal, and the racism is mostly shown in forms of power structures that economically benefit white people at the loss of Black, Chinese, or Indigenous people. This is a horror novel and there are explicit descriptions of violence and bodily harm to people and animals. There is also two scenes involving lynching. I’ll put more context behind spoiler text, because it gives away the ending. There are two scenes where people are lynched; in the first, a few men are lynched for horse thievery. The second is a mob lynching of three women, one of whom is Black, another of Chinese descent, the third white. The second lynching is not successful, and the women are saved.