Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by ellie_cripps
Sycorax by Nydia Hetherington
3.0
First of all, thank you to Netgalley for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This is a beautifully written book, which was really the only thing to keep me charmed to the end. As it was otherwise a bit over long and certainly on the depressing side.
I thought the writer using her personal experience of chronic illness was one of the most compelling parts of this work, and praise the ambition of the style.
I have come to the conclusion that the next time I am tempted by a feminist retelling of a long dismissed story I should just not pick it up. I cannot keep surviving the endless sensation that, no matter what I do, fate will always have such cruelty in store for me as has been suffered by the women who came before me. Which is the inherent issue with a retelling rather than an original story, the bones of where we are headed have long since been laid and no matter how powerful we make our heroine, she will still end up there.
This is a beautifully written book, which was really the only thing to keep me charmed to the end. As it was otherwise a bit over long and certainly on the depressing side.
I thought the writer using her personal experience of chronic illness was one of the most compelling parts of this work, and praise the ambition of the style.
I have come to the conclusion that the next time I am tempted by a feminist retelling of a long dismissed story I should just not pick it up. I cannot keep surviving the endless sensation that, no matter what I do, fate will always have such cruelty in store for me as has been suffered by the women who came before me. Which is the inherent issue with a retelling rather than an original story, the bones of where we are headed have long since been laid and no matter how powerful we make our heroine, she will still end up there.