A review by maddiereadswords
Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

Read this for a queer book club, and honestly I might have DNF-ed if I hadn't wanted to finish it for the discussion. I think part of it is just that I'm not a huge fan of hard-boiled noir in general, so it's already starting at a disadvantage, but also this book still overall felt like a draft; there are a lot of interesting ideas and concepts, but nothing feels fully fleshed out. All the characters with the exception of Holiday feel completely one-dimensional, and speaking of Holiday, her backstory is so drawn-out that by the time we got to what actually happened to send her to New Orleans, I hardly even cared anymore, but also the backstory was so ridiculously over the top and horrifying that I didn't even want it. Literally the last hundred or so pages of this book felt so needlessly brutal, and it just left me so uncomfortable at the end. Also as other reviewers have mentioned, there are basic things that are just wrong? Everything about diabetes, as well as the fact that there are A TON of Catholic schools in New Orleans and the surrounding area, both of which feel like things that should have gotten picked up on in another round of editing and revision. 

Literally the only reason this book is higher than 1 star (which literally just means I finished it) is that every once in a while she would drop an absolute BANGER of a line about Catholicism or the intersection of religion and queerness, and as a lesbian who grew up Catholic and is still nebulously religious, I LOVED that. I wanted so much more of that!! But instead most of what I got was a shoddy, boring mystery with forgettable characters, and a whole lot of trauma right at the end. I know this is meant to be the first in a series, and I truly hope that time and practice can smooth out some of the issues I had with this book. I could see myself potentially picking up another Sister Holiday mystery in the future just to see how on earth she moves on from this book, but I'm not optimistic that I'll like it any better than this one.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings