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A review by beartown
I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me by Jamison Shea
2.0
Books with a villain/anti-hero MC are typically a hit-or-miss for me. When done well, it can be so satisfying but when done poorly, it will remind of this book. The concept was such a win - ever since watching Black Swan, every ballet book just has instant intrigue from me.
What did not work for me unfortunately was the prose - I like beautiful writing, don't get me wrong but when the beautiful writing is used as a prop to encapsulate the lack of concept, I don't enjoy it. We did have a concept of Acheron and Lethe but the background context to it just wasn't good enough - at no single point did I feel like I had an understanding of what the author intended because we started with this foreboding sense of the monster slowly taking over Laure and how she was almost afraid of what she would become and by the end of it, the monster is almost shown to be a sympathetic character and I feel like I missed the progression which would explain such a contrast in viewpoints.
The love plotline was so stilted and weird and felt very out of place like it was immensely jarring to finish a chapter with gore and violence and suddenly, they're kissing? Like what? The murder plotline is something that is started to drive the plot forward but almost immediately abandoned with no real findings from Laure but just hypotheticals strewn in here and there and the answer to this plotline is too conveniently just thrown in her lap as opposed to be something she looks for.
Just no.
What did not work for me unfortunately was the prose - I like beautiful writing, don't get me wrong but when the beautiful writing is used as a prop to encapsulate the lack of concept, I don't enjoy it. We did have a concept of Acheron and Lethe but the background context to it just wasn't good enough - at no single point did I feel like I had an understanding of what the author intended because we started with this foreboding sense of the monster slowly taking over Laure and how she was almost afraid of what she would become and by the end of it, the monster is almost shown to be a sympathetic character and I feel like I missed the progression which would explain such a contrast in viewpoints.
The love plotline was so stilted and weird and felt very out of place like it was immensely jarring to finish a chapter with gore and violence and suddenly, they're kissing? Like what? The murder plotline is something that is started to drive the plot forward but almost immediately abandoned with no real findings from Laure but just hypotheticals strewn in here and there and the answer to this plotline is too conveniently just thrown in her lap as opposed to be something she looks for.
Just no.