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A review by mgdoherty
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I had an odd experience with this book: I went into this expecting a haunted house and a possible romance; then the first 25 pages, in which the romance is very front and center, had me questioning whether I'd misunderstood the spooky levels. But the sweeping romance is very front-loaded in the novel, and spooky things begin almost immediately!
The atmosphere is properly creepy, and reading this alone at night, I was genuinely unnerved by some of the things Jane saw in the house! In terms of creepy atmosphere, it is very Mexican Gothic, and I loved how present the eeriness is in the entire setting, from the rotting house to the mysterious locked door to the unfortunately-timed rainstorms and mudslides that constantly plague the area.
Jane has a traumatic past and I really enjoyed how that character arc vibrated throughout the story -- her desperation not to return to a bombed-out shell of a city which she fled as a child, her deeply-repressed grief for her parents, and even her sadness over having lost the chance to connect to certain people in her life. In a way, I would've liked this to get more focus toward the end of the book! What happened at the end is absolutely AMAZING in terms of emotional catharsis, and frankly, that might be my favorite climactic scene of all time, but sometimes I felt Jane's hyper-focus on Augustine led her to neglect her own emotional needs, and as a reader, I really really wanted Jane to acknowledge herself, to have compassion for herself, and to forgive herself. And spoiler alert:she does! But it comes very near to the end, and after seeing her literally starve herself and deny herself sleep for days to rescue her god-complex husband, I wanted more for Jane.
Also, this is a huge spoiler for the central mystery, but I just have to say that I LOVE how "ghosts are not real" comes back in different ways, through Jane's rationalism and her "I am afraid of real things like armies and bombs, not superstitious things like ghosts", and through the mysterious message toward the end of the book. And it's so cool that the "ghosts" were the results of eldritch beings and Jane's magic creating a literal time travel paradox at the exact moment she died!
The pacing didn't always work for me. The beginning moves so quickly, followed by a very twisty and turn-y second act, followed by a very long, slow third act, followed by an absolutely perfect fourth act which I would just like to read again and again. That slow third act felt so long, and considering a major plot point in that act isJane's intense sleep deprivation and deteriorating mental state , I think a faster, "fever dream" third act would've worked well and also kept the momentum of the story going.
That said, in case, I didn't mention it enough already, I adore the final section of this book. I love how the mystery comes together, I love how Jane's story resolves, I love her strength and her grief and her sacrifice and the way she endures through everything, I love how she acknowledges her own PTSD and has to avoid her triggers. There is a whole fever dream-like sequence, and I love it so much, and it's impossible to explain why without spoilers, but I don't want to give spoilers because I think part of what makes that sequence amazing is the surprises it contains, both for Jane and for the reader.
Starling is an author whose work I’ll follow in the future!
The atmosphere is properly creepy, and reading this alone at night, I was genuinely unnerved by some of the things Jane saw in the house! In terms of creepy atmosphere, it is very Mexican Gothic, and I loved how present the eeriness is in the entire setting, from the rotting house to the mysterious locked door to the unfortunately-timed rainstorms and mudslides that constantly plague the area.
Jane has a traumatic past and I really enjoyed how that character arc vibrated throughout the story -- her desperation not to return to a bombed-out shell of a city which she fled as a child, her deeply-repressed grief for her parents, and even her sadness over having lost the chance to connect to certain people in her life. In a way, I would've liked this to get more focus toward the end of the book! What happened at the end is absolutely AMAZING in terms of emotional catharsis, and frankly, that might be my favorite climactic scene of all time, but sometimes I felt Jane's hyper-focus on Augustine led her to neglect her own emotional needs, and as a reader, I really really wanted Jane to acknowledge herself, to have compassion for herself, and to forgive herself. And spoiler alert:
Also, this is a huge spoiler for the central mystery, but I just have to say that
The pacing didn't always work for me. The beginning moves so quickly, followed by a very twisty and turn-y second act, followed by a very long, slow third act, followed by an absolutely perfect fourth act which I would just like to read again and again. That slow third act felt so long, and considering a major plot point in that act is
That said, in case, I didn't mention it enough already, I adore the final section of this book. I love how the mystery comes together, I love how Jane's story resolves, I love her strength and her grief and her sacrifice and the way she endures through everything, I love how she acknowledges her own PTSD and has to avoid her triggers. There is a whole fever dream-like sequence, and I love it so much, and it's impossible to explain why without spoilers, but I don't want to give spoilers because I think part of what makes that sequence amazing is the surprises it contains, both for Jane and for the reader.
Starling is an author whose work I’ll follow in the future!