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A review by quicksilvermoon
The Ophelia Girls by Jane Healey
3.0
Tired, frazzled Ruth returns to the home she inherited from her father, and memories from her girlhood and her traumatic past begin to bubble up to the surface - memories of a sapphic summer spent cosplaying as Ophelia, until someone actually drowned.
Her daughter Maeve, back from the brink of a long illness, is now entering that wild, reckless age, entertaining fantasies of being some tragic heroine. The story is told through alternating perspectives, a stylised meditation on generation gaps, female desire and the fetishisation of teenaged girls. A lush read that’s perhaps an acquired taste, and pairs well with a certain atmosphere of lassitude.
Her daughter Maeve, back from the brink of a long illness, is now entering that wild, reckless age, entertaining fantasies of being some tragic heroine. The story is told through alternating perspectives, a stylised meditation on generation gaps, female desire and the fetishisation of teenaged girls. A lush read that’s perhaps an acquired taste, and pairs well with a certain atmosphere of lassitude.