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A review by jugglingpup
The Crow Girl by Erik Axl Sund
2.0
To see more reviews check out MI Book Reviews.
I read this book solely because it fit a requirement (Nordic noir) for a reading challenge. This is not really my genre. I have read a book and a quarter of a popular series, but it didn’t really do anything for me. I read a horror book in the same vein. I didn’t expect to like a book close to those again. This book is a jumbled mess in my mind and heart.
The book follows a great number of characters, but they may or may not all be the same person. This books takes the unreliable narrator idea really far. One of the main narrators has Dissociative Identity Disorder (the actual name for Multiple Personality Disorder). When that character is diagnosed the term was MPD, but the psychologist diagnoses her with DID, which annoys me. This annoys me even more when the authors refer to another character was a hermaphrodite, which is just as much an outdated term as MPD, but is worse because it is a slur. The correct term is intersex. So the authors fall pretty darn short of caring about queer characters. They are used more as a “men are awful, lets turn to women” idea and as some pretty nasty characters. There is no positive queer representation despite multiple queer characters.
The book is SUPER graphic. I was in physical pain from anxiety by the end of this book. My chest was tight, I felt nervous. It is not for the faint of heart. It isn’t for those that get triggered by violence, sexual violence, rape, drugging someone to rape them, child rape, incest, child abuse, fighting children like a dog fighting ring, alcohol abuse, suicide, murder…I could keep going. Pretty much if you are triggered by anything that has to do with trauma then this book is not for you. The book is so graphic about everything that it just is safer to avoid than try. The child rape scenes are so graphic that I am surprised that it passed American censors. This makes every other book I have ever read look warm and fuzzy.
The plot was interesting, but the ending fell super flat. The first 700 pages had me gripped tight. I had put sticky notes every fifty pages so I could force myself to finish it before it was due back at the library. Instead I found myself finishing the book in just a few days, not the sixteen I had planned for. That ended around page 700 though. The last bit where most of the loose ends are tied up and the murder is revealed is so tedious to get through. I was left with a few unresolved questions, some of them were big enough that it detracted from the story. Otherwise the ending felt rushed and forced. The unreliable narrator and the constant red herrings were just gratuitous. The book easily could have been a few hundred pages shorter and had a better ending from it.
So if you like super long mysteries that go with the unexpected, just because that character really isn’t in the book at all then great, this is for you. If you like violence against children and sexual violence against children, please get off this blog, this book probably is for you. If you want a story that doesn’t rely on gore and shock to get you to enjoy it, don’t bother. If you want a story that has a satisfying ending that helps you sleep after all the horrible things it put you through, don’t bother.
I liked the book, but I am also terrified of this book. I don’t want to recommend it, but there are people who I know will like it because they have been desensitized to the horrors of that this book presents due to their jobs, but I won’t recommend it to people randomly. I will make many warnings clear if it is ever brought up. I already made one of my more anxious friends aware that she should never even go to the page of this book on GoodReads because it will cause her to have a panic attack. This book is that much.
I read this book solely because it fit a requirement (Nordic noir) for a reading challenge. This is not really my genre. I have read a book and a quarter of a popular series, but it didn’t really do anything for me. I read a horror book in the same vein. I didn’t expect to like a book close to those again. This book is a jumbled mess in my mind and heart.
The book follows a great number of characters, but they may or may not all be the same person. This books takes the unreliable narrator idea really far. One of the main narrators has Dissociative Identity Disorder (the actual name for Multiple Personality Disorder). When that character is diagnosed the term was MPD, but the psychologist diagnoses her with DID, which annoys me. This annoys me even more when the authors refer to another character was a hermaphrodite, which is just as much an outdated term as MPD, but is worse because it is a slur. The correct term is intersex. So the authors fall pretty darn short of caring about queer characters. They are used more as a “men are awful, lets turn to women” idea and as some pretty nasty characters. There is no positive queer representation despite multiple queer characters.
The book is SUPER graphic. I was in physical pain from anxiety by the end of this book. My chest was tight, I felt nervous. It is not for the faint of heart. It isn’t for those that get triggered by violence, sexual violence, rape, drugging someone to rape them, child rape, incest, child abuse, fighting children like a dog fighting ring, alcohol abuse, suicide, murder…I could keep going. Pretty much if you are triggered by anything that has to do with trauma then this book is not for you. The book is so graphic about everything that it just is safer to avoid than try. The child rape scenes are so graphic that I am surprised that it passed American censors. This makes every other book I have ever read look warm and fuzzy.
The plot was interesting, but the ending fell super flat. The first 700 pages had me gripped tight. I had put sticky notes every fifty pages so I could force myself to finish it before it was due back at the library. Instead I found myself finishing the book in just a few days, not the sixteen I had planned for. That ended around page 700 though. The last bit where most of the loose ends are tied up and the murder is revealed is so tedious to get through. I was left with a few unresolved questions, some of them were big enough that it detracted from the story. Otherwise the ending felt rushed and forced. The unreliable narrator and the constant red herrings were just gratuitous. The book easily could have been a few hundred pages shorter and had a better ending from it.
So if you like super long mysteries that go with the unexpected, just because that character really isn’t in the book at all then great, this is for you. If you like violence against children and sexual violence against children, please get off this blog, this book probably is for you. If you want a story that doesn’t rely on gore and shock to get you to enjoy it, don’t bother. If you want a story that has a satisfying ending that helps you sleep after all the horrible things it put you through, don’t bother.
I liked the book, but I am also terrified of this book. I don’t want to recommend it, but there are people who I know will like it because they have been desensitized to the horrors of that this book presents due to their jobs, but I won’t recommend it to people randomly. I will make many warnings clear if it is ever brought up. I already made one of my more anxious friends aware that she should never even go to the page of this book on GoodReads because it will cause her to have a panic attack. This book is that much.