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pandemoniumpizza 's review for:
The Rust Maidens
by Gwendolyn Kiste
I’m interested in exploring and finding more horror novels, and this one was listed on the Bram Stoker Awards first novel list of books to read for 2018. As I just finished this yesterday, it was also announced to be on the final ballot for Outstanding First Novel, which is pretty exciting.
This is Gwendolyn Kiste’s first novel, but she has previously published a short story collection, and a novella which I’m interested in reading now that I have read The Rust Maidens.
This is classed as a horror novel, and some of the descriptions in this book were really well done to the point where I felt as though I could feel what the character was describing and it was just so gross, but in a good way. There’s also a sort of mystery element to this book because you don’t know what is happening to the Rust Maidens, or what is going to happen to them as the book progresses.
The main character is Phoebe and the book starts with her returning to her childhood home and the street where all of the problems with the rust maidens occurred, the book also goes back in time to when the events were unfolding. I really liked Phoebe as a character, she was strong-willed, and she just wanted to help everyone. I also loved that she just did not care what other people thought of her.
I feel like the story itself was interesting. Initially when I looked at the cover I thought it might have been a novel about fae creatures, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was about Phoebe who has just graduated high school and her and her best friend Jacqueline are getting excited about getting out of the place they live and living better lives. Unfortunately, some of the girls in the street they live on end up getting this mysterious illness that makes them transform. Nobody knows what this illness is, or if there’s a cure or what’s going to happen to these girls. I thought it was a unique and fascinating idea and it was so good.
Parts of the book are set in the early 80s and it definitely has that feel to it. All of the females are repressed by everyone in the town and there’s these expectations of them to be well-behaved girls. I hated that everyone treated the rust maidens as if they had bought this illness on themselves, and that everything was their fault. The rest of the book is set 28 years later, and Phoebe is returning and trying to sort out how she feels about everything that transpired.
The entirety of the story takes place in one neighbourhood, and I thought that worked well. All the characters knew each other and had known each other for a long time so I feel like that made the story even more impactful.
The book had this sad feel to it, and the entire time I was reading this book I really felt the sadness of everything that was happening. There was just this feeling of desolation that stayed there throughout the novel. I definitely felt like the author did a really good job at describing everything in such a way to give me that sense of sadness.
Overall, I really enjoyed The Rust Maidens. It was so atmospheric, and it just kept me reading right up until the very end. I felt like the reveal was a little anticlimactic, but I didn’t really mind that too much. The Rust Maidens is a book that I am definitely going to be recommending to people.
This is Gwendolyn Kiste’s first novel, but she has previously published a short story collection, and a novella which I’m interested in reading now that I have read The Rust Maidens.
This is classed as a horror novel, and some of the descriptions in this book were really well done to the point where I felt as though I could feel what the character was describing and it was just so gross, but in a good way. There’s also a sort of mystery element to this book because you don’t know what is happening to the Rust Maidens, or what is going to happen to them as the book progresses.
The main character is Phoebe and the book starts with her returning to her childhood home and the street where all of the problems with the rust maidens occurred, the book also goes back in time to when the events were unfolding. I really liked Phoebe as a character, she was strong-willed, and she just wanted to help everyone. I also loved that she just did not care what other people thought of her.
I feel like the story itself was interesting. Initially when I looked at the cover I thought it might have been a novel about fae creatures, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was about Phoebe who has just graduated high school and her and her best friend Jacqueline are getting excited about getting out of the place they live and living better lives. Unfortunately, some of the girls in the street they live on end up getting this mysterious illness that makes them transform. Nobody knows what this illness is, or if there’s a cure or what’s going to happen to these girls. I thought it was a unique and fascinating idea and it was so good.
Parts of the book are set in the early 80s and it definitely has that feel to it. All of the females are repressed by everyone in the town and there’s these expectations of them to be well-behaved girls. I hated that everyone treated the rust maidens as if they had bought this illness on themselves, and that everything was their fault. The rest of the book is set 28 years later, and Phoebe is returning and trying to sort out how she feels about everything that transpired.
The entirety of the story takes place in one neighbourhood, and I thought that worked well. All the characters knew each other and had known each other for a long time so I feel like that made the story even more impactful.
The book had this sad feel to it, and the entire time I was reading this book I really felt the sadness of everything that was happening. There was just this feeling of desolation that stayed there throughout the novel. I definitely felt like the author did a really good job at describing everything in such a way to give me that sense of sadness.
Overall, I really enjoyed The Rust Maidens. It was so atmospheric, and it just kept me reading right up until the very end. I felt like the reveal was a little anticlimactic, but I didn’t really mind that too much. The Rust Maidens is a book that I am definitely going to be recommending to people.