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A review by waclements7
Yesternight by Cat Winters
4.0
It has taken me awhile thinking about this before writing a review. Usually I can just write one when I finish. There's a lot to think about. It's 1925. Alice Lind is a school psychologist who goes from school to school testing students. In Gordon Bay, Oregon, she meets Janie, a seven-year-old girl who has been claiming since she was two that she is Violet Sunday, from Friendly, Kansas, and she died at the age of nineteen by drowning. She is also a math prodigy. Janie's father Michael says he believes that Janie has been reincarnated.
This flies in the face of everything that Alice has been taught as a psychologist--trauma or abuse causes flights of fantasy like this; there is no such thing as reincarnation. Janie's parents are divorced, and that complicated situation leads to Alice getting stuck in the middle of what each parent thinks is best for Janie as Alice begins to believe, eventually, that maybe Janie really is the reincarnation of Violet Sunday.
Alice identifies and can work with the "difficult" children because she was a "difficult" child herself. There was an incident in her childhood when she suddenly attacked a group of children with a branch, violently beating them, something she can't explain. With Janie's story of reincarnation, Alice begins to wonder if maybe she herself was reincarnated from someone who was a murderer. When she presents Janie with a list of towns from around Kansas, including one she made up, 'Yesternight," Janie identifies Kansas City and Yesternight.
Alice writes to the postmaster of Friendly, and receives a letter back from Eleanor Sunday Rook, confirming that she had a sister Violet Sunday who drowned. In a rare situation of camaraderie, Rebecca, Janie's mother, Janie's Aunt, Michael, and Alice go to Friendly and meet Eleanor and her husband, and it's confirmed that Janie really is Violet Sunday reincarnated. All the dots are connected.
Alice also learns of the Hotel Yesternight, where the owner was a woman who murdered numerous guests, and is convinced that she is the reincarnation of the owner. Rebecca tells Michael she is divorcing him and leaving him to take Janie where she can receive a real education for her mathematical abilities.
This is the one part of the story that started to break down a little for me. Michael goes with Alice to the Hotel Yesternight. The husband and wife caretakers of the Hotel Yesternight are very accommodating; the husband is truly into his role of "spooky hotel man." Alice doesn't recognize the hotel. But she does recognize the picture of Cornelia, the woman who murdered hotel guests. I'm not sure why she decides to tell them that she thinks she is the reincarnation of Cornelia. They show her a trunk of Cornelia's belongings, and she thinks she recognizes them.
A quick backtrack here. It is 1925, and there are no real methods of birth control available to women. Alice had a terrible experience with the last man she went to bed with--he said he would pull out and didn't, and she got pregnant. That's a very big deal in the story, but I won't go into it in detail, it's important, though, because that's what has kept her, from sleeping with anyone else--that betrayal. Michael convinces her to sleep with him, and promises her the same thing. The same thing happens. This puzzled me a little. It didn't seem in character for Michael, because he is generally a caring character, BUT his wife has just left him and taken their daughter away. I don't know if it's a subconscious way of getting back at Rebecca by failing on his promise, if he genuinely forgot, or what happened, but it just seemed like an odd thing for him to do after Alice has really gone over it with him, and it's basically the only reason while she'll go to bed with him. I don't want to say he's just a guy and doesn't care, but that's almost what it seemed like. Alice, understandably, is very angry and attacks him with her shoe (this is 1925, when shoes were actually solid and well made). He throws a glass vase at her, hits her, and then breaks a window and disappears into the blizzard outside. They find him frozen to death later.
The wife of the couple running the hotel remembers to give Alice a telegram that had arrived for her before she had even decided to go to the hotel. It's from her sister Bea, telling her that the reason she remembers the Yesternight is because Bea read to her from a book about the hotel when Alice was little--too young for her to have been read such things. It's not a case of reincarnation for her, just memories from when she was little.
Flash forward five years. Alice is living with her sister Bea and her lover Pearl in Portland with Alice's five year-old son John. John is eating breakfast and tells Alice that he froze to death...and that his name is Michael...
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher.
This flies in the face of everything that Alice has been taught as a psychologist--trauma or abuse causes flights of fantasy like this; there is no such thing as reincarnation. Janie's parents are divorced, and that complicated situation leads to Alice getting stuck in the middle of what each parent thinks is best for Janie as Alice begins to believe, eventually, that maybe Janie really is the reincarnation of Violet Sunday.
Alice identifies and can work with the "difficult" children because she was a "difficult" child herself. There was an incident in her childhood when she suddenly attacked a group of children with a branch, violently beating them, something she can't explain. With Janie's story of reincarnation, Alice begins to wonder if maybe she herself was reincarnated from someone who was a murderer. When she presents Janie with a list of towns from around Kansas, including one she made up, 'Yesternight," Janie identifies Kansas City and Yesternight.
Alice writes to the postmaster of Friendly, and receives a letter back from Eleanor Sunday Rook, confirming that she had a sister Violet Sunday who drowned. In a rare situation of camaraderie, Rebecca, Janie's mother, Janie's Aunt, Michael, and Alice go to Friendly and meet Eleanor and her husband, and it's confirmed that Janie really is Violet Sunday reincarnated. All the dots are connected.
Alice also learns of the Hotel Yesternight, where the owner was a woman who murdered numerous guests, and is convinced that she is the reincarnation of the owner. Rebecca tells Michael she is divorcing him and leaving him to take Janie where she can receive a real education for her mathematical abilities.
This is the one part of the story that started to break down a little for me. Michael goes with Alice to the Hotel Yesternight. The husband and wife caretakers of the Hotel Yesternight are very accommodating; the husband is truly into his role of "spooky hotel man." Alice doesn't recognize the hotel. But she does recognize the picture of Cornelia, the woman who murdered hotel guests. I'm not sure why she decides to tell them that she thinks she is the reincarnation of Cornelia. They show her a trunk of Cornelia's belongings, and she thinks she recognizes them.
A quick backtrack here. It is 1925, and there are no real methods of birth control available to women. Alice had a terrible experience with the last man she went to bed with--he said he would pull out and didn't, and she got pregnant. That's a very big deal in the story, but I won't go into it in detail, it's important, though, because that's what has kept her, from sleeping with anyone else--that betrayal. Michael convinces her to sleep with him, and promises her the same thing. The same thing happens. This puzzled me a little. It didn't seem in character for Michael, because he is generally a caring character, BUT his wife has just left him and taken their daughter away. I don't know if it's a subconscious way of getting back at Rebecca by failing on his promise, if he genuinely forgot, or what happened, but it just seemed like an odd thing for him to do after Alice has really gone over it with him, and it's basically the only reason while she'll go to bed with him. I don't want to say he's just a guy and doesn't care, but that's almost what it seemed like. Alice, understandably, is very angry and attacks him with her shoe (this is 1925, when shoes were actually solid and well made). He throws a glass vase at her, hits her, and then breaks a window and disappears into the blizzard outside. They find him frozen to death later.
The wife of the couple running the hotel remembers to give Alice a telegram that had arrived for her before she had even decided to go to the hotel. It's from her sister Bea, telling her that the reason she remembers the Yesternight is because Bea read to her from a book about the hotel when Alice was little--too young for her to have been read such things. It's not a case of reincarnation for her, just memories from when she was little.
Flash forward five years. Alice is living with her sister Bea and her lover Pearl in Portland with Alice's five year-old son John. John is eating breakfast and tells Alice that he froze to death...and that his name is Michael...
I received an ARC of this book from the publisher.