Take a photo of a barcode or cover
manurocha 's review for:
Where Sleeping Girls Lie
by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I feel very similarly about this book as I felt about "Ace of Spades". I can now say with some confidence that Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé's writing style is not exactly my cup of tea—her sentences sound a bit dry in my head, and sometimes she "tells" way more than she "shows"— and with any other author, that would be enough to make me DNF a book. But Faridah is a raw, charismatic writer, and dammit she's good at keeping me glued to the pages. Even if I'm frustrated for like 50% of them. I can't deny I had a good (?) time, so 4 stars.
Ok. Now to my thoughts, as they come to me. Spoilers ahead:
I love when a character haunts the narrative (Falin!!!), and at first Elizabeth proved to be an interesting ghost. Her reappearance, thought. That was sooooo underwhelming!! I feel like it wasn't given proper depth, or space to breathe. The girl was immediately shipped back to the void, for god's sake. The payoff was just not there for me.
The guys???? They're so unequivocally evil it was kinda crazy. But that's Faridah's villains for you. Sade's relationship with Jude was confusing to me at first, (when is she going to ignore him? she clearly isn't interested, why are we even entertaining this dude???) but that eventually sorted itself out. August, though. What was that? She gave him a super thoughtful gift, wanted to make him smile, all that felt a little odd to me. I guess I just don't get August as a character; what I imagine was an attempt at depth came across as a shallow caricature due to a lack of consistency in his actions.
And finally. Persephone. Girlllll you deserved so much more presence in that story!! I feel like her character was one of the main victims of "telling not showing". Take this passage for example: "'That's very optimistic of you, Persephone', Baz said. 'I's not optimism, it's just a fact. I'm smart and so I know these things.' Baz nodded in agreement because Persephone was indeed smart. Possibly smarter than all of them combined". But WHY though? We don't see her being all that much smarter than her peers throughout the book. We know she reads pretty frequently, but it's not like she figured out the mysteries or anything. So the sentence just comes off as a little too on the nose.
Ok. Now to my thoughts, as they come to me. Spoilers ahead:
The guys???? They're so unequivocally evil it was kinda crazy. But that's Faridah's villains for you. Sade's relationship with Jude was confusing to me at first, (when is she going to ignore him? she clearly isn't interested, why are we even entertaining this dude???) but that eventually sorted itself out. August, though. What was that? She gave him a super thoughtful gift, wanted to make him smile, all that felt a little odd to me. I guess I just don't get August as a character; what I imagine was an attempt at depth came across as a shallow caricature due to a lack of consistency in his actions.
And finally. Persephone. Girlllll you deserved so much more presence in that story!! I feel like her character was one of the main victims of "telling not showing". Take this passage for example: "'That's very optimistic of you, Persephone', Baz said. 'I's not optimism, it's just a fact. I'm smart and so I know these things.' Baz nodded in agreement because Persephone was indeed smart. Possibly smarter than all of them combined". But WHY though? We don't see her being all that much smarter than her peers throughout the book. We know she reads pretty frequently, but it's not like she figured out the mysteries or anything. So the sentence just comes off as a little too on the nose.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual violence, Suicide, Grief