Scan barcode
A review by year23
Mary: An Awakening of Terror by Nat Cassidy
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
I get why this wouldn't work for some readers - but it did work for me. I love a weird, horror, vengeful mysteries with elements I won't name here because that would be a spoiler. This worked for me - and the ending was much stronger than I thought it would be given a lot of horror books I've been reading lately sort of short-thrift the big climax scene at the end.
I don't think the author handled the portrayal of a perimenopausal woman badly, it didn't feel off or out of touch (something that can happen a lot when cis het men write women characters, particularly ones who are older). I see the critiques but it didn't take me out of the story - in part because of the unreliable narrator of it all. I also appreciate that the author did use sensitivity readers and acknowledged the limits of their own experience - and still wrote this imaginative story. I just finished reading Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde - and it was a good reminder that the goal isn't to limit authors to write only their experience. Reading this right after that, I may have gone in with a different perspective - though will name I AM a perimenopausal woman and though that's really all I shared with the MC, I didn't feel personally that the voice or perspective was off or at worse, misogynistic.
There is misogyny in the text, but it's intentional - and thankfully there's a trigger warning by the author in the preface heading in.
This is a different kind of horror in terms of the POV - it's all through the perspective of the POV apart from a few short scenes at the beginning and end. I may be in the minority here - but I liked this choice. Yes, she is unlikeable - but there are a lot of reasons for that.
I appreciated the portryal of trauma and it's impact as you get older - apart from the horror elements of the story, there's an interesting portrayal here of what it means to manage PTSD as you age. I will be seeking out more stories with that theme due to reading this book.
On a whole - highly recommend to horror fans who are okay with gore (this isn't a cerebral type horror).
I don't think the author handled the portrayal of a perimenopausal woman badly, it didn't feel off or out of touch (something that can happen a lot when cis het men write women characters, particularly ones who are older). I see the critiques but it didn't take me out of the story - in part because of the unreliable narrator of it all. I also appreciate that the author did use sensitivity readers and acknowledged the limits of their own experience - and still wrote this imaginative story. I just finished reading Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde - and it was a good reminder that the goal isn't to limit authors to write only their experience. Reading this right after that, I may have gone in with a different perspective - though will name I AM a perimenopausal woman and though that's really all I shared with the MC, I didn't feel personally that the voice or perspective was off or at worse, misogynistic.
There is misogyny in the text, but it's intentional - and thankfully there's a trigger warning by the author in the preface heading in.
This is a different kind of horror in terms of the POV - it's all through the perspective of the POV apart from a few short scenes at the beginning and end. I may be in the minority here - but I liked this choice. Yes, she is unlikeable - but there are a lot of reasons for that.
I appreciated the portryal of trauma and it's impact as you get older - apart from the horror elements of the story, there's an interesting portrayal here of what it means to manage PTSD as you age. I will be seeking out more stories with that theme due to reading this book.
On a whole - highly recommend to horror fans who are okay with gore (this isn't a cerebral type horror).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Animal cruelty, Torture, Violence, Vomit, Animal death, Body horror, Murder, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, and Religious bigotry