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A review by gabberjaws
The Silent Companions by Laura Purcell
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
I have SO many thoughts on this one, so I'm gonna try and keep things as short as I can. Here, have a list.
THINGS I LIKED
- The Silent Companions
This was such a fresh take on the haunted doll/haunted painting subgenre of horror. I looked these mofos up and lemme tell you, they're creepy as shit. Not only are they super realistic portraits, but they have these weird beveled edges to make them look a little more 3 dimensional, AND they cast shadows that look human. No. thank. you.
- The Atmosphere and Vibes
I really enjoyed how Gothic this felt. Right from the first page, with Elsie in the hospital, the vibes on this were immediately suspenseful and eerie.
- Our unlikeable hero
I know she wasn't a character everybody would like, but I did love that the author chose to make Elsie sorta unlikeable. She's got a massive chip on her shoulder about being a working girl who marries above her station, and it influences a lot of the decisions she makes. I enjoyed it - I loved the layers it gave her. She wasn't a bad person per se, just a little stuck up and annoying - and I really loved that I could root for her despite not fully liking her as a person. It takes real talent to do that.
- Anne's chapters
As much as I liked Elsie, her chapters could drag on a bit. Anne's chapters were a breath of fresh air for me. I ADORED her voice and her story - right up to her unsatisfying conclusion (I'll get to that in a bit).
THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE
- Hello, Ableism, my old enemy.
About halfway through the book, I started getting this sinking feeling in my gut that the author was potentially going to make the horror element an ableist thing. I was hoping she wouldn't, because I was having a good time with this book, despite it's odd pacing. Alas, Purcell did the thing, and the poor mute child who everyone considered an "aberration" because of her deformity was, in fact, just straight up evil. For no reason. Just for the fun of it. Evil for shits and giggles.
It's so tired. And it made Hetta such a weak villain? Her mom drank some herbs and had a baby when the doctors said she could never carry another, and so that baby is now evil because of it? It's so flimsy, and so unsatisfying. There were plenty of other threads the author could have followed to give this book a juicy supernatural villain, but she chose to make the disabled child ontologically evil. In 2017. It's just depressing.
- Subvert tropes of making marginalized people suffer? I don't think I will
Yes, privileged white people do suffer from the hauntings in this book, but ultimately they're the victims. The people who truly suffer in this book were marginalized. I've already talked about Hetta, a mute little girl, who is poorly treated because of her disability, but she's not the only marginalized child that gets treated dirty in the text, oh no. Two Romani children (referred to by the use of slurs in the book, because ya know, 17th century White Folk) are also killed in the book because of the character's racists beliefs.
Honestly, I think this wouldn't have stung so much if these children had all been victims of the Haunting. But none of them are - they're convenient scapegoats and throwaway characters to help further the plot and really drive home how evil Hetta is. Left a bad taste in my mouth to see these two characters thrown away, and then start haunting... people who didn't hurt them? Or do anything that resembled how they were hurt??? It made no sense honestly.
- The pacing
Because the Silent Companions started their shenanigans so early on in the book, they stopped being unnerving pretty fast. Halfway through the book I was just wishing everything would speed along and we'd get to the point where Elsie stopped denying things and set fire to the damned house already.
- Messy horror threads
Anne bought the Silent Companions from a strange shop that didn't really exist, from an owner who seemed WAY too determined to get rid of them. It leads the reader to believe that they came to The Bridge cursed, and that was the beginning of the Bainbridge downfall. BUT NO. Anne later tells us that Hetta's blood touching the bottoms of the Companions is what actually caused them to be cursed, because they absorbed her evil essence. What the fuck?!?! Make up your mind??? I genuinely don't know if this was a weird case of author and editor forgetting a detail that derails the Explanation, or if we're actually supposed to understand that no, the companions were cursed from the beginning and Hetta was made bad because of them and everyone else afterwards just made a mistake. Because if the latter is true.... whoooo boy - Purcell needed to make that WAY less vague. Especially if the alternative means people believed the disabled child was evil for the sake of it. Forget subtlety. This is a genre that's sadly been way too happy to make marginalized people the big bads - If it's not the case, make it a little clearer? Idk.
TL;DR: This wasn't a bad book. I enjoyed the heck of out of it, and found it really hard to put down. I think Purcell could be a fantastic historical fic horror writer, and this was a great debut. The Big Bad just didn't sit right with me for a lot of reasons, but largely because it was weaksauce. 10/10 would have bought Hetta as a vengeful spirit if she'd actually been through shit and was taking revenge on people who seemed to be recreating the cruelty she faced. Her being Born Evil, Baby was disappointing af.
THINGS I LIKED
- The Silent Companions
This was such a fresh take on the haunted doll/haunted painting subgenre of horror. I looked these mofos up and lemme tell you, they're creepy as shit. Not only are they super realistic portraits, but they have these weird beveled edges to make them look a little more 3 dimensional, AND they cast shadows that look human. No. thank. you.
- The Atmosphere and Vibes
I really enjoyed how Gothic this felt. Right from the first page, with Elsie in the hospital, the vibes on this were immediately suspenseful and eerie.
- Our unlikeable hero
I know she wasn't a character everybody would like, but I did love that the author chose to make Elsie sorta unlikeable. She's got a massive chip on her shoulder about being a working girl who marries above her station, and it influences a lot of the decisions she makes. I enjoyed it - I loved the layers it gave her. She wasn't a bad person per se, just a little stuck up and annoying - and I really loved that I could root for her despite not fully liking her as a person. It takes real talent to do that.
- Anne's chapters
As much as I liked Elsie, her chapters could drag on a bit. Anne's chapters were a breath of fresh air for me. I ADORED her voice and her story - right up to her unsatisfying conclusion (I'll get to that in a bit).
THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE
- Hello, Ableism, my old enemy.
About halfway through the book, I started getting this sinking feeling in my gut that the author was potentially going to make the horror element an ableist thing. I was hoping she wouldn't, because I was having a good time with this book, despite it's odd pacing. Alas, Purcell did the thing, and the poor mute child who everyone considered an "aberration" because of her deformity was, in fact, just straight up evil. For no reason. Just for the fun of it. Evil for shits and giggles.
It's so tired. And it made Hetta such a weak villain? Her mom drank some herbs and had a baby when the doctors said she could never carry another, and so that baby is now evil because of it? It's so flimsy, and so unsatisfying. There were plenty of other threads the author could have followed to give this book a juicy supernatural villain, but she chose to make the disabled child ontologically evil. In 2017. It's just depressing.
- Subvert tropes of making marginalized people suffer? I don't think I will
Yes, privileged white people do suffer from the hauntings in this book, but ultimately they're the victims. The people who truly suffer in this book were marginalized. I've already talked about Hetta, a mute little girl, who is poorly treated because of her disability, but she's not the only marginalized child that gets treated dirty in the text, oh no. Two Romani children (referred to by the use of slurs in the book, because ya know, 17th century White Folk) are also killed in the book because of the character's racists beliefs.
Honestly, I think this wouldn't have stung so much if these children had all been victims of the Haunting. But none of them are - they're convenient scapegoats and throwaway characters to help further the plot and really drive home how evil Hetta is. Left a bad taste in my mouth to see these two characters thrown away, and then start haunting... people who didn't hurt them? Or do anything that resembled how they were hurt??? It made no sense honestly.
- The pacing
Because the Silent Companions started their shenanigans so early on in the book, they stopped being unnerving pretty fast. Halfway through the book I was just wishing everything would speed along and we'd get to the point where Elsie stopped denying things and set fire to the damned house already.
- Messy horror threads
Anne bought the Silent Companions from a strange shop that didn't really exist, from an owner who seemed WAY too determined to get rid of them. It leads the reader to believe that they came to The Bridge cursed, and that was the beginning of the Bainbridge downfall. BUT NO. Anne later tells us that Hetta's blood touching the bottoms of the Companions is what actually caused them to be cursed, because they absorbed her evil essence. What the fuck?!?! Make up your mind??? I genuinely don't know if this was a weird case of author and editor forgetting a detail that derails the Explanation, or if we're actually supposed to understand that no, the companions were cursed from the beginning and Hetta was made bad because of them and everyone else afterwards just made a mistake. Because if the latter is true.... whoooo boy - Purcell needed to make that WAY less vague. Especially if the alternative means people believed the disabled child was evil for the sake of it. Forget subtlety. This is a genre that's sadly been way too happy to make marginalized people the big bads - If it's not the case, make it a little clearer? Idk.
TL;DR: This wasn't a bad book. I enjoyed the heck of out of it, and found it really hard to put down. I think Purcell could be a fantastic historical fic horror writer, and this was a great debut. The Big Bad just didn't sit right with me for a lot of reasons, but largely because it was weaksauce. 10/10 would have bought Hetta as a vengeful spirit if she'd actually been through shit and was taking revenge on people who seemed to be recreating the cruelty she faced. Her being Born Evil, Baby was disappointing af.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Death, Animal death, and Miscarriage
Moderate: Death of parent, Ableism, and Racial slurs
Minor: Child abuse, Rape, and Incest