I’m looking at the average rating on this book and I’m perplexed, because this is one of the best horror novels I’ve read in quite some time. It has eI’m looking at the average rating on this book and I’m perplexed, because this is one of the best horror novels I’ve read in quite some time. It has everything I love about horror novels in this genre with the added joy of possessing several layers of social and cultural commentary that have me itching to deconstruct the whole story down to its bones.
I’m not kidding: In between devouring the pages with greedy eyes, I was humming in delight at the implacable dread that saturated every page and the way this story moves like a runaway train and you know the wreck at the end is going to be calamitous. I was eager to know who was finally going to be the one to f*ck around and find out (because of course someone was going to). I was wiggling my toes as I laughed darkly at the townspeople and their naive, foolish, and futile endeavors. The story was deep, black, bleak, and absolutely right up my alley.
I love Scandinavian horror. For some reason I was utterly fascinated (at first) as to why Olde Heuvelt chose to write a story set in upstate New York in his native Dutch, but then I discovered the original story Heuvelt wrote (before he sold the rights to the US translation) had the story set in a small village in the Netherlands. Talk about a change in location! Heuvelt and the translator worked sublimely together, though, to bring the original story over to the US and weave this story into something wholly engrossing, entertaining, and wicked.
File Under: 5 Star Review/Book Series/Horror/Paranormal Horror/Psychological Thriller/Urban Fantasy ...more
Okay, so… I’ve been hanging onto this review for a LONG while, because I read this book back in September, if you can believe it. I read it and I had Okay, so… I’ve been hanging onto this review for a LONG while, because I read this book back in September, if you can believe it. I read it and I had to sit on it forever, because it took even longer for me to process my feelings on it enough to put it into words than it took for me to do the same thing for “Iron Widow”, and it took me days for my brain to wrap itself around how to put how much I loved that book into words. It’s a similar, if even stronger feeling here: I love this book so much it’s pretty much beyond being able to put it into words. It’s just that good.
One of the things that resonated in my brain as I read “Such a Pretty Smile” was the Charlotte Perkins Gilman short story. “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This book is like someone took that story and gave it a 21st-century feminist horror glow-up. If you’re wondering if that’s a bad thing, believe me when I say that it is very much not. I love “The Yellow Wallpaper” all on its own, but “Such a Pretty Smile” digs deeper, scoops out more, shows more and sharper teeth, and shines harsher lights on the gaslighters of the world and holds them more accountable.
This book is not for the faint-of-heart. It is a horror novel–make no mistake about that. It gets gory. It gets bloody. It doesn’t flinch. And that’s all the more sweet, in my opinion, because I adore a book that deals with some of the worst and largest issues females face and doesn’t flinch. This book doesn’t bat a dang eyelash.
I’m so glad it’s time for this book to be unleashed on the world. So glad. Now I can tell you to go order it. Read it. Read it again. Tell someone else to read it. Because it’s a bloody good time. ...more
I liked this book a lot. I mean, a lot! It wasn’t something I’d read again and again, but it was a compelling read that I was invested in all the way I liked this book a lot. I mean, a lot! It wasn’t something I’d read again and again, but it was a compelling read that I was invested in all the way to the end.
Unlike a lot of sci-fi books I’ve read this year, I didn’t find any drag or filler in this book. It moved along at a natural, nice pace: accelerating where needed, slowing down when needed, and coasting naturally. The constant changes of scenery, switching of sides and allegiances, and “side quests” (as I took to calling them inside my head) kept everyone and everything moving around the FMC’s central conflict, ensuring no character was wasted. That’s something that’s really refreshing, because I’m really sick of seeing supporting characters wasted.
All in all, this book was a very promising start to what looks like will be a series? I know I’ll be on the lookout for more. ...more
This book is more than a little thought-provoking. It’s an absolute mind screw. That’s not a bad thing at all. Books should make us think every once aThis book is more than a little thought-provoking. It’s an absolute mind screw. That’s not a bad thing at all. Books should make us think every once and a while. I’m all for escapism in my books, but every once and a while we need books to come along that make us think in a different way and to make us look at things through a different lens. Books that make us tilt our heads slightly and question how we see each other and the world. This book is one of those books, but it’s not going to be for everyone, and it’s not the easiest book to read. I’m going to dare you to try, though.
This book is in no way pretty. It’s unapologetic in its filth, gore, and violence. If you go into this book expecting sunshine and roses, at any point, you’ll be sorry. This is, overwhelmingly, a horror story. It’s also dystopic and splattergore. The violence is extreme and no one is spared from either being the perpetrator or the victim. No matter the sex or gender, violence touches everyone on both sides. That’s part of the story, though. I cannot and will not spoil any part of this story. It’s best to go into this story knowing only what the blurb provided by booksellers or the back of the book. Knowing anything else will ruin all the fun.
There is fun to be had. I know what I’ve described so far paints a bleak picture, but there is a lot of sharp, satirical humor to be found in this book. It’s a dark, morbid humor. Maybe even gallows humor, at times, but it’s there, and it will allow you to snicker and giggle at times in a book that would be too sad and heavy otherwise. There are also razor-sharp barbs of wit that add levity at just the right moments in time to keep scenes from getting too heavy.
This is bound to be a controversial book. People will hate it. It will be divisive. It will be banned in places. But it’s brilliant work. And it needed to be written. And it needs to be read.
Thank you to NetGalley, MacMillan-Tor/Forge, and Tor Nightfire for the ARC of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review!...more
Wow, talk about magical realism. Talk about taking the realities of Old Hollywood and turning it into an atmospheric, spooky tale of how getting onto Wow, talk about magical realism. Talk about taking the realities of Old Hollywood and turning it into an atmospheric, spooky tale of how getting onto the silver screen always involved a Faustian bargain with a studio head. Talk about reminding us of some of the issues facing women, minorities, and LGBTQIA+ people in Hollywood and how much worse they were then, how easily they were hidden, how much never came to light, and how we can compare all of that to the Hollywood of today.
This book is as entrancing as the magical and mystical men and women within its pages. It draws you in with lovely, atmospheric prose that paints a timely picture of the Los Angeles area in the era of silent films. Our main character (we don’t ever learn her birth name–the first “name” we know her by is the perfunctory acronym CK) lives with her parents and sister in a Chinese-heavy neighborhood at the bottom of the hills of Calabasas, which are among the Santa Monica Mountains, on the same valley floor as Hollywood itself. Today, the neighborhood where CK’s family would’ve lived is what we know as Tarzana and/or Encino (it’s kind of up in the air as to which one it is). (Incidental bit of real Hollywood trivia: In 1929, RKO bought land in Encino to build a movie studio.) The whole valley was still mostly agriculture in the 1920s and into the mid-1930s, and small businesses reigned. Vo does a great job of painting this picture of dusty streets, hot and dry heat from the constant sunshine, children running around not needing or wanting too much adult supervision and working for their family businesses, minorities and women not earning near enough money for the massive amount of work they do while men worked the fields. And, as ever with the Chinese, family was everything.
But for CK, there is the pull of the nickelodeon. The pull of the silver screen. The screen, the movies, and the stars intrigue her so much she’s willing to make magical deals just to be able to see one movie. But all that changes one day when she accidentally stumbles onto a movie shooting on location near her home. That day knocks the trajectory of her life in a completely different direction, one that leads her directly into the heart of Hollywood’s largest studio and scariest executive.
I loved the narrative manner this book is written in: a memoir, of sorts. It’s almost like an informal memoir not meant for anyone to really read one day. If one was going to write a memoir for public release of their great career as a movie star they wouldn’t have the guts to be as honest as Luli Wei (formerly CK) was in this book. Wouldn’t have been as brash or as honest. Memoirs are meant to be remembered by. This wasn’t meant for public consumption by Luli Wei–this memoir was meant for Luli Wei alone. Her life testimony, in hard copy, meant for her and her alone. (There’s a spoiler involved there, but I’m gonna hush.)
The prose is so lush and gothic, as if Hollywood was a secluded and isolated place only a select few entered and few ever truly left; or, if they did leave, they didn’t leave without leaving something of themselves behind. Imagine Hollywood days to be like a millinery, where everything runs around like a regular business, but people get blood drawn from being stuck with hat pins sometimes during the day, but at night that millinery has a secret opening behind a mirror in the changing room that leads to some sort of faerie realm, where everyone is both what they seem and something else entirely, too. Where human sacrifices are made, blood is spilled, spelled deals are inked, enchanted bargains are shook on, and it seems the night never ends until it needs to and everyone climbs back out through the mirror and back to the harsh reality of costumes that constrict your body, makeup that cakes your face, heels that pinch your toes and give you blisters, women who look at you with equal parts envy and venom, and men who look at you as either trash or property. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, someone always owns you, you always owe somebody something, and someone always owes you something. But as you get older, your social, economic, and political capital will go down. And, with that, so too your star will slowly but surely dim until it no longer shines in the Hollywood sky.
This is a book full of elegant sentences, barbed quotes, deeply flawed female characters, monstrous men, and yet still manages to convey a deep love for Old Hollywood and the sirens of the silver screen. I love how it brings all that love back to us readers while also reminding us that white people weren’t the only beautiful and incandescent stars in the sky back then.
Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and Tordotcom for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
I’ve been looking forward to this book all year and it didn’t disappoint me one bit. It was amazing.
This story at times had a bit of the same feel ofI’ve been looking forward to this book all year and it didn’t disappoint me one bit. It was amazing.
This story at times had a bit of the same feel of Zoje Stage’s “Baby Teeth”, in the way you had a miscommunication between mom and daughter that didn’t stem from deliberate maliciousness but from misplaced emotions and intentions that ended up with both parties completely misunderstanding one another with disastrous results, but thankfully this book didn’t end up with me sick to my tummy. This book took that idea of miscommunication between mother and daughter and elevated it, intertwining it with little white lies and tall tales we tell to our family members to obfuscate the horrible truths from them in order to preserve their minds, and sometimes even our own. Sometimes we sacrifice our own sanity just so our loved ones can sleep safe for once. As a mom, I can own up to that one myself.
This book also makes clear in both word and deed that nothing truly stays buried forever. Sundial may be the title of the book, but it’s also the book’s mantra: everything comes full circle in time. It’s the nature of the beast. With the majority of the book being set in the Mojave Desert, the bleak climate and its eroded landscape also serves as a terrific atmospheric metaphor for how the land will both destroy and reveal secrets: from abandoned mine shafts to shifting sands to desperate predators, the desert both keeps and reveals secrets in tandem and you never know if ghosts will stay where you put them.
With a frighteningly interesting story, compelling characters, and chilling atmosphere, this book is completely worth the read and a page-turner for sure. I highly suggest you check it out.
Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
This book is the biggest mash-up of literary and movie legacy I have ever seen, and at first I was here for it. It seemed like something that could alThis book is the biggest mash-up of literary and movie legacy I have ever seen, and at first I was here for it. It seemed like something that could almost be a weird B-movie: Raymond Chandler and Boris Karloff Fight the Mysterious Monsters of Hollywood.
Sadly, the book loses its momentum over and over again. The pace stutters and lurches. Starts and stops. Goes full throttle and then slams on the brakes. I’d be totally awake and sucked in during some sections and then nod off during others. Books like this frustrate me a great deal, because I believe when this happens it’s often a sign of poor content editing, or of letting the author have too long of a leash without reminding them that not every reader is going to going to like being led off on this wild goose chase that at points leans almost into Scooby-Doo territory.
This book, for me, was at its best when it most resembled a whacked-out B-movie starring Boris Karloff and Raymond Chandler. I just wish it had been able to keep its momentum and energy throughout the rest of the sections of the book, too. ...more
What I liked best about this book is that it’s got the perfect tone and pitch for a YA paranormal/ghost novel. I’m middle-aged now, but as I was readiWhat I liked best about this book is that it’s got the perfect tone and pitch for a YA paranormal/ghost novel. I’m middle-aged now, but as I was reading I reflected back on my teenage years and how much I loved ghost, horror, and paranormal novels and this book would have fit perfectly among those books. It has spunk, an interesting premise, and a touch of both occultism and the phenomena of urban legends that I’ve always adored.
One of the most interesting dichotomies in this book is how no main or supporting character in this book is reliable. We can’t even trust the tale of what the book’s protagonist, Erasmos, went through that has made him so notable in his hometown that gives birth to not only the book’s title but also lends him the authority to put the book’s plot into motion. And once that plot is put into motion, Erasmos and his best friend (and business partner), Rat, are suddenly sucked into what seems to be a never-ending series of events that take twists and turns over a series of months that only seem to become creepier and more violent as time goes on. And as events spiral downward, so does the physical and mental health of both Erasmos and Rat.
There is a romantic subplot in the middle of the book that I felt would’ve done the book a world of good had it been left out or changed. It slowed the book down and lessened the nice tension and suspense that permeated the rest of the book. It would’ve made the book shorter, but I think the book would’ve been much better for it.
All in all, it really is a great young adult ghost/paranormal story. If I were a teenager who devoured these sorts of books, I’d definitely pick it up. ...more
I love a good novella, especially in horror form. There’s just something about taking a terrible, horrific tale and managing to condense it down to soI love a good novella, especially in horror form. There’s just something about taking a terrible, horrific tale and managing to condense it down to something around 100 pages while still managing to tell a whole story and get your point across, as an author, that impresses me so much. It’s much the same thing with short stories, but since “Bloodsucker City” is a novella (clocking in at 138 pages in paperback format), I’ll save my breath gushing about short stories in the horror genre and get to the novella this story has the most in common with, style and plot-wise, but is also the complete opposite of: “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”.
And I mean it: this could be a female-centric version of “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption” if the timeline were changed to match the third wave of female incarceration in the United States during the 1930s and Stephen King wrote it as a horror novella. All the way from the unjust imprisonment of an innocent woman for life in a forbidding, stark, and miserable women’s prison perched atop a jagged mountain in the middle of nowhere to an unconventional escape… there are other similarities, but I don’t want to spoil anything.
The only reason I’ve given up those two details is because I believe the parallels between King’s novella and what Jim Towns’ has written here are completely intentional, and it really works. If you were to do a compare and contrast paper between the two novellas, it would be terrifically interesting, because what both protagonists (Elena in “Bloodsucker City” and Andy in King’s novella) go through is similar and horrific, but with such different definitions of horror. “Bloodsucker City” is the feminist horror dark mirror of “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption”, and I think that was the whole point: Prison is horrific for everyone, but as with every systemic institution in America, prison is more horrific for women than it is for men.
I really and truly enjoyed every page of this. I encourage you to pick it up. ...more
When I review and rate a book, the first thing I take into account is if I vibed with the book. If I don’t vibe with a book, IReal Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
When I review and rate a book, the first thing I take into account is if I vibed with the book. If I don’t vibe with a book, I can’t read it. The second thing, and probably the most vital thing, is how much fun I had reading the book; or, if you want to look at it through a different lens, how much I enjoyed the book. That enjoyment can come in myriad forms. This book’s enjoyment just came in the form of it being a fun book to read.
Am I a sucker for New Orleans lore? Yes. Unashamedly so. Do I love the decentralized religions like Voudun and all types of witchcraft? Always have! Do I love haunted houses (especially plantation houses) and mysteries? Oh yes. Do I love serial killers? Ever since I was a kid!
Did I find the book revelatory? No. Romantic? Not really? Steamy or spicy the way I like it? Not really. Did I find it kind of obvious? Pretty much.
But it was fun to read. And therefore it wasn’t time wasted. ...more
DNF - It's not a poorly-written book. I just got very triggered because I have had bariatric surgery, my mom almost died from complications from the sDNF - It's not a poorly-written book. I just got very triggered because I have had bariatric surgery, my mom almost died from complications from the same surgery, and I have a friend who passed away from stomach issues. I just couldn't with all the digestive issues talk. ...more
If someone dreamed up a romance novel (that wasn’t LGBT+ or a RH) that hit darn near close to all my buttons, it would look something eerily close to If someone dreamed up a romance novel (that wasn’t LGBT+ or a RH) that hit darn near close to all my buttons, it would look something eerily close to Sophie Lark’s “There Are No Saints”: a lot of build-up, both psychological and physical, thrills and chills that walk that knife’s edge of dirty and wrong and hot and twisted, two very different types of cats fighting over the same mouse, deliciously self-aware of how dark and morbid it is and not ashamed at all, characters who will literally kill for what they love, catastrophic levels of obsession, and a huge scene near the end that I could hardly breathe through while I was reading because it was so achingly beautiful to read (if you’ve read it, you know).
I didn’t stand a chance from the moment I read the first page of this book. I started reading and simply couldn’t stop. I soaked it up like it was the first full day of sunshine in spring. It was THAT good for me. It was a suspense-thriller. It was a suspense-romance. It was a suspense-thriller with some dark romance drizzled all over the top like dark chocolate syrup, flowing over the sides of the dish and flooding the table beneath it. It was decadent in its intent and execution and I loved every single minute of it. It was a top-notch effort from Lark.
To be clear: Be in a good head space when you start to read this, make sure you read any author’s notes or beware of trigger warnings. Take care of yourself during and after reading if you need to. This book definitely won’t be for everyone. But it DEFINITELY was one for me, and I’m excited as heck to read the next book in the duet, and these puppies are going to definitely be in physical copy on my shelf someday soon. ...more
I felt there was a night and day difference between this book and its predecessor book, “There Are No Saints”, and it resultedTrue Rating: 3.5 stars
I felt there was a night and day difference between this book and its predecessor book, “There Are No Saints”, and it resulted in me just not connecting with this book in the same way I did as the first book. Whereas the first book was very dark, violent, and almost decadent in its brutal build-up and eventual release of hot tension, this book felt like it had been sanded down. Cole and Mara had both been sanded down. The central conflict had been sanded down. It felt like someone had decided the first book was dark enough to let everyone take a breather in this book, when I felt like I would’ve liked to have seen everyone get a little more deeper, darker, and more violent–almost more primal and out for blood.
Was it still good? Yes. Or else I wouldn’t be giving it the rating I’m giving it. It was still a very good book. It was steamy, it was suspenseful… but I just wasn’t feeling the same love for it that I felt for “There Are No Saints”.
But there were a number of awesome plot devices and points I loved and a lot of scenes I really enjoyed. I own it, and as a duology, it’s a fine arc. ...more
You don’t have to be a believer in the paranormal or supernatural to have a healthy fear of the Appalachian Mountains and what deep, dark secrets lie You don’t have to be a believer in the paranormal or supernatural to have a healthy fear of the Appalachian Mountains and what deep, dark secrets lie beneath them. You don’t have to be a genius to know that the land itself in and around those mountains holds just as many deep and dark secrets, and many of those are more fresh and filled with blood and pain created not by geological time, but by humans themselves.
I was very tempted, with my ADD, geography degree, and manic energy after reading this fantastic book, to go off on a tangent about just how old the Appalachian Mountains are and about formation and what lies beneath and about how there’s so much we have yet to discover about this ancient mountain range still, but I took a deep breath, took a step back, and marinated on what needed to be said about this book that people needed to hear.
This book is set in and around Vanderbilt University, which is located in Nashville, which is located in Tennessee. So, from the start, we’ve got a private university that was paid for by Andrew Carnegie (a wealthy white man from the north) but presided over by a Methodist Epsicopalian Bishop who believed slavery was human nature, which is located in a confederate state whose eastern side is part of the Appalachians. There’s a lot to unpack there: socially, politically, economically, culturally… and this book dips a toe into a few of these things. It can’t help not to, because it all ties together. But this book is really about what people don’t like to talk about. The topics they try to skirt around. The ugly things: the blood soaked deep in the soil, the evil steeped in generations of people (and then the lack of evil in some people and the need to protect them from it), the pressure to publish or perish, systemic racism in academia, internalized homophobia, regrets, the things people will do to stave off death, and the things people will and won’t do for love.
And, of course, it’s about cool stuff too: the ancient magic in the land, the sacrifices the land requires to maintain it, curses, hauntings, american folklore, revenants, street-racing, bad boys, drugs, drinking, and necromantic magic.
This is, by no means, a fast read. Like the south tends to be, it moves slow. Reading this book is like taking a walk through black tar molasses while breathing that thick, humid air.
Andrew, our main character, is going through the same thing, and that’s why we’re going through it. We must endure what he does, because this is his story, and we move as he moves. He’s struggling. He’s sluggishly trying to move through life ever since his best friend, Eddie, committed suicide only days before Andrew was to join him at Vanderbilt. He’s suffocating on all the things he never got to say, aimless because he doesn’t know how to live without his best friend, and he’s clueless about what to do with the fortune, friends, and research Eddie left to him. He’s completely lost save the one thing he’s absolutely certain of: Eddie didn’t kill himself. So we, the reader, have to sit in the passenger seat as Andrew throws himself helplessly at idea after idea, trying to grasp onto anything at all that will help him prove Eddie didn’t kill himself. Meanwhile, he’s trying to come to terms with feelings he’d long shut in a box and put a lock on, trying to figure out who he can trust and who he can’t, trying to figure out how to let go and have a good time while he can, and trying to keep a grasp on reality even as a curse that had bound he and Eddie together since childhood keeps trying to drag him down into the ground.
This book is astoundingly good. It’s languid, horrific, slick, bloody, sticky, lazy, intense, sultry, cold, mysterious, frightful, and a well-deserved finger pointed at all of us as a reminder that no matter what you build on top of it, physical or otherwise, the land is the land, and the land holds multitudes of humanities sins. ...more
I thought this book would feel more like a dark fantasy “The Hunger Games”, but to me it actually felt about 60% “The Hunger Games” and 40% “Battle RoI thought this book would feel more like a dark fantasy “The Hunger Games”, but to me it actually felt about 60% “The Hunger Games” and 40% “Battle Royale”. And I liked that. I liked that a lot because “The Hunger Games” has hope. “Battle Royale? Well… “Battle Royale” shows you just how futile hope can be when the system is rigged against you. And this book sweeps hope out from under the character’s feet every time they get a glimpse of it.
Call me a cynic. A pessimist. A nihilist. But I’m here for the reality of systemic abuse of power structures and the futile fights against them by small bunches of idealists.
If “The Hunger Games” taught a generation of humans to fight back against the center of power and to try for equity (as things should be, I’m not denying that), then this book is a warning to another generation that it’s not as simple as you think it is. Change comes over time, and it doesn’t come without some heavy sacrifices and costs. You don’t change the world with squeaky clean hands.
Even though this is a dark fantasy novel, it feels more real for this perspective. That every act of rebellion will end in bloodshed. Every attempt at bucking the system will require sacrifice. And, more than anything, nothing ever goes to plan when power is involved.
It did take some time for this book to hook me. I didn’t really get sucked in until they were almost in the competition itself. But then I was in it, and I was in it until the end. And I was deeply satisfied by the end. ...more
Being a huge fan of Dana Isaly’s writing, I had really high hopes for this book, especially as I watched her wage an internal war on social media, debBeing a huge fan of Dana Isaly’s writing, I had really high hopes for this book, especially as I watched her wage an internal war on social media, debating back and forth on how she was going to end this book. We readers (especially those of us who stalked her Instagram ruthlessly for updates), were like little dogs sniffing the kitchen floor after dinner had been cooked, picking up every tiny morsel of news that leaked out about this book and as buzz and hype built and built and built. I don’t know about anyone else, but when the opportunity to join the arc team came out I leapt at the opportunity and was giddy when I got one of the very, very limited amounts of slots, even though I had pre-ordered the book as soon as I could.
By the time of release, we knew some stuff: it was going to be dark… VERY dark. It was going to be violent. It wasn’t going to be for the faint-at-heart, and it wasn’t going to be a traditional romance. We didn’t know the main male character’s name (yet). The synopsis only says “Him”. And we knew the FMC’s name would be Lyra. We knew Him is a sociopath and a murderer. And we knew that, somehow, these two end up together in some kind of dark, erotic, twisted, violent way. (And if you follow Dana on Instagram you might even know a bit more, but I’m trying to stay true to the spoiler-free mantra and assume not everyone who reads this review may have seen every post Dana ever posted on Instagram about this book).
This is NOT a love story, and the first people to tell you that would be Him and Lyra. Him is a sociopath, so feelings of any kind aren’t things he can easily sort out if they aren’t hate or rage, and Lyra loathes the idea of love. Lyra, as she tries to get across in several scenes in the book to different individuals, is something that changes and fades and can die. Lyra wants OBSESSION: someone to be as wholly consumed by her as she is by them, to be each other’s air and breath and blood, to never be parted until death… and when one of them goes the other goes too. To her, obsession is something that can’t be questioned and can’t fade, wither, or die out.
What I absolutely love about this book is that it could have been so easy to make the relationship between Him and Lyra look similar to a Joker and Harley Quinn situation, since Lyra would do absolutely anything and everything to prove her devotion and loyalty to Him, but Isaly doesn’t go there and do that. Lyra is very clearly written as being a disturbed individual with deeply-rooted narcissistic traits. Sadly, I identified with the narcissistic traits of Lyra a little too well, because I have Borderline Personality Disorder and two of the many things having BPD causes is having evident narcissistic traits and an issue with being very self-referencing. Lyra thinks she’s the most interesting person to talk about… I know the feeling. I’m not a psychological professional (just, you know, been Bi-Polar since I was about 11 and had BPD since I was about 18 and had Anxiety since I was about 14 and I’m only 43 now, so whatevs), but I genuinely FELT for Lyra when she talked about love versus obsession, because I’ve never felt love like I thought love would be like or what I wanted love to feel like--not even in my marriage that lasted 18 years… and that was a happy marriage. But was it what I dreamed of being loved like? NO. Not at all. I didn’t want to be someone’s sun, moon, and stars like Lyra, but I longed for buckets and heaps of passion and romance and gestures and someone who could match me wit for wit and smart for smart. I didn’t get that, and I mourn that loss, because I know I’ll never let anyone in that far ever again.
But OBSESSION is the key theme of this book, and it does it so dang well. There are a few gorgeous passages in chapters 16 and 17 that give us some insight into how each character’s obsession with the other manifests itself, thanks to the dual, 1st person-POV narrative. As soon as these two characters fall into one another, it’s as if the outside world and all who inhabit it become the least important things to both our main characters, and at first they’re a little wary everything will fall apart or they’ll be caught, but as they become more and more enmeshed with one another what becomes more important to both Him and Lyra is making the most out of the time they have and not worrying about everything else. As far as they’re concerned, if the end comes, it comes.
Of course, I can’t spoil the end for you. But I can tell you that if you’re after a HEA… I wouldn’t read this book. But I wholly approved of the ending, in all ways. The last scenes were so beautiful I was breathless.
But, then again, this whole book left me breathless. The writing, the characters, the depth and breadth of creativity, the darkness, the mood of it, the vibe of it, how enjoyable it was to read despite the overall tone, the beauty of the entire book, the tragedy and beauty to be found in the themes, the spice (!!!!), and that breathtaking ending. I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since I read it yesterday morning.
Congratulations, Dana. For all the time and hard work and worrying… It's a masterpiece. ...more
Correlation doesn’t equal causation, but don’t try telling Wyatt, the main character in “The Violent Season” that. She’s convinced pretty much down toCorrelation doesn’t equal causation, but don’t try telling Wyatt, the main character in “The Violent Season” that. She’s convinced pretty much down to her marrow that in her tiny hometown of Wolf Ridge, the month of November means the whole town comes down with what she calls the “November illness”, which every year as long as she can remember has coincided with one or more major crime resulting in death happening during the month of November. And last year, the crime was the brutal homicide of her mother, which is still unsolved.
Her best friend and man she loves, Cash, keeps telling her that it’s just because everyone has the potential to be bad and to do bad things. Her dad has just been kind of lost since her mom was murdered. The police department doesn’t even seem to care anymore, and no one else seems spooked by the annual November murders. But Wyatt is. She can see the violence in Cash’s eyes when he talks about their classmate Porter, and she can feel a certain darkness even within herself. Her mother’s ghost haunts the upstairs of their house, and Wyatt desperately wants to know who killed her mom and why, even as she’s soaked in guilt and grief over how much she and her mom fought and how their parting words to one another were anything but kind.
“The Violent Season” really tosses the ball in the air and asks the reader to inspect the inherent darkness of human nature from a variety of angles. This isn’t about good or evil, because those are moral constructs and morals are subjective. This is about the shades of grey that are within us all. Interspersed with the main narrative (and sometimes mentioned in the main narrative) there are stories of other crimes that happened in November in this town that make you ask: was this a violent crime, or just an accident? Was this an accident or a brutal murder? When someone has obviously been bullied and harassed, who’s to blame for their suicide? Is there anyone to blame at all but the mental illness in their brain? If a child shoots another child because they got a hold of a gun, is that an inherently violent act? I’m not here to weigh in with my opinion on these matters. I’m here to tell you this book wants you to look at the nature of the darkness inside all of us and examine it from different angles. What looks violent to one person might just look like a sad accident to someone else.
I’ve read a lot of good psychological/thriller/horror books as of late, and this was a great one, but it wasn’t one I think I’d read again and again. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I totally recommend it because the characters are vastly interesting and I do love a fiendishly compelling look into aspects of human nature. Because violence can be virulent. Studies on gun violence have proven that. But just because murders and ice cream sales both increase during the summer doesn’t mean that ice cream makes you want to murder someone. Correlation versus causation. ...more
I’m looking at other reviews for this book on various sites and I’m seeing that my rating–and even my interpretation and reading of this book–is very I’m looking at other reviews for this book on various sites and I’m seeing that my rating–and even my interpretation and reading of this book–is very different from most others. Mainly in that I loved every single bit of this book and totally understood every choice the author made.
It started out a little rough in the first 10% or so, as I tried to get my bearings and figure out what exactly was going on and why the author chose the narrative and prose styles used. Once I had that down I totally tucked into this beautifully-written, tragic, and yet triumphant book.
Some readers will have an issue with the prose and narrative in this novel, and that’s understandable. It’s a mix of lyrical prose, a touch of freeform poetry, and an ephemeral time-stream-of-consciousness. It’s definitely experimental, but devastatingly beautiful and perfect for this book (unlike some other books with experimental writing I’ve read this year so far).
There are just so many layers and themes in this book: misogyny, halcyon summers, how there are some places where you are always your authentic self to the exclusion of all others, and how there are some people you can only be your authentic self around without worrying about the eyes of the world outside judging you and holding you to certain expectations.
I especially loved the constant references to the term “naiad”. Naiads, in mythology, are female guardians of still waters. They can be deadly (look at what happened to poor Hylas), and the waters they inhabit have the ability to heal. In Greek mythology, boys and girls cut off a lock of their hair and tossed it into the local spring inhabited by their naiad at their coming-of-age ceremony. Once you read the book you’ll see why the double-meaning of naiads (both in an etymological way and an unmentioned mythological way) makes a stunning amount of sense in a macabre and beautiful manner.
Also, There’s a poem mentioned, quoted, and repeated in parts by Emily Dickonson called “My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun”, which is about keeping women silent–about taking away their voices. And this theme looms very large in the book.
I was entranced by this stunning book, written so carefully and gorgeous I couldn’t stop reading. I knew what was going to happen. I knew what was happening. But that was absolutely okay with me because it let me get lost in the words… and those words were worth the entire trip.
Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Wednesday Books for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review. ...more
DNF. Got to part two of the book and realized I felt like I had been reading this book forever and it was like wading through molasses in winter. It sDNF. Got to part two of the book and realized I felt like I had been reading this book forever and it was like wading through molasses in winter. It sounded so promising!...more
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