Review: Young Gothic by M.A. Bennett

Young Gothic by M.A. Bennett
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Filled with deadly secrets and the monsters you thought only existed in your mind ...

You've heard of Frankenstein's monster, you've heard of Dracula, but have you heard of the Villa Diodati? Eve, Griffin, Hal and Ren embark on a summer they'll never forget at the birthplace of all things Gothic.

The summer is beset by mysterious happenings, as the monsters they create begin to clamber out of their minds. Events rise to a horrible climax when, on a dark and stormy night, one of the villa's guests is found dead and each of our foursome becomes a suspect in a gruesome murder.

It was supposed to be the trip of a lifetime. But when the stuff of nightmares becomes their reality, will they make it out alive?

--
Okay, so it's been a while since I've written a book review because I've been so busy with PhD work, but I just had to write about this one! This book has everything I like: creepy castles, creepy owners of castles, creepy doppelgangers, and twists I just did not see coming!

I'm always a bit wary about books with multiple first-person narrators, and this one has four, but it was done so well. Each of the narrators--Eve, Griffin, Hal, and Ren--was so distinguishable, and I really, really enjoyed seeing their personalities shine through their writing styles.

The intertextuality of this book was amazing. Seriously good. Spoilers ahead! Bennett cleverly and subtly (and not so subtly in places!) wove in references to so many 19th century gothic novels. Frankenstein, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, and The Vampyre. Eve, one of the narrators, is a gothic novel enthusiast, and so she made so many links within her narratives and references that I (as a fellow gothic novel enthusiast) got. Hal is a film enthusiast, and there was so much intertextuality for films too, but I wasn't familiar with most of those and so it didn't have quite the same 'aha moment' effect on me... but it's definitely signposted me to a lot of films to watch.

The pacing in this novel was excellent, but the only bit that threw me was the ending where Griffin's ex/stalker came into the story. Suddenly, it almost seemed like a different novel--though it was now leaning toward An Inspector Calls. But I really did like the pregnancy/baby storyline. In fact, there were two pregnancies (though Eve's was historic and she had an abortion). My PhD research is primarily about pregnancy horror and so this book definitely fits that for me--though this one is more centred around a pregnant character (or two) in a horror story, rather than the pregnancy being the source of the horror.

The characters in this novel were (I think) 18 to 20. It read a little older than most YA, but it still felt YA overall to me. And I loved this.

Other things I also loved:

- the creepy reveal about the servants' tongues having been cut off

- the architecture of the castle and there was a lake

- how the four main characters were re-creating the iconic visit of the Dead Poets 200 years ago.

I will definitely be reading the sequel!

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Review: LIES LIKE POISON by Chelsea Pitcher

 

Lies Like Poison by Chelsea Pitcher
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Poppy, Lily, and Belladonna would do anything to protect their best friend, Raven. So when they discovered he was suffering abuse at the hands of his stepmother, they came up with a lethal plan: petals of poppy, belladonna, and lily in her evening tea so she’d never be able to hurt Raven again. But someone got cold feet, the plot faded to a secret of the past, and the group fell apart.

Three years later, on the eve of Raven’s seventeenth birthday, his stepmother turns up dead. But it’s only belladonna found in her tea, and it’s only Belladonna who’s carted off to jail. Desperate for help, Belle reaches out to her estranged friends to prove her innocence. They answer the call, but no one is prepared for what comes next.

Now, everyone has something to lose and something equally dangerous to hide. And when the tangled web of secrets and betrayal is finally unwound, what lies at its heart will change the group forever

--

So, when I was first getting into audiobooks, I was browsing YA thrillers on audible and I came across this one--instantly, I was hooked. I downloaded it immediately--along with a few others--and then I had technology problems and couldn't access my audiobooks! Oh no! Eventually, I sorted it out, but I'd forgotten which book this one was. All I remembered was the main characters shared names with flowers and there was murder, and I was desperately trying to work out which book it was.

So, a few months later, when I'd finished my most recent listen and clicked randomly onto this title (my audible app doesn't show book descriptions), I was delighted to realise IT WAS THIS BOOK! And this book is incredible.

Complex female characters? Yes. Complex male characters? Yes. Complex transitioning characters? Yes. LGBT relationships? Strong character voices and narrative writing? Yes. Beautiful imagery? Yes. And a plot that just grabs you right away? Yes.

THIS BOOK WAS AMAZING! It's haunting and breathtaking and I could not stop listening to it. Chelsea Pitcher is now one of my favourite YA writers ever. And I must give a shoutout to the narrators too: Emmett Grosland, Emily Ellet, Amanda Dolan, and Kevin Free.

The book is told via multiple narrators and across multiple timelines. When the characters were little, Poppy, Belladonna, and Lily planned to poison Raven's evil step-mother--shortly after the murder of Raven's mother. They didn't do it. Now, the characters are 17, and Raven's just returned from the boarding school is father sent him to, to find out his step mother actually has been murdered and Belladonna's been arrested. The 'recipe' for murder that they came up with as children as apparently now been followed. Jack (previously named Poppy--and the book follows his transition) is desperate to clear Belladonna's name and ropes in Lily and Raven to help.

And this book is just so delicious. All the characters are so 3D. Lily's dark and sinister, suffering an eating disorder due to her mother's abuse. Belladonna is obsessed with fairytales--dark tales--having been adopted by a man who locked her up at night after his biological daughter was abducted. Jack has secrets of his own--from the clothes he burned on the night of Raven's step-mother's murder to his preference to be called 'Jack' and using him/his pronouns. And Raven--well, Raven is the character that haunted me the most. There's something eerie about him, namely stemming from the scene we're shown early on where as children all the characters were playing at fairy tales and he was lying 'dead' in a coffin.

So who did the murder?

Well, I must confess that I did realise who the murderer of the step-mother was quite early on. Not because all clues pointed to that person, but through process of deduction I realised it couldn't be anyone else. What I didn't expect was to find out the identity of the murderer of Raven's real mother too. That was edge-of-your-seat-stuff.

The only thing that bugged me a bit about this book was how when we're halfway through, we suddenly are introduced to narration by Raven as well. Up until that point, the narration had been told by Jack, Lily, and Belladonna only--so I did find it a little jarring.

But this is an amazing YA thriller! It's just so atmospheric and haunting and I loved it so much.

Content warnings for: abuse, eating disorders, suicidal talk.



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Review: Jane: A Retelling by Lark Watson

Jane: A Retelling by Lark Watson
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Unfortunately this is a DNF for me at 10%. I am just not sure what to make of this book... On the one hand, this is described as a gothic romance retelling of Jane Eyre, and I love Jane Eyre retellings and anything gothic. But this book just didn’t do it for me. It felt flat, there was little characterisation for anyone other than the MC, and it lacked the atmospheric imagery typically found in gothic novels.

The pacing at the start seemed off to me—there’s a lot of exposition for Jane’s background in the very first chapter, which does build her character well, but it just seems too much in one go, particularly as every moment of her interview is given to us, yet in the chapters that follow we’ve got whole months passing in a page. This really disrupted the rhythm, and I’d have appreciated it a bit more if we were given more time with Jane as she settles into her new job, so we can see what it’s like, rather than just being told what happens over the course of a month. (I did love the how Jane clashed with the interviewer though, but in a quiet way.)

Linked into this, I also found there was lots of telling and not much showing. Jane’s being employed as a nanny, yet when she meets Adelia and begins nannying, we aren’t given anything to tell us about the girl from Jane’s POV, her impressions of her, or any descriptions really. Whole days pass in a single paragraph, and a page later and a whole month has passed and we know little about five-year-old Adelia or Jane’s relationship with her. What we do know about the girl is told rather than shown, such as: “But, I realized nothing would save me if I didn’t have a gift in hand as Adelia was a very materialistic girl” and it was the first time I began to get a sense of who the little girl was/what her personality is—but it didn’t grab me as the writing just seemed flat and I would’ve liked to have seen examples that proved Adelia was materialistic rather than being told it. Things like this should’ve been integrated into the story more, and I’m afraid I just didn’t connect as there’s very little about Adelia’s personality.

Instead, the language used to describe Adelia at times “others” her. Before we even meet Adelia (and in fact, we don’t get to witness an introduction with the girl) another character calls her “odd” as she doesn’t speak English. This isn’t called out by the protagonist—not even internally, which first person narrative allows for—and is just left to pass as a normal comment which in itself is problematic. It places her nationality as inferior to the other characters’ nationalities, and almost suggests the only thing worth noting as she is introduced is her otherness. There’s nothing about her personality at this point—which could’ve easily been slipped in if we’d been given a scene where the two meet.

Yet even this portrayal of Adelia as Other is not consistent, as we are given her dialogue in English and there’s very little, if anything, about her Spanish culture, except for that she’s “odd”. The protagonist is supposed to also be conversing with Adelia in Spanish, but I just didn’t believe it. Coming from a household where one of my parents would regularly speak Spanish and I knew it growing up, we’d have little Spanish phrases we’d all use (even slipping them into conversations that were otherwise spoken in English) and it would’ve been nice to see something similar as it would’ve just made it more believable—and it would’ve *shown* a bit more, which there was very little of.

By the time we get to where the gothic tropes come into play—Jane seeing a person in a window of a house that she’s told is empty—I’d unfortunately lost interest. It also didn’t help that even these scenes were basically told to readers with the exception of one or two nice images. The author could’ve really made these into atmospheric moments with lots of evocative imagery and gothic language, and I was disappointed to find this wasn’t the case.

I’m also under the impression this is a romance, but 10% into the story, and we don’t seem to have met the love interest. To me, this is another pacing issue.

So at the moment this is a DNF for me. Unfortunately, it’s just not my cup of tea.


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