I really don't think that every female character needs rape in their backstory to make her trauma more interesting. And for real this book is kind a torture porn. Sure its captivating and mysterious and even funny at times but jeez it would have worked without the gore and torture and rape!

If you want to read something similar in vibes but less graphic (not without but certainly a lot less gore) pick up Gideon the ninth and not this one.

It was a real page turner but I did skip a couple of pages here and there as the descriptions were pretty graphic.

This book deals with a lot of challenging issues of violence against women and children, and I'm struggling with how necessary or healthy it is to engage with, at least for me.

I’m finding it challenging to rate this book. I did really enjoy the story overall and was glued to the page at several points, but the execution just wasn’t there in the end. There was a lot I liked and a lot that didn’t work for me. Let’s dig in. Spoilers abound.

Technical comments:

The author did a great job of imbuing each POV character with a distinctive voice, despite writing in the third person.  I was impressed with how well these came across. That said, my expectations for the story’s tone and cadence were set by the initial chapters following Carolyn. The shift to other characters was jarring. It took me out of the story so completely that I had a hard time connecting with or accepting some of the wilder plot points. (Steve’s entire escape from the dead one’s house to the vet with Naga being a notable example.) This is an area where I feel that the author’s strengths in giving the characters distinct voices actually did the story a disservice.

On a related note, I h a t e d the way that spoken non-standard English dialects were written. (Thinking mainly of Erwin’s chapters, but also Steve’s in some places.) It’s off-putting to have entire chapters dedicated to eloquently and explicitly describing ritualized child abuse in the same book as characters who say, “lissen,” “ah’ite,” “g’wan,” “daaaayum” (four As, I checked!), and “da fuck.” Like, it felt disrespectful of the gravity of the tale because it did not feel authentic in the least. If this stylistic choice had been pulled off better then, yeah, sure, do it. But the execution was not good and got worse as the book progressed.

Otherwise, the prose was fairly strong and moving. Well, Carolyn’s parts were. I understand why we couldn’t follow her the whole way through, but would that we could’ve. :’)

Some disjointed commentary on plotting and characterization:

I really enjoyed the mythological fantasy elements, like the backstory of the king of the lions and his daughter. They went a long way toward fleshing out the world in which Carolyn, Father, and the other librarians are operating.

I would have liked a bit more from the confrontation/passing of the torch with Father at the end. It felt like he was given a pass on his HORRIFIC abuses of these kids (and, honestly, for what! Carolyn killed them all in the end anyway) and just got to be like, “I’m sorry I tortured you and your friends for 15 years but it was for ~ your greater good ~ ok.” And Carolyn is just like, “Yeah ok have fun in your new universe!”  ????

The pacing was a bit uneven in the middle section of the book and felt almost frenetic by the end. It still mostly worked for me, though. Steve becoming the new sun was a nice and fitting end for his character arc.