gabberjaws's reviews
554 reviews

 You know that one episode of Friends, where Joey has to write a recommendation letter to an adoption agency on Monica and Chandler's behalf, and how, on his first attempt, he uses the thesaurus on every single word? Yeah, that's what this book felt like.

Listen. I like flowery, lyrical prose as much as the next person, but my god. Did every single line have to be this deep, mishmash of utter nonsense that barely conveyed what this author was trying to say? I went into this book expecting a profound, horror-tinged character study; what I got was a migraine.

This book was filled with little nuggets of gold like this and,,, what the fuck is ANY of this supposed to mean!?

The worst part is that I got the distinct impression of smugness from the writing. Like it thought it was clever and intensely profound with its verbosity, and that I, the reader, should be in awe at what I was reading. No, friend. I just want to understand.

If the bad writing wasn't bad enough, I was also struggling to see the point of this book. If it was just a metaphor of a rocky marriage, and finding the strength and love to work through your problems and come out the other end still together, then... it was okay,??? I guess??? But if there was something more it was trying to say, I genuinely don’t see it.

There was so much build up and so many horror elements seemingly tossed in there for the heck of it, that it ended up muddying the waters to the point that even the marriage commentary was nearly drowned out. And if the study of this rocky marriage was the only point to this book, then it was entirely too long and not at all worth it. The horror had no pay-off and the commentary was about as substantial as onion skin. 

 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. 

 Firstly, I wanna say that I hate that I enjoyed the movie adaptation of this book (fuck you, Polanski).

Secondly, there's a reason why this book and its movie are talked about as much as they are. They're good.

The general ... oddness of the events that take place in this book, as well as Levin's matter-of-fact writing make this a very tense novel. Watching this horror that Rosemary was forced to go through unfold was deeply disturbing and even sickening at times.

I'd seen the movie before I read the book, so I'm not entire sure if this was just because I was coming into things with the knowledge of how things played out, but not once did it feel like I, the reader, was supposed to believe that Rosemary was imagining things. I don't know what it was, but something about Levin's writing made it crystal clear when the villains were lying or manipulating Rosemary. You could sense their panic when something was going wrong with their plans. I appreciated that - especially in a story about a woman being gaslit and manipulated from almost the very first page, it's nice that the narration was able to say, "yeah, no, this is fucked up. These people are evil."

I also appreciated how the book highlighted Guy's shitiness. The movie sorta focused more on the Castavets, but the book is constantly showing us how fucking awful Guy is, and I for one am glad because that man is an absolute shitstain of a human being and does not deserve to have his actions downplayed.

All in all, this book was great at evoking strong feelings of discomfort, disgust, unease, and visceral hatred. Just what you want in a horror novel. 

 

I think my biggest problem is that I still can’t articulate what I expected from this book.

This is loosely based on a truly horrific real life acts that took place in a Mennonite community from 2005-2009, and the book sells itself on that. So I went into this expecting something revolutionary and poignant.

The women talking was, in and of itself revolutionary, true. And watching them hold on to their faith while coming to terms with the horrible things that had happened to them was impactful. But like I said, the book sells itself on the real life events, and I think I wanted more from this. 

There's a throwaway line about 53% of the way into the book that let me exactly what was going on here, and I'd like to thank David Attenborough and my love for nature documentaries for giving me that little revelation. Actually, I don't know if Mr. Attenborough was even the host of that doc, but I'm gonna thank him anyway because I love that old guy.

I digress.

Much like T. Kingfisher herself, I too read The Fall of the House of Usher when I was a kid, and therefore do not remember much of it. I do remember the basic plot and based on my admittedly foggy memory of it, I think Kingfisher struck very close to the source material in terms of structure.

Narrator travels to Usher Manor because friend's sister is dying. Sister dies. Sister comes back to life all stronk as fuck. Narrator and dead woman's brother destroy the manor and flee. You get the gist.

Where Kingfisher deviates from the original Poe tale is in the layers.

And my god, what delicious layers they were. This short little tale is filled to the brim with Kingfisher's signature humor - which felt comforting, but never managed to distract you from how fucking weird everything was. And, as I might have mentioned in previous reviews, Kingfisher does weird so well. Everything was creepy, and odd, and more than a little fucked up, and as comforting as Easton and kan wisecracking was, the weird never went away.

I really enjoyed this book. It was a quick read, and Kingfisher brought so much depth to the story with her additions. The characters - Easton, Ms Potter and Angus, in particular - were charming, as usual. The horror was weird and wacky and unsettling, and made this feel like a wholly original piece of work, despite me knowing that this was a retelling. If you like weird, creepy little horrors and spooky retellings, you'll love this.

PS:

I spent almost the entire book thinking to myself that T.Kingfisher would adore Mexican Gothic, and I was super pleased to discover in her author's note that, not only had she read and loved it, but MG had inspired the horror element in this! What fun.

Friends, I hope if you ever think a demon is trying to possess you, you’ll take it a little more seriously than this book’s MC did.

This was really engrossing, and a super straight forward account of a demonic possession. But besides the

commentary on women needing to be a certain way to be accepted by men (and society at large)

, the book didn’t do too much with it.

Amanda’s nonchalant attitude towards the possession made things feel sorta... mundane, and I couldn't really find myself caring about anyone or anything. Like, oh no. The demon is shopping. How awful.

TL;DR:interesting premise. Meh execution. Engrossing writing. 

I want to start off the review by saying that my absolute favourite thing about this series is how firmly the author refuses to hide behind the racist refrain that diversity in regency stories is anachronistic. There's a Black MC; there's a biracial, brown MC; there's a disabled supporting character (whose disability we actually forget about sometimes because it doesn't define his character); and there have been austistic characters. Finding out 

Susan and Eliza were a couple IN THE TEXT. AS CANON. 

instead of it remaining subtext the whole time was the cherry on top.

Death at the Manor is, due to its gothic vibes, an edgier and slightly saucier entry to this franchise. Don't get me wrong, it's still an incredibly cozy mystery novel, just like its predecessors, but it's definitely a little darker than it's older siblings.

I'm still not 100% sure how much I liked DatMs foray into the gothic fields, but thought the mystery was very well done. The Howdunit was pretty obvious from the get-go, but the Who and Why dunits didn't become really obvious until about 60% of the way through. Which is another thing I like about this series; it's hard to guess the culprit based on vibes, like with most other cozy mysteries. We, the readers, have to examine and collect evidence right alongside the MCs. It's great!

I also really enjoyed getting to see things from Ofelia's perspective a little more. We're getting to see her step off of Lily's coat-tails and become an active investigator, and we're also getting to step out of Lily's head and see things from outside her field of view, which is also really nice.

The biggest let-down in this book for me was probably Captain Hartley's absence. His character lends a bit of levity and cheekiness to the cast that no one else quite fills. Not even Ned, though he tries. I think the tone of this novel could have really used some of the Hartley charm remind us of the series' less serious roots. But maybe that's just me. 

 Becky Chambers really just sat down and went "I'm gonna give my readers a comforting hug via book" huh?

There are books that come to you at the right time, and A Psalm for The Wild-Built was absolutely one of those. I've had an incredibly stressful month and a half and this was exactly what I needed. I understood sibling Dex's worries, fears and anxieties about their purpose at a core level, and Mosscap's gentle reassurances were a soothing balm to my soul.

TL;DR: This was short, incredibly comforting, and made me cry. 10/10 

This is super dry, repetitive, and definitely feels like it's gonna have a Classic Terry Non-ending, too. I'm calling it.

This was Pretty Little Liars (but good) meets Gossip Girl meets Get Out. Before I read this book, if anyone had told me that these three things would make a good combo, I'd have laughed them out of the room. But man, the execution on this was sublime.

There's not a lot I can say about this book without giving something away. I think it's best to go into this with as little information as you can.

The only reason I docked half a star was because the characters took a little too long to figure out the WhyDunnit of the big mystery, and honestly, in the year of our lord 2022, it should have been their very first guess.