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juushikaTitle: Vespertine
Author: Margaret Rogerson
Published: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2021
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 400
Total Page Count: 485,710
Text Number: 1720
Read Because: reviewed bytamaranth, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: 3.5 stars rounded up. When a novice nun takes possession of a revenant to protect her abbey from attack, she's forced to flee, to save her people, and to rethink with everything she thought she knew about relationships between the sighted and the spirits they cleanse and possess. This is in every word, and I mean every plot reveal, every character arc, supremely predictable - but in a kind of "Holy Shit! Two Cakes!" way: want some grumpy soulbonding and an outsider character carving her little niche in the world? good news, this is heaps of that, with a gloomy/spooky aesthetic for good measure.
I wish it weren't so easy. There's a scene where the protagonist is explicitly told"you (a perceived saint) are not obligated to help us (save the entire city)" which is indicative of the tonal issues: at least on a social level, the wish-fulfillment is so complete as to be unrelatable, almost alienating despite the obvious good intentions. But I still liked this, in no small part because I am the holy-shit-two-cakes audience: I love this trope and won't turn down another take on it.
Title: The Animals at Lockwood Manor
Author: Jane Healey
Published: Mariner Books, 2021 (2020)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 345
Total Page Count: 486,585
Text Number: 1722
Read Because: this appears on most every queer gothic recommendations list; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Accompanying a natural history museum evacuating part of its collection in anticipation of the Blitz, our protagonist moves to Lockwood manor and meets its tyrannical head and beautiful, fragile heir. It's an interesting combination of elements - decrepit manor filled with taxidermy and repressed lesbians and potential hauntings - but clumsily handled, a debut effort which is slow-moving in parts and has an over-explained, heavy-handed ending
Title: The House of the Seven Gables
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Published: 1981
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 110 of 220
Total Page Count: 486,695
Text Number: 1723
Read Because: mentioned in Colin Dickey's Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, ebook free via Gutenberg
Review: DNF at 50%. This is actually very readable, and I was probably getting to the good bits just when I stopped, but Hawthorne is a very funny writer, full of charming anecdotes; and I had my funny bone excised at birth. This just didn't work for me.
Author: Margaret Rogerson
Published: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 2021
Rating: 3.5 of 5
Page Count: 400
Total Page Count: 485,710
Text Number: 1720
Read Because: reviewed by
tamaranth, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County LibraryReview: 3.5 stars rounded up. When a novice nun takes possession of a revenant to protect her abbey from attack, she's forced to flee, to save her people, and to rethink with everything she thought she knew about relationships between the sighted and the spirits they cleanse and possess. This is in every word, and I mean every plot reveal, every character arc, supremely predictable - but in a kind of "Holy Shit! Two Cakes!" way: want some grumpy soulbonding and an outsider character carving her little niche in the world? good news, this is heaps of that, with a gloomy/spooky aesthetic for good measure.
I wish it weren't so easy. There's a scene where the protagonist is explicitly told
Title: The Animals at Lockwood Manor
Author: Jane Healey
Published: Mariner Books, 2021 (2020)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 345
Total Page Count: 486,585
Text Number: 1722
Read Because: this appears on most every queer gothic recommendations list; ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Accompanying a natural history museum evacuating part of its collection in anticipation of the Blitz, our protagonist moves to Lockwood manor and meets its tyrannical head and beautiful, fragile heir. It's an interesting combination of elements - decrepit manor filled with taxidermy and repressed lesbians and potential hauntings - but clumsily handled, a debut effort which is slow-moving in parts and has an over-explained, heavy-handed ending
Title: The House of the Seven Gables
Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Published: 1981
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 110 of 220
Total Page Count: 486,695
Text Number: 1723
Read Because: mentioned in Colin Dickey's Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, ebook free via Gutenberg
Review: DNF at 50%. This is actually very readable, and I was probably getting to the good bits just when I stopped, but Hawthorne is a very funny writer, full of charming anecdotes; and I had my funny bone excised at birth. This just didn't work for me.
