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Book Review: My Darling Dreadful Thing by Johanna van Veen
Title: My Darling Dreadful Thing
Author: Johanna van Veen
Published: Poisoned Pen Press, 2024
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 380
Total Page Count: 529,380
Text Number: 1939
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist performs false séances, but she has a true spirit companion that only she can see. The vibes here are earnest and appealing: gothic abundances set in 1950s Netherlands, with spirit companions that look distinctly dead and nibble the blood & tears of their human partners; a Rebecca inversion with seductive sapphic tendencies. Unfortunately, this is a debut, so the "but" is predictable: lackluster writing. There are exceptions, namely the loving, precise descriptions of physical injury, but both in plot structure and on sentence-level, this feels raw, clumsy, killing much of the atmosphere and pushing the mystery/thriller narrative frame (the protagonist accused of a crime she attributes to her companion) to a tedious breaking point.
Author: Johanna van Veen
Published: Poisoned Pen Press, 2024
Rating: 2.5 of 5
Page Count: 380
Total Page Count: 529,380
Text Number: 1939
Read Because: personal enjoyment, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Our protagonist performs false séances, but she has a true spirit companion that only she can see. The vibes here are earnest and appealing: gothic abundances set in 1950s Netherlands, with spirit companions that look distinctly dead and nibble the blood & tears of their human partners; a Rebecca inversion with seductive sapphic tendencies. Unfortunately, this is a debut, so the "but" is predictable: lackluster writing. There are exceptions, namely the loving, precise descriptions of physical injury, but both in plot structure and on sentence-level, this feels raw, clumsy, killing much of the atmosphere and pushing the mystery/thriller narrative frame (the protagonist accused of a crime she attributes to her companion) to a tedious breaking point.