#liber monstrorum reviews | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

liber---monstrorum · 1 year

Text

A Review of Briardark by S.A. Harian.

SUMMARY

For Dr. Siena Dupont and her ambitious team, the Alpenglow glacier expedition is a career-defining opportunity. But thirty miles into the desolate Deadswitch Wilderness, they discover a missing hiker dangling from a tree, and their satellite phone fails to call out. Then the body vanishes without a trace. The disappearance isn’t the only chilling anomaly. Siena’s map no longer aligns with the trail. The glacier they were supposed to study has inexplicably melted. Strange foliage overruns the mountainside, and a tunnel within a tree hollow lures Siena to a hidden cabin, and a stranger with a sinister message… Holden Sharpe’s IT job offers little distraction from his wasted potential until he stumbles upon a decommissioned hard drive and an old audio file. Trapped on a mountain, Dr. Siena Dupont recounts an expedition in chaos and the bloody death of a colleague. Entranced by the mystery, Holden searches for answers to Siena’s fate. But he is unprepared for the truth that will draw him to the outskirts of Deadswitch Wilderness—a place teeming with unfathomable nightmares and impossibilities. (source)

Official content warnings: Gore, character death, terror, language, existential dread, mental illness, emotional abuse; more content warnings listed on Storygraph

REVIEW (disclaimer: I recieved a digital review copy of Briardark through Netgalley in exchange for a review.) Whatever I expected from Briardark, it wasn't this.

To tell the truth, I went in not knowing what to expect; the publishers introduce it as "perfect for fans of LOST and House of Leaves," two properties which I haven't yet touched (I know, I know, HoL is on my TBR this year). Based on my scant knowledge of these properties I assumed that meant people would be lost in a weird place.

In Briardark, people sure are lost in a weird place, but it gets so much wilder and bizarre than I could have ever dreamed of. Typically when a book is shilled as a horror thriller, it's just a horror book with a bit of thriller or a thriller book lumped into the horror category because it's a thriller. This, however, is a true horror thriller; the twists in this book are insane, and this is from someone who usually sees "twists" coming from a million miles away. Every single one not only ramps up the tension but also does something clever to tweak an aspect of reality we thought we could trust. Harian is also very patient when it comes to the reveal. Nothing's ever rushed, and the payoff for elements introduced or revealed can take chapters, if not hundreds of pages.

It's a quick read, too, despite its length (350+ pages, 10+ hour audiobook!). The pacing is excellent, knowing when to slow and take in the view and when to hurtle forward over the edge. Several times while reading, I would go to update my reading progress and realize that I'd only read five pages, but with all that had happened I'd expected 20+. In Briardark, stuff just keeps happening and doesn't stop.

THE PEOPLE While the blurb implies that there will only be two POVs, Briardark actually gives every character in Seina's team a POV. Siena and Holden are the main characters, yes, and most of the narrative is told from their perspective, but the narrative also isn't afraid to shift over to another character when necessary--usually when folks split up (or get split up). The reader isn't being shuffled around character's heads willy-nilly.

Normally I'm not a fan of multiple POVs; for me, more than two POV characters is pushing it. Briardark, however, does a really excellent job of handling multiple POVs. It establishes the characters firmly from Siena's POV first, allowing readers to become familiar with who they are before swapping. Also (and this important), every character is both unique and enjoyable.

Out of all the cast, Cam is my favorite. She's a well written lesbian character, something I always appreciate and rarely see. She's allowed to have a close, meaningful relationship with Siena, a straight woman, without ever being attracted to her. Siena never even considers the possibility. Cam's capable, respected in her field and her colleagues, and the trauma she has from her involvement with Briardark in the past is handled really well. I know these things can seem low bar to hurdle, but I'm starved for good lesbian rep, especially in horror/thriller books. I really hope to see more from her in the second book--her plotline was, to me, one of the ones I'm most invested in.

THE PLACE The establishment of place is beautifully done. The book is set in an absolutely awe-inspiring wilderness. Despite the fact I would definitely die immediately (and not even due to anything eldritch, just from the hiking), I'd love to visit.

One of the best pieces of advice I got from my writing classes was to treat place as another character. It's just as important as the human characters in a story, if not more so; the Deadswitch Wild, Briardark, even individual rooms all have their own character. This, of course, goes double for when the wild starts to get weird and eldritch (in more ways than one).

Honestly, I'm usually not one to be pro-map in books. I think they're fine, but I usually don't use them. I think that Briardark would benefit greatly from having a map included; maybe not necessarily in the beginning, but several maps are mentioned over the course of the book, and I was just dying for them to be included as an illustration or in the back. I read an advanced digital reader's copy through Netgalley, so they may be included in the final product. If not, I really hope the second book comes with a map or gets map illustrations. The textual description of them was well-done, of course, making them not strictly necessary, but they'd be cool.

That said, a lot of what is set up in this first book lore-wise recieves no payoff. It's the first book in a series (thank God), so having to wait for reveals is to be expected, but it's going to be hard to wait. Luckily, the second book, Waywarden, comes out in 2024. I can't wait to return to the Briardark in a year.

FINAL THOUGHTS I can't say if the comparison to LOST or House of Leaves is accurate. What I can say is that if you enjoyed titles like The Dark Between the Trees or short stories like "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains" and "A Psychological Shipwreck" you'll love Briardark even more. It's weird, tense, and has some fantastic characters I can't wait to read more about.

Briardark released 16 January 2023. If you're interested in the book, check out the official website (https://briardark.com/), request the book from your local library, or buy yourself a copy!

#briardark #sa harian #bookblr #book review #netgalley #netgalley review #liber monstrorum reviews #horror book #book rec #horror book rec #horror fiction #thriller fiction

6 notes · View notes

justusrstone · 4 years

Video

youtube

Review of the light novel Deathbound Duke’s Daughter Volume 1: Erika Aurelia and the Seafarer’s Ruins by Terasu Senoo.

Review is of the official English release from . Check it out on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Y46Hqz

Or...

Get it from iBooks: https://apple.co/2MFELSP

Get it from Kobo: https://bit.ly/3kGqKUT

Get it from Google: https://bit.ly/2Y0CwzD

Get it from Bookwalker: https://bit.ly/2MFXRbB

LIGHT NOVEL INFORMATION

Japanese Title: 死にやすい公爵令嬢 — “Shini Yasui Kōshaku Reijō to Shichi-nin no Kikōshi”

Author: Terasu Senoo — 瀬尾照

Illustrator: Munashichi — 六七質

Publisher (English): J-Novel Club

Translator: Roy Nukia

Release Date (English): June 27, 2020

Publisher (Japan): M Novels (Futabasha)

Release Date (Japan): July 12, 2017

Volumes Released (Japan to Date): 2

Anime Series: None

Manga: None

Synopsis: One evening in early spring, eight-year-old Erika Aurelia realizes she’s the detestable little villainess from an otome game called Liber Monstrorum: The Winter Maiden and the Phantasmic Beasts. As if that wasn’t bad enough already, Erika’s role in the game is to pester the main character… and then die in order to kick off a mysterious series of events! These incidents are different in each love interest’s route, and seven routes means seven deaths to avoid. Not one to throw in the towel, Erika knows she must take action to destroy her death flags—and since her life is on the line, there’s no time to lose! Her very first death flag is set to rise after she meets two noble children from a prominent magician’s house. In order to prevent the resulting incidents, the Gold Rush Murders, she arms herself with her brother’s expensive(!!!) magical items and heads into the ancient Seafarer’s Ruins. But things don’t quite go according to plan…

RECOMMENDED SERIES

The Epic Tale of the Reincarnated Prince Herscherik

https://englishlightnovels.com/2020/06/16/the-epic-tale-of-the-reincarnated-prince-herscherik/

Reincarnated as a Sword

https://englishlightnovels.com/2019/05/20/reincarnated-as-a-sword/

#Deathbound Duke&039;s Daughter #light novel #light novels #light novel review #book review #J-Novel Club

3 notes · View notes

thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 6 years

Link

I'm so honoured and excited that Liber monstrorum found a home with Minola Review- it was one that I sat with for a long time so that it found a home is really great.

(Also please support Minola Review, they do great work.)

Excerpt:

In Hebrew Yirat Adonai (יראת ה ') means ‘fear of the Lord.’ It is what you feel when you are standing before angels, God, or the monstrous voice of the burning bush. That fear is not cringing or loathsome but a reverential awe. When the prophet Elijah went to speak with God he covered his face with his mantle and trembled. It was not the monstrous winds or fire that preceded the Lord but the terrific silence of His presence that made Elijah shake.

(I am wrathful and wind it up inside of me, a tight cord to strangle you with if I had the chance but between us is blood. It is childish red of second-day-period and when older, burgundy aged well. Dry, the smell of salt-peter. You know that smell. You have pushed your fingers between my lips.)

#poetry #writing #poem #assault #Liber monstrorum

2 notes · View notes

lailokens-awen · 4 years

Text

Book Review : Descendant - A Novel of the Liber Monstrorum

Book Review : Descendant - A Novel of the Liber Monstrorum by @occultdetective

Author: Bob Freeman

Publisher: Seventh Star Press (October 2019)

Paperback, 294 pages

ISBN-10: 1948042878

ISBN-13: 978-1948042871

Descendant is a supernatural thriller filled with daring action, adventure, and artifice set against the backdrop of a very familiar world – but it is a world in which preternatural entities, clandestine magical orders, ancient bloodlines, and unholy alliances…

View On WordPress

0 notes

liberalcom-blog · 5 years

Text

Weiser Book of Occult Detectives: 13 Stories of Supernatural Sleuthing

https://liber-al.com/?p=40446&utm_source=SocialAutoPoster&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Tumblr “Timely and elegant; spooky and intriguing; and highly recommended…” –J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of Field of Graves and Lie To Me The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives: 13 Stories of Supernatural Sleuthing is a compilation of vintage occult detective stories, written by masters of the genre including Arthur Conan Doyle, Algernon Blackwood, Dion Fortune, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, and Helena Blavatsky. Occult detectives explore paranormal mysteries or use their own supernatural gifts to solve crimes. The book features the original authors and stories that inspired what is now a bestsellilng genre in movies, TV, books, and video games. The stories in The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives star both female and male sleuths. The mysteries they tackle include murder, missing funds, demons, ghosts, vampires, and more. Among the ranks of occult detectives featured in this book are beloved favorites such as Dr. Hesselius, Dr. Taverner, Thomas Carnacki, and John Silence but also the unjustly forgotten and obscure sleuths Shiela Crerar and Diana Marburg. Techniques utilized by the various detectives include palmistry, clairvoyance, psychometry, mesmerism, dreams, and good old deductive reasoning. The book is edited and introduced by leading occult author and scholar Judika Illes. Editorial Reviews “The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives is an outstanding collection of classic thrillers that celebrate occult detective work – a genre more appropriate than ever in the current age of paranormal investigations and interests. Settle in for a riveting read!” –Rosemary Ellen Guiley, author of The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits “Read The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives when you find yourself slumped over your own desk, your typewriter teeth glaring at you and your lamplight flickering in disgust at your writer’s block. Not only will you find inspiration, you will get so lost in the pages that you will forget all about your own dying novel and instead try your hand at solving a mystery by any means possible. Any. Means. Necessary.” -Varla Ventura, author of Fairies, Pookas & Changelings “Dark forces, supernatural powers, and sinister villains: even the most serious occultist has a soft spot in their heart for these tales of what the magical world should be. Containing classics from authors such as Blackwood, Blavatsky, Dion Fortune and Conan Doyle, among others, these extraordinary tales of the uncanny will delight, fascinate…and perhaps terrify.” –Liz Williams, author of the ‘Detective Inspector Chen’ novels “Judika Illes has compiled an amazing collection of occult detective stories, mining some of the best paranormal mysteries the early twentieth century had to offer, written by such legendary authors as Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, Sax Rohmer, Dion Fortune, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As one devoted to the genre, both as a fan and an author, I understand the awesome task Illes has undertaken. To pore over the sheer volume of early occult detective tales and select the very best and defining tales for a collection such as this would be a maddening endeavor for any scholar, but Judika Illes has done an admirable job of putting together a brilliant and impressive table of contents here. As well read in the genre as I am, Judika Illes has managed to unearth no less than four spectacular tales that had escaped my attention: “The Dead Hand” by L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace, “The Vampire” by Alice and Claude Askew, “The Witness in the Woods” by Rose Champion de Crespigny, and “The Eyes of Doom” by Ella M. Scrymsour. Whether you are new to the genre or a lifelong fan, The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives: 13 Stories of Supernatural Sleuthing is a collection you absolutely cannot do without.” -Bob Freeman, The Occult Detective, author of Shadows Over Somerset, Keepers of the Dead, and The Liber Monstrorum series “Edgar Allan Poe is credited with writing the first detective stories and the incredible skills of ur-detective C. Auguste Dupin seem at times to be supernatural. The sleuths in The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives embrace the uncanny when approaching a mystery and include experts in the esoteric arts, paranormal investigators, and detectives with psychic powers. Judika Illes’ informative introduction and notes on each author explain how the thirteen groundbreaking tales in the collection, which date from 1855 – 1922, helped establish conventions of this fascinating sub-genre and laid the groundwork for today’s popular occult detective novels, comics, television series, films and video games. An entertaining, engaging book providing mystery and otherworldly chills that will have the reader searching out further works by the authors included.” -Karen Lee Street, author of Edgar Allan Poe and the London Monster and Writing and Selling Crime Film Screenplays “With an excellent introduction by Judika Illes, The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives combines well-recognized supernatural sleuths with their colleagues who ought to be well-recognized. For decades, scholars treated the occult detective cross-genre as developing after Sherlock Holmes appeared in 1887, only one or two prototypes glimmering before then. This book continues the new push to show that these characters rose much earlier and, in fact, can be traced to the very start of modern detective fiction. Carefully and creatively chosen works of occult detective fiction follow a smart introduction by Illes.” –Tim Prasil, author of Help for the Haunted: A Decade of Vera Van Slyke Ghostly Mysteries and editor of Those Who Haunt Ghosts: A Century of Ghost Hunter Fiction and Giving Up the Ghosts: Short-Lived Occult Detective Series by Six Renowned Authors “Timely and elegant; spooky and intriguing; and highly recommended for both readers and writers interested in the great beyond, The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives is an amazing collection of stories, sure to delight any reader interested in mysteries in general, and the supernatural and occult in particular. But writers of such fiction have much to learn here as well. This compilation will be your go to read for excellence in occult mysteries for years to come.” –J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of Field of Graves and Lie To Me – From the Publisher “Timely and elegant; spooky and intriguing; and highly recommended for both readers and writers interested in the great beyond, The Weiser Book of Occult Detectives is an amazing collection of stories, sure to delight any reader interested in mysteries in general, and the supernatural and occult in particular. But writers of such fiction have much to learn here as well. This compilation will be your go to read for excellence in occult mysteries for years to come.” –J.T. Ellison, New York Times bestselling author of Field of Graves and Lie To Me – Reviews

1 note · View note

liber---monstrorum · 1 year

Text

2 ⭐ - sorry if the review sounds mean, I got infected with the nightmare vegan evil disease

SUMMARY

Grace isn’t exactly thrilled when her newly widowed mother, Jackie, asks to move in with her. They’ve never had a great relationship, and Grace likes her space—especially now that she’s stuck at home during a pandemic. Then again, she needs help with the mortgage after losing her job. And maybe it’ll be a chance for them to bond—or at least give each other a hand. But living with Mother isn’t for everyone. Good intentions turn bad soon after Jackie moves in. Old wounds fester; new ones open. Grace starts having nightmares about her disabled twin sister, who died when they were kids. And Jackie discovers that Grace secretly catfishes people online—a hobby Jackie thinks is unforgivable. When Jackie makes an earth-shattering accusation against her, Grace sees it as an act of revenge, and it sends her spiraling into a sleep-deprived madness. As the walls close in, the ghosts of Grace’s past collide with a new but familiar threat: Mom. (Source)

Review below the cut. Warning, this review will contain spoilers.

REVIEW

I'm going to be honest: there's not a lot in Mothered that I particularly enjoyed. The pacing, story, prose, and characters were not at all what I want from a horror book. There were exactly two characters I liked seeing on the page (which is stretching it, since one of them is a cat) and one horror moment that I found to be memorably creepy. While it was a fast read, if I hadn't gotten this book through Netgalley I almost certainly would have DNF'd it pretty quickly (and that is if I had picked it up at all, since it would have failed the page 99 test).

STRUCTURE AND PROSE

As it opens and ends the story, I may as well discuss the prologue and epilogue. These two follow a therapist named Silas, who claims he is excited to work with an unnamed patient due to the brutality of the murder she committed. It's obfuscated which of the two women, Jackie or Grace, committed homicide. (Keep a pin in this as we'll be returning to it.) As the prologue concludes, we are told that “[Silas’s] job, as it often was, would be to filter the drop of truth from a waterfall of magical thinking” (13). This setup, with Silas being directly indicated to be a character who would engage with the narrative about to be told, indicates that the main bulk of the narrative would be in a narrative frame. Grace would speak to Silas to confess her life story and convince him of her point of view (a la Frankenstein, the reason why I love a good frame narrative). This is not the case. Rather than being nested, the narrative is delivered by a close third person narrator, with Grace’s story bookended by Silas’s. The prologue and epilogue might as well have not been there; they add little to nothing to the narrative. All that was achieved was disappointment. The completely normal third person narration was. A Choice. Look, I’m a fan of close third person. It works fine, but it was a disappointing choice, espcecially after that prologue setup. Grace as a character does have interesting elements to her that I feel would have been far more interesting to me as a reader had we navigated the narrative directly through her eyes. Speaking of characters, wasted potential is the name of the game in Mothered. Characters have features and traits, but aren’t well-rounded. Part of that issue is with the dialogue; it is middling at best, and stilted, awkward, or shallow at worst. Additionally, there's not as much of it as one would think for a story about a toxic mother-daughter relationship stuck in close quarters.

The standout issue with the characters for me is that they are their role in the story before they are a character. Silas is not a character who is a therapist, he is the therapist character (and, upon a re-read of the prologue, is I think supposed to be some sort of reader stand-in? Which I also am not a fan of). Miguel isn’t a character who is the main character’s best friend; he is the best friend character (worse, he falls into the gay best friend trope). Jackie isn’t a character who is Grace’s mother; she is the mother character. Grace, by virtue of being the protagonist, somewhat escapes this issue, but still is not well-rounded or developed by any means. She’s supposed to be an unreliable narrator, something I normally love, but in her found to be unengaging.

Grace as a protagonist could have been interesting; she has a lot of childhood trauma, but does genuinely try to help those around her. She’s kind towards her friend Miguel and drops everything to help him when he gets sick. While has the bizarre hobby of catfishing women (which she calls damsels) online, she describes it as intentionally trying to help build these women’s self esteem and help them improve their lives. The interesting elements of her, however, aren't really fleshed out enough. The damsels plotline especially had a lot of very interesting potential that’s completely unfulfilled. It really only exists so that Grace has something to feel guilty about and hide from her mother. The pacing. God, the pacing. The pacing was strange, due to the fact that a bulk of the narrative is dream sequences. The narrative jumps forward in time rather suddenly in order to dump the reader into a dream without indication. Not only does this make the pacing feel jerky and inconcistant, it also means that the dream segments are also far less effective. While suddenly jumping from reality to a dream can be a valuable strategy because it puts both the reader and the character into a state of uncertain reality, most of the time it did not work in Mothered. The only time I did find it effective and memorable was the first; after that, since I knew what the author was trying to pull, the strategy was ineffective because I knew it was a dream, even if Grace did not.

The pacing during the non-dream segments was jerky as well. It often felt like the narrative was just trying to hurry to the next dream sequence. For example, chapter fourteen ends with Grace texting her best friend Miguel; chapter fifteen jumps to her having been hired by her old boss and visiting the new salon space. From that first paragraph, it's obvious that it's a dream. As a result, the non-horror section of the dream dragged on for far too long (since the conversation the characters was having was not only not real but also completely banal) while the horror section of it was not horrifying (as the physical danger, social rejection, and reality break Grace was experiencing was obviously just a dream). During most dream sections, especially during the second half of the book, I was bored. For a mystery/thriller novel, Mothered is not very mysterious or thrilling. While there is certainly a hidden past tragedy that is eventually revealed, the actual reveal is... kind of boring. The narrative takes, in my opinion, the most uninteresting route. In the prologue, Silas muses that the case is “a good puzzle… one that look[s] on the surface like the gory movies he still so loved” (13). But this isn’t a puzzle. All the answers are spoonfed to the reader, and if the narrative makes an attempt to hide it, it does a terrible job.

One example of a very unmysterious mystery is the intentional obfuscation of who killed who in the prologue. My thought process during the first half of the novel was this:

A) Because the narrative follows Grace in close third person and

B) never follows Jackie,

that would normally indicate to me that

C) Grace, as the POV character, will be the surviving party.

However, because the identity of the patient in the first chapter is intentionally and carefully obfuscated from the reader, then

A + B might not equal C, but instead equal either

D) an upset of expectations (for example, Jackie killing Grace)

E) a third act twist revealing a previously unknown actor or plot element that reveals that the killer, the victim, Grace, and Jackie are in a more complicated configuration than first presented.

As I continued reading, it became clear to me that the narrative was not going to pull anything that interested. Despite this, I held out hope that the final chapters would have some kind of twist. That hope was futile. That setup of not knowing who dies is never cashed out. It just follows the most basic, obvious route: Grace is the protagonist, and because she is a protagonist, she can’t die so she has to be the murderer. Why bother to intentionally hide who kills who and then just not do something interesting? Especially when that problem is directly presented as being a puzzle!

Speaking of basic, the prose in general was boring. It’s all very direct and blunt, which can sometimes be a fantastic way to write a horror/thriller, but it just didn’t work for me here. The prose relies so heavily on telling over showing I felt as though the narrative was spoonfeeding me. Look, I don’t always need purple-literary-Romantic-big-words-long-sentences prose to enjoy a novel, but I do need something to chew on. If I’m not finding that in the structure, characters, horror elements, or central mystery, then by god at least give me some chewy prose.

THE DREAMS

I love dreams in horror. Exploring unreality, watching the line between waking and dreaming blur, having one encroach into the other. I love it all. Therefore, believe me when I say that the premise of incorporating horrible nightmares into a horror story isn't the issue. The issue with Mothered’s dreams was the execution. First off: the horror elements were almost completely restricted to dreams. Although there were one or two moments of horror that I found genuinely intriguing, memorable, or creepy (for example, the "Mona needs a calfskin bag" dream), most of the rest of them were tropey, predictable, or overdone. While I bought that these dreams were upsetting for the character, they were not particularly upsetting to me. At some point it just got old. The use of dream horror is, to me, something that has to be done subtly, carefully, and sparingly, especially when we have a protagonist presented as unreliable. It's none of those things in Mothered. The few horrifying elements outside of dreams are hallucinations. Grace dismisses them as such pretty quickly, and the hallucinations themselves fail to be credible from the get-go because they aren’t believably slotted into Grace’s reality. Horror-wise they aren't even good ones; they're even more tropey than the dreams. Even the horror of Grace and Jackie’s toxic relationship and the childhood trauma was restricted to these dreams as well; while there were some good moments of toxicity, gaslighting, or emotional manipulation in the waking world (such as Jackie letting Coco outside), almost all the detail and nuance we get about their history is dreamed.

Even the dreamed details about their past that do carry over into the real world aren’t fully fleshed. For example, during a dream, we are introduced to the paper dolls that Hope and her sister Grace used to play with. Later, while rummaging through her mother’s things, Grace finds her sister’s doll but not her own. While the doll imagery comes back in later dreams, that doll as a symbol of her mother’s favoritism and her relationship with Grace never beomes a point of conflict between the two. There isn’t ever a conflict about it, even when those dolls get brought up in conversation. I wanted a blow-out fight about those dolls; I wanted those dolls as an element of gaslighting; I wanted those dolls to be something that lead to a direct conflict that further develops Grace and Jackie’s current day relationship. But they don’t, and neither does much else.

The book’s summary claims that moving in together makes “old wounds fester” and “new ones open.” Sure, old wounds get re-opened, but calling what happens “festering” is a bit of a stretch. Grace is reasonably stressed about her mother being a bad roommate at times and Jackie occasionally apologizes for being a bad mother to her (though those conversations are rather surface level and nowhere near as toxic as they could have been). The only “new wounds” that open are are the ones that kill Jackie, with nary a new psychological wound in sight. As a result, the level of intensity between the two never quite reaches the fever pitch needed to make that final snap believable, narratively satisfying, and sharp.

One final complaint about the dreams I couldn’t shoehorn in elsewhere, so I’m shoehorning it in here. Sometimes (typically during dreams where Grace is reliving a childhood memory), Grace calls Jackie “Mommy.” I get why—as a child, she certainly did not call her mother by her first name—but it really did not work for me. Grace was a child forced to grow up too soon; I could buy her calling Jackie mom, maybe, but mommy? I certainly can’t see an overworked, exhausted Jackie referring to herself as “mommy” to her children. It was just weird and off-putting and out of place because it was so infantile, and, to be honest, came off as funny and unserious.

All that said, the dream scenes were far better written than the scenes that took place in reality. If they'd had better connective tissue and were more subtly handled, they could have been very effective. As it is, they're disappointing.

REALITY

From the premise, title, and setup of Mothered, I expected a book about a toxic mother-daughter relationship. I expected the narrative to explore that relationship in-depth and push the tension of it to its very limits. I wanted to watch them try to navigate an enclosed space. I wanted overtures of forgiveness turning nasty. I wanted conversations about Grace's childhood! I wanted them to have small disagreements that balloon out of control! I wanted a slow build of tension and complex hatred! I wanted gaslighting, damn it! There were a few times—for example, the dinner party with Miguel—where there was subtle friction between actions and intention between Grace and her mother. Grace questions who her mother is now and how she relates to the woman who raised her. Jackie is the traditional boomer parent and brings up grandchildren. Miguel and Grace share the occasional bemused glance. It was a good early scene, which I thought would lead into later, complex, more dramatic scenes. For the most part, though, Grace and Jackie’s interactions were not all that complex, did not have subtextual implications, and were so direct and unnuanced it just was never all that interesting. While Grace certainly had reasons to doubt the reality around her, as a reader, I did not have any reason to believe what she was being told by her mother was untrue.

As mentioned earlier, most elements of the novel’s central mystery—what happened to Grace’s twin sister—were introduced in dreams, then (maybe) introdced into the waking world. The only piece evidence that emerged from a direct confrontation between Jackie and Grace was the box. While what it revealed wasn’t particularly funny, I couldn’t take the contents seriously because it just gave me Assassin’s Creed 2 flashbacks.

Anyway. On all accounts, even down to the title, Mothered is supposed to be about a toxic mother-daughter relationship. It's also about:

The pandemic (which didn't really work for me. If it had been a book set during the pandemic, it might have worked. The difference between the two is a bit difficult to explain, but it's something that made a huge difference)

Her career as a hairdresser

Growing up being the primary caretaker to a disabled sibling

A weird disease that causes nightmares and turns you vegan

An ace woman’s relationship with her sexuality and desire to be a mother herself (complete with guilt over telling a teenager to have an abortion so her life wasn’t ruined!)

The close friendship between two queer people

That same woman’s hobby catfishing other women, pretending to be a man so that she can help them improve their self-confidence

The book just tries to juggle too much in the 300-ish pages it has. While a novel of that length certainly can incorporate that many or even more plot points, Mothered just doesn’t pull off weaving them together as cleanly as it could have. As a result, the narrative becomes muddled and shallow, with the titular mother-daughter crowded out by the rest. Before I close out, I just want to complain about the whole mystery illness plot point. It's another unnecessary, underdeveloped plot element that muddies the narrative waters even further. The final hook it provides in the epilogue (the therapist is like "oh no I'm having nightmares... just like Grace did!!!") was so cheesy I actually laughed out loud. It became doubly funny when I realized one of the symptoms of the disease is becoming a vegan. I'm sorry, but I genuinely cannot take the narrative seriously enough to be thrilled or frightened.

FINAL THOUGHTS

In writing this review, I had the opportunity to sit with the novel’s themes and really consider: what are they saying? What do they mean? It’s interesting to me that initially I read this book as (at least attempting to be) feminist. Yet after ruminating on how the book handles themes such as abortion and birth, motherhood, disability, and childhood trauma, it surprised me how shallow and at times contradictory it all ended up being.

While I can see why other folks enjoyed this novel, it's absolutely not to my taste when it comes to horror, thriller, or adult fiction. Further, in my opinion, I think it's ineffective in its exploration of mother-daughter toxcicity and childhood trauma. I requested Mothered because I always heard such great things about Baby Teeth; unfortunately, I think this has indicated she's not an author for me. Thank you again to Thomas & Mercer for providing a digital advance review copy through Netgalley. If you're interested in reading Mothered, it releases March 1, 2023. Find more information about the book here.

#liber monstrorum reviews #mothered #mothered by zoje stage #horror book review #horror book #thriller book #thriller book review #book review #bookblr #netgalley #netgalley review

0 notes