1.5 

I know I'm in the minority on this one, but it just did not work for me.  Actually, I feel like I'm being generous rounding up to 2-stars, because I "did not like it" and mostly just found myself bored and waiting for the ending.

If it wasn't a group read, and if I wasn't a stupid completionist, I may have ended up DNFing it at some point and, honestly, even after finishing it, I don't feel like I would've missed anything by not bothering. 

So why did I give it 2-stars (for now)?  

Well, the world was interesting.  I don't mind that we only got glimpses of the larger world, and I enjoyed the developing of the world over huge info-dumps in the beginning, which would've only been more boring.  

And... that's it?

Like, not enough is really done with the world.  Or, at least, more interesting things seemed to exist off page, in those glimpses we did get.

This is really just a dark, family drama with magic thrown in for flavoring, and a

werewolf which does nothing and adds nothing to the story.

 

As to the family, they're all universally awful, except maybe the children, who are barely there except when they serve the plot.  

I know some people talk about how this is a feminist story, I guess because of a)

it being about Asher getting revenge for her horrible mother for being exiled for daring to become pregnant, while Luther spreads his bastard children around town

, and b) the heavy-handed discussion of women's lot in life and patriarchy... but, really, the women are all awful, too. 

Like, none of them have redeeming qualities... ok, Asher might have a few.  But, otherwise?  And I guess you could make the argument that the women are the way they are because of aforementioned patriarchy, but doesn't that take away what little agency they have?  

Also, and this was a real sticking point for me, and maybe I misunderstood something because I listened to this instead of read it... but... 

The lawyer was a woman, right?

Like, this story makes a big deal about the lot of women, and, like, not subtly - there is NO subtext in this book, everything is spelled out in painful, repetitive, circular 'monologues'.  Like, more than once I thought, didn't we do this already - anyway, so the lot of women, and how Asher couldn't study to be a doctor because women weren't allowed, but then there's a female lawyer, who's also married to a woman, and that's totally ok?  Make it make sense?!

And I get that it's meant to be a parallel to our world when women were healers and then were forced out of healing by men who hoarded the training of doctors and made female healers seem either unlearned or witches.  I get it.  But then you turn around and are like, but, hey, there's a female lawyer, and that's totes cool?

Anyway - 

Yeah, so, to the story itself.  I guess the gothic parts were ok.  I already commented a bit about the repetitive nature of the narrative, where I felt like a lot of the same ground was tread over and over again.  And everyone is awful.  So, yeah... 


ETA: A comment in the group got me thinking, and I'd forgotten to say that I didn't like the ending, either.

So,

there's Asher, at her family home.  She's fallen for Eli Bligh

- and WTF is it with people being referred to by their whole name all the time in this time? "Asher Todd".  "Eli Blight".  Like, I find it hard when people refer to people's names all the time anyway, 'cause people don't talk like that, not in first person, but then to do their whole name all the goddamned time was just annoying AF.  But I digress... 

So she's fallen for Eli.  She likes and cares about the kids - her nieces and nephew.  All the people who were problems are literally dead.  And she thinks about staying... but then is like no, I can't.  I just can't. 

BUT WHY?!

Ok, you've lived most of your life for your abusive fucker of a mother, and you want to go and make your own life...

But, like, you could still do that?  

She's like - I could see that life.  They wouldn't know me, but I could be with Eli, keep an eye on the kids, open a doctor place in the town, where they already trust me.  Literally every obstacle in my path - Lenora, Luther, and mommy - are DEAD... 

But, nah, we need to end this book on some random ominous down-note, because <i>gothic</i>.

UGH!

The more I think about this book the more angry it makes me.