Jess
This is a hard one to rate. I can’t say I enjoyed it per se, but it was mostly a well done story. Maggie Thrash absolutely knows how to evoke emotions through her prose, though they’re mostly of the negative variation. She doesn’t shy away from any topic; from pedophilia to homophobia to therapeutic manipulation to drug addiction. It’s not a light, feel good read to say the least. You’ll feel angry, hopeless, frustrated and everything in between. Most every character is awful (adults and kids alike) with almost all operating with a personal agenda.
I was hoping for a bit more of the Satanic Panic aspect in the story but it’s only really a minor part of it and only in the first half. Which brings me to the second half. The story kind of falls apart for me there. The main character, Lacey/Jo, is understandably angsty but reading paragraph after paragraph of her fatalistic views for 200 pages felt pretty unnecessary. I don’t think the second half was needed at all actually. I’m not sure we needed a full ending to her story, to see her in her adulthood.
I’d still recommend it for the first half alone, but this is a novel of trigger warnings so be warned, I suppose.
This is a hard one to rate. I can’t say I enjoyed it per se, but it was mostly a well done story. Maggie Thrash absolutely knows how to evoke emotions through her prose, though they’re mostly of the negative variation. She doesn’t shy away from any topic; from pedophilia to homophobia to therapeutic manipulation to drug addiction. It’s not a light, feel good read to say the least. You’ll feel angry, hopeless, frustrated and everything in between. Most every character is awful (adults and kids alike) with almost all operating with a personal agenda.
I was hoping for a bit more of the Satanic Panic aspect in the story but it’s only really a minor part of it and only in the first half. Which brings me to the second half. The story kind of falls apart for me there. The main character, Lacey/Jo, is understandably angsty but reading paragraph after paragraph of her fatalistic views for 200 pages felt pretty unnecessary. I don’t think the second half was needed at all actually. I’m not sure we needed a full ending to her story, to see her in her adulthood.
I’d still recommend it for the first half alone, but this is a novel of trigger warnings so be warned, I suppose.