Rhiannon
Mixed feelings on this upcoming new release (expected Oct 2025). I enjoyed the Irish folk horror elements and the story itself, but I could not stand the main character. I get it, she has this “mysterious pelvic pain” that has, unfortunately, come to define her very existence, but the constant repetition of it, in nearly every other paragraph, was exhausting. It overshadows everything else in the story.
And yeah, I know folks are gonna say I'm heartless (because the author has gone through something like this and I guess I should have more empathy but I just can't) and probably tell me I'm missing the point or something (but look! she eventually overcomes it all!!) but it kept me from enjoying the actual story.
It seems the MC has exactly three elements to her entire personality: pelvic pain, crush on her best friend, mother trauma.
That's it. There's a great deal of feeling sorry for oneself, and a little bit of dark humour that just wasn't enough to overcome the relentless “I need to curl up in a ball again, mid-morning, because - you guessed it - pain!”
I give it a 2/5 for the folk horror aspects and the for the plot being ok. But this was just not for me.
My thanks to NetGalley and Creature Publishing for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Originally posted at www.amazon.ca.
Mixed feelings on this upcoming new release (expected Oct 2025). I enjoyed the Irish folk horror elements and the story itself, but I could not stand the main character. I get it, she has this “mysterious pelvic pain” that has, unfortunately, come to define her very existence, but the constant repetition of it, in nearly every other paragraph, was exhausting. It overshadows everything else in the story.
And yeah, I know folks are gonna say I'm heartless (because the author has gone through something like this and I guess I should have more empathy but I just can't) and probably tell me I'm missing the point or something (but look! she eventually overcomes it all!!) but it kept me from enjoying the actual story.
It seems the MC has exactly three elements to her entire personality: pelvic pain, crush on her best friend, mother trauma.
That's it. There's a great deal of feeling sorry for oneself, and a little bit of dark humour that just wasn't enough to overcome the relentless “I need to curl up in a ball again, mid-morning, because - you guessed it - pain!”
I give it a 2/5 for the folk horror aspects and the for the plot being ok. But this was just not for me.
My thanks to NetGalley and Creature Publishing for the ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.
Originally posted at www.amazon.ca.