Nourez Rawji
What makes a good Gothic? A sense of presence in the location. The feeling that the characters’ inner selves are being made manifest by that location. A healthy dose of moral ambiguity. A sense of being trapped, of danger, whether it's supernatural or of the characters’ own making. And through it all, a sort of grotesque allure to it all.
All of these elements exist in the foundations of Hazelthorn, but the book is so tied up in its YA trappings that it never comes together into anything meaningful by the end. At its core, Hazelthorn is the story of Evander, a young man who's spent much of the last 7 years locked in a room at the titular manor due to fits of an unnamed illness, and Laurie, the boy who tried to bury him alive 7 years prior. One day, Evander wakes to find the room's door mysteriously unlocked, and the head of the household poisoned, and he sets out to solve the mystery with Laurie's help.
When the scope of the book is just the two leads, it tends to work well. They ebb and flow into each other’s lives, being drawn together slowly by something in between romantic attraction and infatuation. The botanical horror setting and the slow digging into their characters’ pasts make for the bones of what would be a solid novel, but that's about where the good elements end for me.
The novel quickly loses its momentum whenever it stops being a weird, ethereal, gory meditation on the nature of wanting vs loving. It introduces plot twist after plot twist, moustache-twirling villains, an inheritance scheme, and a hardline sense of morality that all contribute to a very YA feel to it. The romance throws away its nuance and everyone ends up falling into strictly defined good and bad guys, all wrapped in the most on-the-nose social commentary I've read in a while. It ends up feeling over-explained and underbaked, the gothic sense of place falling away to a much more generic feeling back half. And finally, I need to touch on the prose. It's straight up awful. Every single noun has an adjective attached, every single concept is described with a metaphor or simile, there's so much flowery language that it feels suffocating. I love good poetic writing, but this is amateurish at best and unreadable at worst. It really does feel like you could cut about 30% to 40% of the words out of this novel and still have the same overarching story. I normally don't skim when I read, but I found myself having to do so just to get through the writing here. I seriously think this will be my go-to example of purple prose for people who aren't familiar with the term. I don't know if the editor just let it slip or the author was insistent on it for artistic purposes, but it was the single factor that took the book from a 3-star (it was okay) to a 2-star (I disliked it) review for me. It's that overbearing.
Ultimately, Hazelthorn is a mixed bag of good and bad ideas all tied together with deeply irritating prose. If you're okay with ornate, flowery language in an ornate, flowery mansion, this may be for you. Otherwise, I can't recommend it. There are so many better gothics out there.
What makes a good Gothic? A sense of presence in the location. The feeling that the characters’ inner selves are being made manifest by that location. A healthy dose of moral ambiguity. A sense of being trapped, of danger, whether it's supernatural or of the characters’ own making. And through it all, a sort of grotesque allure to it all.
All of these elements exist in the foundations of Hazelthorn, but the book is so tied up in its YA trappings that it never comes together into anything meaningful by the end. At its core, Hazelthorn is the story of Evander, a young man who's spent much of the last 7 years locked in a room at the titular manor due to fits of an unnamed illness, and Laurie, the boy who tried to bury him alive 7 years prior. One day, Evander wakes to find the room's door mysteriously unlocked, and the head of the household poisoned, and he sets out to solve the mystery with Laurie's help.
When the scope of the book is just the two leads, it tends to work well. They ebb and flow into each other’s lives, being drawn together slowly by something in between romantic attraction and infatuation. The botanical horror setting and the slow digging into their characters’ pasts make for the bones of what would be a solid novel, but that's about where the good elements end for me.
The novel quickly loses its momentum whenever it stops being a weird, ethereal, gory meditation on the nature of wanting vs loving. It introduces plot twist after plot twist, moustache-twirling villains, an inheritance scheme, and a hardline sense of morality that all contribute to a very YA feel to it. The romance throws away its nuance and everyone ends up falling into strictly defined good and bad guys, all wrapped in the most on-the-nose social commentary I've read in a while. It ends up feeling over-explained and underbaked, the gothic sense of place falling away to a much more generic feeling back half. And finally, I need to touch on the prose. It's straight up awful. Every single noun has an adjective attached, every single concept is described with a metaphor or simile, there's so much flowery language that it feels suffocating. I love good poetic writing, but this is amateurish at best and unreadable at worst. It really does feel like you could cut about 30% to 40% of the words out of this novel and still have the same overarching story. I normally don't skim when I read, but I found myself having to do so just to get through the writing here. I seriously think this will be my go-to example of purple prose for people who aren't familiar with the term. I don't know if the editor just let it slip or the author was insistent on it for artistic purposes, but it was the single factor that took the book from a 3-star (it was okay) to a 2-star (I disliked it) review for me. It's that overbearing.
Ultimately, Hazelthorn is a mixed bag of good and bad ideas all tied together with deeply irritating prose. If you're okay with ornate, flowery language in an ornate, flowery mansion, this may be for you. Otherwise, I can't recommend it. There are so many better gothics out there.