LOVELESS by Alice Oseman (2020)

“‘Ha. I guess I’m a bit jealous.' 

‘Why?’ I asked, confused. 

She looked at me. ‘I just wasted a lot of time. That’s all.’”

    When I was 17, I realised I was asexual. It took me a long time to come to this realisation, and once I had, the remainder of my teens and early 20s were spent searching for asexual representation in popular media. It’s unsurprising, therefore, that Alice Oseman’s latest novel, Loveless — an own-voices coming out story about an aromantic asexual girl in her first year of university — has been high on my list of anticipated book releases for this year. Although I have graduated out of the target demographic for Loveless, I was still excited to see what Alice could bring to the table. 

As an own-voices reviewer, this is the most authentic asexual representation I have ever read. The protaganist, Georgia, is feeling lost and isolated; all of her peers are having sex and falling in love, but Georgia has never even been kissed, and she feels like she’s falling behind. She knows she’s supposed to want all these things, and she wants to want them, but everytime she finds herself in a romantic or sexual situation, she balks, and she can’t understand why. Is something wrong with her? Has something broken inside her? I could relate to Georgia so strongly here; when I was her age, I was obsessed with the idea of falling in love, but whenever the opportunity arose, I bolted. Another part of Georgia’s journey that I found very genuine was her dismay upon discovering how often non-asexual people think about sex. She is shocked to discover she is relatively alone in the fact that she never pictures anyone in her masturbatory fantasies — she never even pictures herself in them — and is discouraged to find that most other people think about sex a lot, if not all, of the time. This was the part of Georgia’s journey with which I identified the most. Realising that my aversion to sex was not universal was the thing that made me feel the most as if there was something wrong with me — if everyone but me was excited about sex, how would anyone ever fall in love with me or want to be with me? Unlike Georgia, I’m not aromantic, but I still resonated with her fear that she would never be loveable. There were smaller details, too: Georgia learns about asexuality from a friend who confidently identifies that way, which is how I first heard of it, too. She Google searches “am I gay?” and takes the Kinsey Scale test online, finding the results as unsatisfying as I found them. She’s afraid to come out to anyone because she worries she’ll be told she’s weird, and she’s right to worry: when I came out to my first boyfriend, his immediate response was, “Wow, that’s weird!” From top to bottom, Georgia’s journey rang with the authenticity that only occurs when an author writes from personal experience, and it was refreshing to read a dedicated asexual story from an author who was clearly channeling their own coming out experience. 

While I may no longer require asexual representation myself — I’ve long since come to terms with my sexuality, and have moved on from my need to see myself represented on the page and screen — I am still thrilled that a book this personal exists for every other asexual and aromantic person still trying to accept themselves. According to statistics, approximately 1% of the population identify as asexual. In that regard, asexuality is one of the loneliest sexualities in the world; not only is the asexual community extremely small, it’s also a sexuality naturally associated with isolation (although this isn’t necessarily accurate). When you’re asexual, it’s easy to convince yourself that you will never find someone who will love you without sex involved. It’s incredibly lonely and alienating, especially when you don’t have any asexual peers or have access to asexual representation. That’s why this book is so valuable:  it’s asexual representation, which normalises asexuality itself,  but it also normalises the process of realising and coming to terms with your asexuality.  It takes Georgia a long time to accept herself; she spends months struggling with self-hatred, furious at herself for being intolerant of sex and romance but unable to happily behave any other way. Her path to self-acceptance is emblematic of the importance of asexual representation, and what’s at stake without it. To quote myself, at length, in an article I wrote several years ago for Craccum magazine:  

Asexual representation matters. It matters because I spent the majority of my life wondering what was broken inside me, because there was nothing to teach me that broken was the farthest thing from what I was [...] It matters because of all the people who will wrongly identify because they never knew asexuality was an option. It matters because people say to me, “you just haven’t met the right guy yet!” and insist that my asexuality can be ‘cured’ if only I sleep with the right person. It matters because being told that you’re weird by someone you really care about hurts, because being asked if you “just lie there” is an easily avoidable ignorance. It matters because all representation matters. It matters because no one should have to spend seventeen years feeling isolated and alienated and broken. 

I  may no longer need asexual representation, but hundreds of thousands of people do, and I think Oseman has done a wonderful job of portraying asexuality for the purpose of normalising it, as well as for the purpose of allowing asexual people to feel visible and validated. 

As much as I think this is an important book that achieves its representational goals, I am nevertheless too sensible of the defects that I found while reading. Although Georgia’s character arc was a rousing success, I didn’t particularly enjoy the novel plot-wise and felt that the B-plot lacked motive and conviction. Sunil, a friend Georgia makes at uni, is a cinnamon roll and must be protected at all costs, and her roommate, Rooney, reminded me pleasantly of Reagan from Fangirl, but I found Pip irritating when I was obviously meant to find her quirky and endearing, and Jason had little more personality than a slice of white bread. The dialogue was a touch cheesy and unrealistic, I do think that Oseman went too heavy on the pop culture  references, and the side romance/conflict felt orchestrated and lacked convincing chemistry. Indeed, without the saving grace of Georgia’s sexual crisis, I most likely would not have liked this book. This might be more of a problem from my end; I have outgrown young adult fiction, and find the whole genre a lot more cheesy and annoying than I used to. If this book had come out five years earlier, I’ve no doubt that I would have adored it and that it would have meant the world to me on all accounts. Unfortunately, I’m a bit too old to enjoy the volume of Scooby Doo references that Oseman chose to include, and found them to the detriment of my enjoyment of the novel as a whole. 

Despite my personal criticisms, Loveless is a successful novel that achieves what it set out to do and creates a much-needed safe space for asexual and aromantic people to see themselves and their personal journeys represented in popular media. I admire Alice Oseman for publishing something so obviously and deeply personal; it takes a great deal of courage to lay yourself bare on the page for the whole world to see, and I hope she knows how much her bravery is going to help people who feel lost and alone. 

MY DARK VANESSA by Kate Elizabeth Russell (2020)

“‘I just need it to be a love story, you know? I really, really need it to be that.’”

In the wake of the #MeToo movement, My Dark Vanessa takes on a prescience heretofore unseen in feminist fiction. Set against the backdrop of such scandals as the Harvey Weinstein bombshell in 2017, this scorching debut follows a troubled young woman named Vanessa Wye who, at age 15, entered a sexual relationship with her English teacher, Jacob Strane, who is 36 years older than her. Seventeen years later, another former student has made allegations of sexual abuse against Strane, and Vanessa is forced to redefine “the great love story of her life — her great sexual awakening — as rape” (Russell, 2020). 

When the pair first meet, the reader can instantly identify Strane as a predator. Vanessa feels unremarkable and unexceptional. She carries a moroseness that rejects companionship even as she silently longs for a friend, and Strane detects this insecurity immediately. Vanessa feels invisible, so he makes her feel noticed: “‘no one ever notices anything I do’”, she laments, to which he replies, “‘That isn’t true. I notice you all the time’” (Russell, 2020). She is lonely and friendless, so he manipulates her loneliness “into a sense of uniqueness”, telling her that he prefers to be alone, too — although Vanessa’s first impulse is “to say no, I don’t like being by myself at all”, she wonders if “maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m actually a loner by choice, preferring my own company” (Gilbert, 2020; Russell, 2020). He compares her red hair to an autumn maple leaf, compliments her clothing and her sense of style, presents her with poetry he hasn’t assigned the rest of the class because he “can tell” that she, like him, is a “dark romantic” who likes “dark things”,  and over time, the dedicated personal attention has the desired effect: not only does Vanessa feel special, she feels that the only person who sees her specialness is Strane (ibid). He grooms her expertly for someone who claims to have never been in a relationship with a student, and even this, he twists to his advantage: Vanessa feels even more special when Strane tells her that she is the first student he has been with, who is worth the risks of engaging in an affair so illicit. 

Strane holds these considerable risks over Vanessa’s head throughout their relationship. He openly acknowledges that if they get caught, he would be arrested and convicted of sexual assault of a minor, yet his main concern isn’t that he will be caught doing something illegal; instead, he emphasises that if he is arrested, they will no longer be able to be together — he knows that Vanessa feels misunderstood by everyone except him, and that the looming threat of losing this refuge will keep her complacent. He also emphasises how much he stands to lose: he could lose his job, his reputation, his freedom, but what will Vanessa lose? Nothing. Wrought with anxiety, Vanessa begins to see things from Strane’s point of view: “I’ve been wrapped up in my own frustration and impatience, never considering all that was on the line for him or how much he’s already risked [...] Maybe all along he’s been the brave one and I’ve been selfish. Because really, what risk is there for me?” (Russell, 2020). It’s genius, really, to emphasise how much Strane stands to lose, because knowing how much is on the line makes Vanessa feel even more special — he could literally be sent to prison for being with her, yet he continues their relationship because she is worth the risk of losing everything. 

The most significant gift Strane gives Vanessa is a copy of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, which becomes Vanessa’s key reference for understanding her relationship with Strane. When he gives her Lolita, Strane knows that Vanessa will view it as a model of the relationship developing between them. Here is where fiction and reality begin to merge; Vanessa’s idolisation of Lolita draws from Russell’s own girlhood relationship with the novel. Since its publication in 1955, Lolita has divided readers over whether or not the relationship between Humbert Humbert and Dolores Haze is love or rape, and as a young girl, Russell fell into the former category. The idea of the sexual power that underage women hold over older men is disturbingly omnipresent in popular culture, and seeing this glamorization of relationships between young girls and powerful men directly influenced Russell’s interpretation of Lolita:

Looking back on that era, [Russell] recalled the Rolling Stone cover with “teen dream” Britney Spears in her childhood bedroom, a Teletubby snuggled under her arm, her cardigan parted to reveal a silky black bra. On TV, politicians were castigating the president for lying about an affair with a 22-year-old intern, but no one seemed to think of him as an abuser — not even the intern, who maintained for years afterward that she’d been in love and who has only recently said she’s “beginning to entertain the notion that in such a circumstance the idea of consent might well be rendered moot.” Watching it all play out, Russell was riveted. “If you swept away the politics,” she said, “what was left was what I perceived then to be an intense, romantic affair” (Shapiro, 2020).

It’s this naivete that Russell wanted to portray in My Dark Vanessa. In Lolita, Humbert Humbert claims that he was seduced by Dolores and her impossible charm, and Vanessa entertains this same fantasy: she is seducing Strane, not the other way around. She identifies strongly with one particular line from Lolita: “she stands unrecognised by them and unconscious herself of her fantastic power”, a quote that gives her an epiphany: “I have power [...] Power over him. I was an idiot for not realising this sooner” (Nabokov, 1955; Russell, 2020). Once again, Strane has successfully manipulated Vanessa into thinking that she is the one in command; there can’t possibly be anything wrong with their relationship if Vanessa is the one responsible for it. 

Seventeen years on, Vanessa remains shallowly convinced of her consensual participation, but her conviction is shaken when an article appears online, accusing Strane of sexually harassing its author, Taylor Birch, while she was his student. Taylor reaches out to Vanessa, hoping to speak with her about Vanessa’s alleged affair with Strane, but Vanessa refuses, disgusted that someone would accuse Strane of something so vile when she ‘knows’ that he would never do anything without asking for consent. Yet Taylor’s article triggers an instinct in the back of Vanessa’s mind that she has been repressing for nearly two decades: that in such a circumstance as her relationship with Strane, consent “might well be rendered moot” (Lewinsky, 2018). Yet how can Vanessa let go of her responsibility for their relationship after clinging to it for seventeen years?  In order to live with herself, she must have been complicit, because without this, she is left with nothing but a victimhood she does not wish to claim; being an accomplice to their crime is “the only source of power she has left” (Gilbert, 2020). My favourite quote from the novel comes from one of Vanessa’s therapy session in the final act: 

‘I can’t lose the thing I’ve held onto for so long, you know?’ My face twists up from the pain of pushing it out. ‘I just really need it to be a love story, you know? I really, really need it to be that [...] Because if it isn’t a love story, then what is it?’ I look to her glassy eyes, her face of wide open empathy. ‘It’s my life,’ I say. ‘This has been my whole life’ (Russell, 2020).  

She has known it all along: Strane was abusing her, and she let herself be convinced of their relationship’s romanticism because the only other option was to be just another victim of a man in power. Girls in stories like Taylor’s are always victims, and Vanessa never saw herself as one because she did not want to be one: “I’m not a victim because I never wanted to be, and if I didn’t want to be, then I’m not. That’s how it works. The difference between rape and sex is state of mind. You can’t rape the willing, right?” (ibid). To be a victim is to relinquish your power, and telling herself that she was consenting in their relationship, that she was the one in control, that she decided what they did, is the only power she has left. 

A blistering analysis of the responsibility that women take on for their own assault, My Dark Vanessa is essential reading from which one will emerge with greater empathy for survivors of sexual abuse. Vanessa is an infuriating, but ultimately empathetic woman whose story has never been more critical, and as we travel deeper into the systematic unravelling of the patriarchal power that enables men to manipulate young girls in the way Strane manipulated Vanessa, I hope that Vanessa’s struggle to own her victimhood will make women in similar situations feel less isolated and alone. 

WORKS CITED

• Gilbert, S. (2020, March 25). 'My Dark Vanessa': Not Quite a Contemporary 'Lolita'. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/03/my-dark-vanessa-not-quite-contemporary-lolita/608641/. 

• Lewinsky, M. (2018, February 25). Monica Lewinsky: Emerging from “the House of Gaslight” in the age of #MeToo. Vanity Fair. https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/monica-lewinsky-in-the-age-of-metoo.  

• Nabokov, V. (1955). Lolita. Olympia Press.

• Russell, K. E. (2020). My Dark Vanessa. London, United Kingdom: HarperCollins UK. (I read an ebook version of the novel, so my quotations do not have page numbers.) 

• Shapiro, L. (2020, February 18). My Dark Vanessa is not a love story. Retrieved from https://www.vulture.com/2020/02/my-dark-vanessa-kate-elizabeth-russell.html.  

ADDITIONAL RESEARCH

• Alexander, H. (2020, February 24). Harvey Weinstein timeline: Key moments in Hollywood scandal. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/02/24/harvey-weinstein-timeline-key-moments-hollywood-scandal-trial/.  

• Darkness to Light. (2020). Grooming and red flag behaviors. Retrieved from https://www.d2l.org/child-grooming-signs-behavior-awareness/.  

• Harvey Weinstein. (2020). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Weinstein. 

• Kantor, J., & Twohey, M. (2017, October 5). Harvey Weinstein paid off sexual harassment accusers for decades. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/us/harvey-weinstein-harassment-allegations.html. 

• Kirkus Reviews. (2019, August 19). My Dark Vanessa. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/kate-elizabeth-russell/my-dark-vanessa-russell/.  

• McCalpin, H. (2020, March 11). 'My Dark Vanessa' Looks Back At The Devastation Of A Predatory Affair. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/2020/03/11/810406133/my-dark-vanessa-looks-back-at-the-devastation-of-a-predatory-affair.  

• Me Too movement. (2020). Retrieved May 19, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement.  

• Zinovieff, S. (2020, April 4). My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell review – a powerful, shocking debut. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/apr/04/my-dark-vanessa-kate-elizabeth-russell-review-debut-novel.

TOP 5 BOOKS I READ WHILE IN QUARANTINE

For the last 48 days, New Zealand has been in lockdown in order to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Like most Kiwis who found themselves abruptly homebound for the foreseeable future, on the first day of quarantine I set a lofty list of goals for myself to achieve; however, three days in, I fell into an acute depression and abandoned the list for less ambitious pursuits, such as rewatching Brooklyn Nine-Nine for the tenth time, lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, and cutting my own bangs. The one productive thing I managed to accomplish is particularly on-brand for me: I read 23 books while in self-isolation, and I thought it would be fun to review the five that I enjoyed the most. 

5. A Good Neighbourhood by Therese Anne Fowler 

(TW: Sexual abuse, suicide) 

A Good Neighbourhood is a story about two families — the Alston-Holts and the Whitmans — who become neighbours when the Whitmans move to the tight-knit North Carolina suburb in which the Alston-Holts have lived all their lives. Brad Whitman, breadwinner of the Whitman clan, made a fortune by building an HVAC empire and cares little for the environmental impact made by the mansion he has built; Valerie Alston-Holt, a professor of forestry and ecology, is devastated when the magnificent oak tree in her backyard begins to die as its root structure is decimated by the construction next door. She files a lawsuit against Brad that sparks a vicious turf-war, the flames of which are fanned even further by the blossoming romance between Valerie’s son, Xavier, and Brad’s step-daughter, Juniper. 

I did not expect to be so captivated by this novel, and to be fair, the beginning was pretty slow, but it was worth persevering for the incredible last 20% of the book. When it comes to stories about racism, sexism, and classism, I’ve come to expect a certain message and formula that are repeated over and over again in books, so most novels that tackle these hot-topic issues fail to impress me as they’re telling me what I already know. A Good Neighbourhood broke the chain: it’s an excellent portrayal of racism and white/male privilege that managed to incense me so acutely that I had to put the book down multiple times in order to rein in my fury. I was particularly taken by the emphasis this book placed on the ways that the criminal justice system in the United States serves white interests while failing people of colour, notably black men. In the engrossing final act of the novel, a wrongful conviction takes place because a white man is feeling jealous and spiteful, and it was infuriating to witness the way white men get away with whatever they please due to gross racial bias in the criminal justice system. As reported by the NAACP, African Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white people, while in 2009, 64% of juveniles prosecuted as adults were African American (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, 2020; Cooper, 2019). These shocking and vile statistics illustrate the message of racial injustice that A Good Neighbourhood depicts. This novel will make your blood boil, but in the best way: the way that makes you want to get out on the streets and make radical change. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants more insight into the racism and white privilege that remain pervasive in the criminal justice system to this day! (Gina Linetti voice: 🎵 raacism, raacism, raaaaciiiiismmmmm…. 🎵)

4. My Lovely Wife by Samantha Downing 

Gone Girl meets Mr. and Mrs. Smith meets How To Get Away With Murder in My Lovely Wife, a chilling thriller about a husband and wife who begin kidnapping and murdering young women in order to spice up their increasingly boring marriage. Everything is going well and they have managed to get away with three murders — one premeditated, two unplanned — and are planning their fourth when our nameless protagonist realises that something is amiss, that his wife’s depravity may extend deeper than he knew, and that they may no longer be on quite the same page about how far they are willing to go — if they were even on the same page in the first place.

My Lovely Wife is edge-of-your-seat entertaining from the moment it begins. The ominous premise is undeniably intriguing, and the novel delivered accordingly on all accounts, producing a story so compulsive and compelling that I finished it in a single day. The main characters are completely psychopathic, experiencing little to no empathy for their victims or remorse for their actions unless there are unexpected consequences, and that’s what makes them so fascinating: I couldn’t help sympathising with the nameless protagonist despite his murderous tendencies. The details of the plot are exquisitely mapped out, and keep you guessing at every turn. You’ll be questioning who and what you can trust constantly and changing your mind every other page, because Downing’s detached main character is both a villain and a victim, forcing you to empathise with the kind of person you would normally abhor. I would love to give an academic analysis of this book as I did for the previous book on this list, but honestly, there’s nothing particularly academic to discuss. My Lovely Wife is pure, unapologetic entertainment that will have you gasping out loud at every plot twist and whispering, “Oh, that’s so fucked,” to yourself at every gruesome detail, and I delighted in every nasty minute of it. If you love thrillers like I do, this is a unique — and uniquely twisted — take on the genre that you will not be able to put down.  

3. Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane  

Ask Again, Yes is a slow-burning family drama about two families, the Gleesons and the Stanhopes, whose breadwinners, Francis and Brian respectively, are partners in the NYPD and who live next door to each other in upstate New York in the early 1980s. We follow three generations of the two families,  starting with the two rookie cops and ending with their grandchildren, but the story ultimately circles around Kate, Francis Gleeson’s youngest daughter, and Peter, Brian Stanhope’s only son, whose childhood friendship grows into a star-crossed romance after a violent tragedy sends the families spinning in opposite directions. 

The premise of Ask Again, Yes instantly reminded me of Celeste Ng, which is high praise: I will read anything that Celeste Ng writes. I loved that this book didn’t rely heavily on plot — although the plot that is present is breath-taking in its suspense and devastation — but instead focused on developing the characters and creating rich, complex lives and personalities for each of them. Despite the ensemble cast of multiple extended families, by the end of the novel, you feel as if you know everyone intimately, and you care about them and their relationships more than you reasonably should, considering that they are fictional. It’s great to be able to spend so many years with these characters, because they don’t feel like characters; they feel like real people whom you are watching change and grow and learn from their mistakes. Kate and Peter are the centrepiece of the novel, and the A-plot concentrates on the development of their relationship throughout the years and the ripple effect that the novel’s defining tragedy has on the rest of their lives; however, I felt a particular kinship with Peter’s mother, Anne, an Irish immigrant whose unstable emotional state is generally misunderstood throughout the majority of the book. She remains undiagnosed throughout the novel (although I suspect bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder), but her wild mood swings and erratic behaviour force an irreparable wedge between the two families that she struggles, in later years, to dig out. To me, Anne represents the novel’s major themes of forgiveness and acceptance. The inciting incident and ensuing tragedy are undeniably Anne’s fault, but as the years pass and time dulls the razor-edged memory, it becomes possible to forgive her crime and acknowledge that she isn’t the black-and-white villain she is perceived to be; she’s a troubled woman who wasn’t getting the help she needed. She cannot be completely exonerated of her transgression, but she can, eventually, be forgiven, and I loved that this novel gave us enough time to watch as time filed down the edges of traumatic childhood memories, allowing compassion to slowly seep in. If you’re interested in family dramas, or you’re hunting for novels that are along the lines of the inimitable Celeste Ng, Ask Again, Yes is not one to miss. 

2. Lock Every Door by Riley Sager 

In Lock Every Door, Jules Larsen can’t catch a break: she’s just broken up with her boyfriend, can’t get a job, and is feeling generally sorry for herself, when an opportunity too good to pass up falls into her lap: an ad promising $12,000 in return for three months apartment-sitting an enormous studio in the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan’s highest-profile and most enigmatic apartment building. The rules of the job seem harmless enough: no visitors, no nights spent away from the apartment, and no disturbing the Bartholomew’s other residents, all of whom are rich and extremely elusive. Jules eagerly accepts the offer, and when her downstairs neighbour, Ingrid, expresses concerns about the previous apartment sitter before Jules and says that the dark history and rumours surrounding the building are beginning to frighten her, Jules brushes her off as just another eccentric resident. The next day, however, Ingrid has disappeared without a trace, and Jules begins to suspect that Ingrid was onto something, and everything at the Bartholomew really is not as it seems. 

Lock Every Door was a rollercoaster ride from start to finish. I read it all in one day and was completely ensnared by its riveting plot and suspenseful mystery — and seriously, the suspense was unbearable in the best possible way. The anxiety and dread that I experienced while reading were painful, and at times I was so on edge that unexpected noises in my bedroom would startle me. We know from page one that something is horribly wrong —  the prologue begins with Jules waking up in a hospital and begging not to be sent back to the Bartholomew — but we don’t learn exactly what terrible things are taking place for another 300 pages, and are left to speculate and hypothesise as Sager slowly lets details slip, without ever revealing enough for you to figure out the truth until he’s ready for you to learn it. The details of the mystery were dished out at a tantalising pace that kept you both well-fed but still needing more, and they were clever enough that I was able to pick up on them without knowing how or why they fit into the story. And yet considering what ended up happening in the final act, I didn’t find this book melodramatic at all. Frightening, yes; a little bit unhinged, absolutely, but melodrama was never present; indeed the climax, while certainly out of left field, had the perfect tone considering the preceding suspense, and was incredibly original, too — I’ve never read anything that compares to the wonderfully weird plot twist at the end of this book. Overall, Lock Every Door was an immensely satisfying read: I was spooked but not too scared to sleep, I was intrigued but not completely lost, and the ending wraps everything up nicely instead of leaving loose ends for me to tie up myself, which I much prefer to open endings. I can’t speak more highly of this book, and it’s a close contender for the best book I read while in quarantine. It has a fantastic mystery, a compellingly spooky and Gothic atmosphere, and an ending so imaginative that I cannot stop thinking about it. I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for a thriller with a strong mystery element, as well as everyone who loves haunted house stories: the Bartholomew may not be literally haunted, but its dark history is haunting as hell. 

1. The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter (TW: Rape)

The Good Daughter is a crime fiction thriller about two sisters, Sam and Charlie Quinn, whose childhood is violently blown apart by a terrifying attack on their family home in Pikeville, Georgia. Their father, Rusty, is a defense attorney whose notoriety as the man who will defend anybody no matter their crime makes him the subject of many targeted attacks, the worst of which is the novel’s inciting incident and leaves his wife murdered, his eldest daughter crippled, and his youngest daughter emotionally scarred. Twenty-eight years later, Charlie has followed in Rusty’s footsteps and become a lawyer herself. When she finds herself in the middle of a school shooting, she becomes the prime witness in a court case that reminds her painfully of her tragic past, and old leads come unburied as she investigates what would motivate a naive teenage girl to commit cold-blooded murder in a middle school hallway.  

God, I loved this book. Like the other two thrillers on this list, it’s completely gripping from the opening line, but in a different way to nasty My Lovely Wife or suspenseful Lock Every Door. The Good Daughter is not in a rush to reach its climax, but nor is it meandering: it sets a steady pace that is maintained throughout the novel and sets the perfect tone for the kind of story that unfolds. Despite the brutality that takes place, nothing is sensationalised; in fact, you could tell me that this book is true-crime non-fiction and I wouldn’t be that surprised. Yet despite the professional detachment with which the violence is viewed, this book still has so much heart, and makes you feel intensely for each character. Similar to Ask Again, Yes, this book asks us to consider scenarios from multiple points of view and empathise with people whom we would normally regard with utter contempt. An impressionable teen girl who brings a gun to school, a defense attorney who has helped some disreputable men go free because he believes everyone believes to be represented in the courtroom, a man who committed murder against his better judgment; perhaps these crimes cannot be forgiven (and in some cases, they most definitely should not be forgiven), but it is important to set our emotions aside and fight to find the truth. Additionally, Sam and Charlie Quinn are fascinating women with whom I loved spending time, and their troubled dynamic felt truly authentic considering their nightmarish adolescence. Both women screw up and regularly make questionable decisions that they later come to regret, but ultimately, they’re fighting for what they think is right and what they can justify doing, just like their father, and it’s their fallibility and humanity that make them so compelling to read. Crime fiction with female lead characters who both kick ass in the courtroom is quite possibly my new favourite genre in thrillers, and Karin Slaughter (and her amazingly apt surname) has quickly become an author from whom I will read anything. If you enjoy legal thrillers, I cannot stress how fantastic The Good Daughter is, and highly recommend that you read it. 

Thank you for reading. Kia kaha x

WORKS CITED

• Cooper, K. J. (2019, March 12). Despite law on racial disparities, black teens are overly tried as adults. Retrieved from https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/despite-law-racial-disparities-black-teens-are-overly-tried-adults#stream/0.  
• National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. (2020). Criminal Justice Fact Sheet. Retrieved from https://www.naacp.org/criminal-justice-fact-sheet/.  

FIFTY SHADES DARKER by E. L. James (2012)

“I will be nothing without him, nothing but a shadow — all the light eclipsed." — Anastasia Steele

“‘I’ve lived in a bubble for years with nothing affecting me and not having to justify myself to anyone’.” — Christian Grey

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Last October, I read Fifty Shades Darker, a spectacle I have been anticipating since I picked it up in a secondhand bookstore and read the hilarious opening line: “I have survived Day Three Post-Christian” (James, 2012, p.5). Resuming where Fifty Shades of Grey left off, the second novel in the inexplicably best-selling trilogy sees our unlikely heroes, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, rekindling their relationship and navigating the uncharted territory of vanilla sex. I thought that this sequel might make minor improvements to the quality of the writing and the storytelling that we’d seen so far, but alas: Fifty Shades Darker is just as bad as Fifty Shades of Grey, and I’m excited to explain why. 

The biggest change this book makes to the Fifty Shades world is Christian and Ana’s departure from BDSM, a controversial move considering the BDSM element is what made the series so infamous. The end of book one shows Christian unleashing the full extent of his “kinky fuckery” on Ana, after which she decides she will never be able to satiate his needs and breaks up with him. In Fifty Shades Darker, Ana and Christian realise they cannot live without each other and agree to resume their relationship on the condition that Christian revokes BDSM. This is the beginning of what deteriorates into an even more toxic relationship than what we witnessed in Fifty Shades of Grey; on top of reforming Christian’s sexual preferences, Ana also endeavours to discover why Christian is “fifty shades of fucked up”. Book one touches on the reason for Christian’s participation in BDSM: he was molested as a teenager, so “in order to regain the control he relinquished [...] Christian uses his money, charm, and dashing good looks to coerce hapless women into becoming his own submissives” (Tribble, 2018). In Fifty Shades Darker, we learn that Christian was also abused as a child by his mother’s boyfriend. This cocktail is the provided justification for Christian’s psychopathic behaviour, and to the rational reader, it is clear that he requires extensive therapy (and potentially medical incarceration). Ana, however, believes she can fix him, an opinion supported by Christian’s therapist, Dr. Flynn, who tells Ana that in the limited time she has known Christian, she has made more progress than Dr. Flynn has in the last two years. It is incredible to me that Dr. Flynn has managed to keep his job for so long if an unqualified 21-year-old can achieve more in two months than he can in two years, but more to the point: it troubles me that Ana supposedly possesses the capability to fix Christian when his damage clearly extends far deeper than Ana’s level of psychotherapeutic expertise should be able to dig. Perhaps the evidence indicates success, but Ana is not receiving anything legitimate in return for what she is investing emotionally. We’re meant to interpret this book as a turning of the tables as Ana claims more control in the relationship, but in reality, Christian continues to manipulate her, dropping BDSM out of the equation but maintaining the rest of his psychopathic behaviours.

Christian reaches a new level of controlling in Fifty Shades Darker. In chapter one alone, Christian gives Ana three days to recover from their breakup before returning to harass her by delivering a bouquet of roses to her home, following up with an email to make sure she received this generous gift — “How did he get my email address?”, Ana wonders idly, as if this isn’t terrifying (James, 2012, p.8). In the same email, Christian manipulates Ana into accepting a lift to her friend José’s photography exhibit; upon arriving to collect her, the first thing out of Christian’s mouth is “When did you last eat?”, followed closely by a sensual comment about ‘keeping her in her place’ as he buckles her seatbelt for her and a derisive criticism of her decision to wear high heels to a formal event (ibid, p.13). At the exhibit, he buys every portrait of Ana so that no one else will be able “[ogle her] in the privacy of their home”, before insisting that they leave the exhibit after only 30 minutes so he can have her to himself (ibid, p.24). And you think that’s bad? Christian outdoes himself in chapter three: upon realising that Ana’s boss, Jack Hyde, is interested in her, Christian buys the company for which they work to keep tabs on him after specifically promising not to interfere in Ana’s career, telling her that even if she decides to leave the company, he will buy the next company too! Although Ana is initially furious, she eventually concludes that massive invasions of privacy are just the way that Christian shows love. That, and transferring $24,000 into her bank account — “‘How do you know my account number?’”, she asks, to which Christian creepily replies, “‘I know everything about you, Anastasia’” (ibid, p.89). 

The word “love” is a frequent substitute for more apt descriptions, such as “lust, [...] need, pity, and validation” (Dominic Noble, 2018). Ana claims to love Christian, but her love primarily manifests as gratitude that a man as sexy as Christian finds her attractive: “This man — God’s gift to women — loves me” (James, 2012, p.205). She leaves him not because his violent sexual tendencies are too much, but because she thinks her fear of physical pain is unreasonable. When Christian promises to give up BDSM on her behalf, Ana bemoans her inability to conform to his needs, both to Christian — “you’re prepared to do all this for me. I’m the one who is undeserving, and I’m just sorry that I can’t do all those things for you” — and to Dr. Flynn — “‘I just don’t know if I’m enough. To fulfil his needs’” (ibid, p.37, 411). In contrast, the affirmations Christian affords Ana are “exclusively in relation to himself: ‘you make me feel like I don’t need the anger anymore, you make me want to live a normal life’” (Dominic Noble, 2018). Their relationship revolves around Fixing Christian, and Ana derives the majority of her self-worth from the success she has in this endeavour. Yet this success is not enough: Ana still requires constant reassurance that she is good for, and good enough for, Christian. Perhaps the most profound quote in this book reverberates unintentionally throughout the story: after unloading her worries of inadequacy on Dr. Flynn, the doctor responds, “Is that what you need from me? Reassurance?”, a question that neatly sums up the nature of Ana’s relationship with Christian: she depends not on his love, but on the affirmation of the fact that she is loveable (James, 2012, p.411). 

Fifty Shades Darker ends on a happy note: the deluded couple are engaged after a whirlwind two-month courtship during which they both readily confess to hardly knowing each other, with Ana rapturously announcing that they “have so far to go, but [they] are made for each other. [They] are meant to be” (ibid, p.531). Where do the happy couple go from here? Presumably childbirth, given that this is a ripoff of the Twilight saga and that’s what happens in Breaking Dawn, but I’ll have to wait until I read Fifty Shades Freed to know for sure. Jack Hyde is looming ominously in the background, and I am supremely unexcited to see what crazy shit he gets up to after Christian fires him. All in all, Fifty Shades Darker was just as poorly written and alarmingly abusive as its predecessor, and I can’t wait for the third and final book in this God-awful series to be exactly as fucking horrible.

WORKS CITED

• Dominic Noble. (2018, February 23). Fifty Slightly Darker Shades of Physical and Emotional Abuse, a book review by The Dom [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIADkp-eL_4.  
• James, E. L. (2012). Fifty Shades Darker. London, Great Britain: Arrow Books.
• Tribble, S. (2018, May 3). Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James (2012). Retrieved from https://thesepapertowns.blogspot.com/2018/05/fifty-shades-of-grey-by-el-james-2012.html