I thought I’d take a break from what I usually read and went with something that felt much different. I knew vaguely that there was an ace character in here, but other than that I was intrigued by the idea of a series of murders happening on an island and it being up to a few girls to find out what happened to their friends, This was not quite what I was expecting, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.
The story mostly follows Marion, a young woman who is new to the island. Her, her sister Charlotte, and her mother are relocating to the island for her mother’s work and to try and move on from their father’s death. She doesn’t put much weight on the disappearances of the young girls on the island until her sister goes missing after falling in with the beautiful and popular Val. The outcast, Zoey, who is still mourning the disappearance of her friend from months before, joins her and a whole lot of paranormal stuff starts happening.
So, as it turns out, this story is about a demon feeding on the girls of the island in an attempt to become strong enough to break free of his human hosts—Val’s family—and the island to go and murder whoever he wants. And Sawkill rock,1 finding young girls to give the abilities necessary to fight and eliminate the demon.
The movement from creepy mystery to girls with powers fighting a demon is done pretty well and not as jarring as it could have been. The atmosphere is consistently dark throughout and there’s new elements to the world constantly being brought in and introduced, from the demon to the powers to the cult of monster hunters made up entirely of men, and any with lines are incredibly sexist. Who you knew were going to be evil and useless because this book goes a little heavy on the feminism themes.
There was only one bit that really bothered me, and that was less the scene itself than its purpose in the narrative. Coming into the climax2 two of the characters hook up and the sole purpose of it appears to be so that they can make characters more angry at one another. The results of that conflict are resolved so easily during the main conflict in favour of focusing on longer and more established ones that it felt a little pointless and like it would have been better done earlier if they wanted the conflict to have a bit more punch.
As for the representation, the queer ladies are done fairly well. I thought the relationship between he girls moved a little fast, but this book is structured very much like a horror movie, so that’s to be expected. Teenagers and their teenage hormones and the murders happening everywhere making them run amok. The asexuality is mostly displayed as an indifference-to-aversion to sex which is… fine? It’s not my experience, but it’s probably good for those who do experience it. The conversations around it sound about right, so it works.
Overall, I really enjoyed the book! It’s spooky, it has some interesting concepts, and the characters are a lot of fun to follow as they try to figure out themselves and what to do with the demon.