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Review | Anna O by Matthew Blake

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AnnaOFour years ago, twenty-five-year-old Anna Ogilvy is found covered in blood and in a deep sleep at a campsite. Her two best friends are found nearby stabbed to death, and her parents have received a text from Anna, confessing to the murder. Anna’s deep sleep turns out to be a years-long coma, and she is given the moniker Sleeping Beauty. The prince tasked to wake her up is Dr Benedict Prince, a forensic psychologist who specializes in homicides committed whilst asleep. His dilemma: he grows to care for Anna and care about her story, yet as much as he wants her to wake up, her regaining consciousness means she’ll have to stand trial for her friends’ murders.

Anna O has a compelling hook, and the mystery behind what actually happened the night of the murders is gripping stuff. What actually happened that night? The only person who can tell us is fast asleep. And, if she committed these murders while asleep, can she actually be held criminally liable? The book also begins with the factoid that we spend about a third of our lives asleep, so adds another layer of intrigue.

Some elements don’t quite work as well: the conceit of a camp where people pay ridiculous amounts of money for their group to be split up into Hunters and Survivors, with the objective to be the last team standing after an overnight ‘battle’ just seems stupid. I get it for plot purposes, and I can imagine some terrible CEOs deciding that will be fun for company team building, but for wealthy families to have a fun weekend out? That stretches credulity. And for Anna’s wealthy family to randomly decide to do it, and also randomly decide to invite Anna’s two best friends is really more a plot device than an event that actually makes sense.

Anna and her friends also seem much younger than their mid-20s. There were occasional lines that reminded me Anna was an adult professional writer, but for most of the book, I kept picturing her and her friends as university students who publish their magazine as a side hustle. There’s something very young about the concept behind their publication, more like teenagers wanting to be edgy than adults who actually are.

Still, the twists and turns were interesting, and the big reveal made sense. When the events of that evening and the killer’s motive were revealed, there was that satisfying buzz. I did guess the big reveal, but not till fairly late, and it was nice to see how Blake dropped all these little clues along the way.

However, the major snag for me was how unnecessarily long Blake dragged out the ending. Without giving away spoilers, Dr Prince ends up moving to a different country maybe three fourths of the way through. A ‘mysterious’ patient (okay, it’s Anna; the book makes a big deal about who she could be, but duh) books an appointment, and what follows is a game of cat and mouse that just seems artificially drawn out rather than natural. You know how Nancy Drew books would end chapters on cliffhangers so that readers would keep reading? It kinda felt like that, except not done as well. Anna and Dr Prince have their appointment, and instead of Anna saying why she’s there, she then asks to meet Dr Prince for dinner. And when they meet for dinner, she then acts really coy and suggests they meet again at another time.

I understand that the author wanted to draw out the tension. But it just doesn’t work. Dr Prince’s anxiety also keeps rising with each meeting, since he’s afraid Anna plans to kill him, but because the set-up is so stupid (why would he keep meeting with her then?), I just got to the point where I wanted to scream at both characters to do something! Anything!

Unfortunately, Anna is a much more compelling character while she remained asleep. When the reveal does come, the events of that fatal evening do make sense…but they also remove so much of what made Anna interesting. The reveal deflates the Anna O mythos, and while it’s natural for the reality to be less interesting than the myth, it still felt like a letdown.

Worse, after things between Anna and Dr Prince finally come to a head, and the book finally seems like it’s reached its natural conclusion, there’s still a full other chapter to go. The epilogue reveals some new details, and these are indeed important to know, but they were also pretty easy to figure out from the rest of the novel. At the very most, this part merited a page, maybe two. Stretching it out into a full chapter just repeats a whole bunch of information, and I kept flipping the pages waiting to see if there was another major shocker that would make this section merit its length. (There wasn’t.)

So, overall, Anna O is a pretty good book. The hook is interesting, and even though I found the big reveal to be a let down, I still think the central mystery is fascinating. The novel just failed to stick its landing; the last few chapters were boring and unnecessarily drawn out, and the final chapter was the epilogue no one needed.

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TW: animal death

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Thank you to HarperCollins Canada for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | Gwen and Art Are Not in Love, by Lex Croucher

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GwenAndArtThis book takes a cute spin on the traditional forced marriage (forced betrothal?) + fake dating premise. Gwen and Art are betrothed, but they’re very much not in love. Such a set-up usually promises an enemies-to-lovers romance, but in this case, both main characters are gay, and so they actually do find their happily-ever-afters with other people. Gwen harbours a years-long crush on Bridget, a badass knight and only female knight in the kingdom; Arthur starts off kissing a stable boy, but eventually develops feelings for Gwen’s studious brother Gabriel. When both main characters find out about each other’s romantic secrets, they agree to fake-date to get their parents off their backs.

It’s a cute premise, and one I’d expect to love. Unfortunately, the book started off slooooooow for me. The first couple of chapters failed to hook me at all, mostly because it took so long for the main characters to win me over and make me care about them. Gwen just seemed like a miserable person to spend time with, and while I can kinda see why she wouldn’t want to marry someone as irresponsible and unreliable as Arthur, the specific incidents she complained about just made her seem bratty and petulant.

Arthur won me over more quickly, partly because his struggles with alcoholism and a power hungry father made him a more nuanced and textured character from the get-go. But what really made Arthur’s scenes shine almost from the start is his side kick (body guard? man servant?), Sidney. To me, Sidney stole the show. I found him witty and compelling, and I would totally read a whole book about his misadventures and his eventual romance with Gwen’s maid.

In fact, Gwen and Arthur owe a lot to the secondary characters. Despite Gwen and Arthur eventually going through full character arcs (Gwen needs to learn to get over her cowardice, and Arthur needs to learn to step up to his responsibilities), it’s the secondary characters, specifically Sidney and Bridget, who drive the momentum of most of the plot. It isn’t until later in the book that Gwen and Arthur actually start taking matters into their own hands. When they do, the story definitely picks up, but it takes a while to get there.

The final third or so takes a sharp turn from lighthearted romance to inter-kingdom politics and battle. The seeds were planted throughout, and the climactic battle is certainly a powerful section. Both Gwen and Arthur have their respective moments to shine, and demonstrate their character growth.

But the eventual happy ending does come at a cost, and a rather surprising tonal shift that unfortunately felt rushed. And while the denouement makes sense, it also feels oddly flat. Not quite rushed and not quite perfunctory, but not quite satisfying either. There’s a rather momentous point in the battle that adds so many layers of complexity to what comes next, yet it feels like the ending glosses over all that and focuses only on the happily-ever-afters of the central romances. Don’t get me wrong: I love genre romance and I love happily-ever-afters. Yet in this case, it doesn’t quite hit its emotional mark.

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Thank you to Raincoast Books for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | Starling House, by Alix E. Harrow

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StarlingHouseStarling House is a contemporary gothic fairy tale about an ugly old house full of secrets, the unfortunate man doomed to be its caretaker, and the desperate young woman who may hold the key to turning things around.

The story is more archetypal than super unique — heroine Opal struggles to make ends meet, and so takes a job cleaning Starling House so she can earn enough for her brother’s tuition. She’s scrappy and sarcastic, with enough street smarts for the entire family. Starling House caretaker Arthur is reclusive and beastly — almost literally: the story often compares him to the Beast from Beauty and the Beast, to the point that in one scene, he saves Opal from wolves and she dresses his wounds. The comparisons to Wuthering Heights also get heavy-handed; ‘Heathcliff’ must have been mentioned at least a dozen times.

But somehow, Harrow manages to make it all work. Underpinning the conflict is an evil developer who wants to purchase the land Starling House is on, and this developer’s minion flip-flops between bribing and blackmailing Opal for helpful intel. There’s also an old children’s tale from a woman who lived in the house centuries ago; a story about monsters who live beneath the grounds and are both fearsome and comforting for young girls.

This isn’t really the type of story I would normally pick up, yet Harrow’s writing drew me in. The author does a great job in interweaving fairy tale elements with contemporary real world struggles. And despite the archetypal associations for some characters, she’s also succeeded in creating compelling individuals to root for. I respect and admire Opal’s fierce determination to provide for her younger brother, and Arthur’s equally fierce determination to be the last person doomed to be Starling House’s caretaker. The way Opal and Arthur move through the conflict is very much within an eerie dreamscape, yet also very much infused with tangible trauma, and very real work needed to move past it.

Minor note but it matters: I also very, very much appreciate that both Arthur and Opal are described as unattractive. And not just in a ‘they feel ugly but everyone else sees how gorgeous they are,’ nor even in a ‘they’re ugly to everyone but each other,’ but that they actually seem unattractive on an objective level. As much as they are attracted to each other, and as much as they admire each other’s traits, neither Opal nor Arthur describes the other as beautiful or handsome. And among the other characters, even those who love them aren’t complimenting their looks. The whole ‘feels ugly but is actually gorgeous’ trope is used so often that I very much appreciate Alix E Harrow for letting these characters simply be ordinary-looking, perhaps even ugly. Because it isn’t just the gorgeous Hollywood look-a-likes who can save the day.

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Thank you to Raincoast Books for an e-galley of this book in exchange for an honest review.