“In a world where the dead can wake and walk among us, what is truly real?
Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the only good thing in Roos’ life, which is filled with sordid backroom séances organized by her mother. That is, until wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop attends one of these séances and asks Roos to come live with her at the crumbling estate she inherited upon the death of her husband. The manor is unsettling, but the attraction between Roos and Agnes is palpable. So how does someone end up dead?
Roos is caught red-handed, but she claims a spirit is the culprit. Doctor Montague, a psychologist tasked with finding out whether Roos can be considered mentally fit to stand trial, suspects she’s created an elaborate fantasy to protect her from what really happened. But Roos knows spirits are real; she’s loved one of them. She’ll have to prove her innocence and her sanity, or lose everything.”
I got an ARC of this book.
Woah. This was woah.
Everything from the cover to the way it was written was made perfectly for me. I can’t even express how much I adored this book. It was dark. It was weird. It wasn’t excessive. It was the exact sort of horror that I would binge and not even notice I had.
The book is told from the perspective of a young adult girl who had been abused all of her life by her maternal figure. It is unclear if this woman is actually her mother or not, which is just part of the abuse she faced at the hands of Mama. Some of the abuse was typical and easy to TW against (forced eating disorders for example). The others fit the world more. There was locking Roos into the floor so she can pull off fake seance events. The first chunk of the book really hammers home just how abusive Mama is, but it is the only thing that Roos has ever really known. Then throw in Ruth. Ruth is what changed the book from creepy to perfect.
Ruth is Ruth. She defies description in a way that is effective. I could tell you about her, but she is still amorphous in looks and plot and yeah. She is fascinating and Ruth might be my favorite character, if she really is a character. That is how fun the unreliable narration gets. Ruth for sure exists for Roos, but does she really exist? It is not clear. The story has a transcript of an interview conducted by the psychiatrist and his notes. It gives some perspective and some foreshadowing to what happens. It is wild. That slight medicalization was a wonderful touch. It is clear that even if Ruth is not real, Ruth does not cause distress so does her existence really matter in the scheme of metal illness? Wonderful!
I could go on and on about this book and never say anything that would make any sense. Even if I was to get specific, this book is weird enough that it would require context and such to really make sense. I suggest just diving in. It isn’t difficult to follow, but it does meander. It is not a fast horror. It makes you wait and experience all the scents of horror.
5 out of 5 stars. I would recommend this book.
You can buy the book here.
~Isaiah
MI Book Reviews 