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A review by neriine
The Betrayals by Bridget Collins
1.0
Nothing about this narrative sat right with me at all.
[EDIT] In the months since I posted this tiny review, I've been going back and forth on whether I should elaborate. Well! I've decided that I'm finally going to.
I began feeling strange about the way this book was written at about the time when Claire started mentioning her womanly womanly ways and how she bleeeeeds like a woman because she's a woman and women bleed. It initially felt like a very heavy-handed method of highlighting her otherness. Useful, perhaps, in smaller doses, but the way this was written felt like being constantly smacked over the head with a hammer with the venus symbol painted on it.
Also, Bridget Collins, are you okay? Is this really your lived experience of menstruation? I would consider going to a doctor if so. This poor character must be anaemic by now! This is the kind of description of menstruation I would expect from somebody who has never experienced it nor had the wherewithal to ask anyone who has experienced it (or even just googled it!).
The whole plot of the book, also, gave me pause. Spoilers ahead!
When the pieces started to be put together, the image the reader has for a while is that Claire is the sister of Carfax, Léo's schooltime love. The ever-constant comparisons between Claire and Carfax in these scenes felt extremely uncomfortable on a first read through. It seemed very... odd, to have a bisexual protagonist fall for a female character on the basis that they heavily resemble their male sibling. I don't necessarily think that a plot with that premise is inherently an issue, but the way it was handled in this narrative left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt questionable.
Of course, though, the twist in the tale is that Claire IS actually the Carfax that Léo fell in love with, having disguised herself as her bipolar brother to attend his elite school. Thank you, by the way, Bridget Collins, for the delightful handling of a mentally ill barely-a-character who commits suicide to further his sister's personal angst-fest. A charming decision, honestly. Really sensitive.
The decision to have Claire BE Carfax sat very strangely with me. The way it was handled felt very off. The trope of 'woman disguises herself as a man to attend something she wouldn't be able to as a woman' is as old as time, and in this scenario felt extremely trite and uninspired. Perhaps if there had been any nuance whatsoever in regards to how the narrative interacted with gender, instead of the heavy-handed mess that we got, this plot line could have worked better.
Imagine my surprise (ha) when, on the hunch I picked up from the phrasing in this book, I checked Bridget Collins' 'following' page on Twitter, to find it rife with TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). Of course, I am familiar with death of the author, and separating the art from the artist. Heaven knows, one learns enough about that reading classical literature. But can that be successful when the dogwhistles of gender essentialism and transgender exclusion have seeped through a work like a viscous, oily stain? I would argue not. Perhaps for some people it is possible to ignore the blatancy of this, but unfortunately for me it was the final damning nail in the coffin of a book that had already gone far beyond the limits of my taste.
It's a shame, as The Binding was a book with a fascinating premise, and the complexity of the plot in The Betrayals was still interesting to read, but there is unfortunately no way I will be considering reading any new Bridget Collins books in the future after this mess.
[EDIT] In the months since I posted this tiny review, I've been going back and forth on whether I should elaborate. Well! I've decided that I'm finally going to.
I began feeling strange about the way this book was written at about the time when Claire started mentioning her womanly womanly ways and how she bleeeeeds like a woman because she's a woman and women bleed. It initially felt like a very heavy-handed method of highlighting her otherness. Useful, perhaps, in smaller doses, but the way this was written felt like being constantly smacked over the head with a hammer with the venus symbol painted on it.
Also, Bridget Collins, are you okay? Is this really your lived experience of menstruation? I would consider going to a doctor if so. This poor character must be anaemic by now! This is the kind of description of menstruation I would expect from somebody who has never experienced it nor had the wherewithal to ask anyone who has experienced it (or even just googled it!).
The whole plot of the book, also, gave me pause. Spoilers ahead!
When the pieces started to be put together, the image the reader has for a while is that Claire is the sister of Carfax, Léo's schooltime love. The ever-constant comparisons between Claire and Carfax in these scenes felt extremely uncomfortable on a first read through. It seemed very... odd, to have a bisexual protagonist fall for a female character on the basis that they heavily resemble their male sibling. I don't necessarily think that a plot with that premise is inherently an issue, but the way it was handled in this narrative left a bad taste in my mouth. It felt questionable.
Of course, though, the twist in the tale is that Claire IS actually the Carfax that Léo fell in love with, having disguised herself as her bipolar brother to attend his elite school. Thank you, by the way, Bridget Collins, for the delightful handling of a mentally ill barely-a-character who commits suicide to further his sister's personal angst-fest. A charming decision, honestly. Really sensitive.
The decision to have Claire BE Carfax sat very strangely with me. The way it was handled felt very off. The trope of 'woman disguises herself as a man to attend something she wouldn't be able to as a woman' is as old as time, and in this scenario felt extremely trite and uninspired. Perhaps if there had been any nuance whatsoever in regards to how the narrative interacted with gender, instead of the heavy-handed mess that we got, this plot line could have worked better.
Imagine my surprise (ha) when, on the hunch I picked up from the phrasing in this book, I checked Bridget Collins' 'following' page on Twitter, to find it rife with TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). Of course, I am familiar with death of the author, and separating the art from the artist. Heaven knows, one learns enough about that reading classical literature. But can that be successful when the dogwhistles of gender essentialism and transgender exclusion have seeped through a work like a viscous, oily stain? I would argue not. Perhaps for some people it is possible to ignore the blatancy of this, but unfortunately for me it was the final damning nail in the coffin of a book that had already gone far beyond the limits of my taste.
It's a shame, as The Binding was a book with a fascinating premise, and the complexity of the plot in The Betrayals was still interesting to read, but there is unfortunately no way I will be considering reading any new Bridget Collins books in the future after this mess.