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A review by aveincobalt
The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray by Chris Wooding
3.0
I picked up this book because it was published by POINT whom I haven’t seen since I was a kid, but remember loving every book by them.
This book delivers on its premise. It is easily the scariest YA book I have read and would have terrified middle school me. It has some serious issues with it’s characterization though, especially with women.
There is a serial killer who only murders women, and the book follows each of his victims before their deaths. All of their deaths are described as justified. The women are whores, stupid, or evil. Instead of being made to feel for these women in their final moments, you are intended to think that they got what they deserved. This is rubbed in further when the serial killer releases the main female character, stating she is too young and innocent to be killed.
The main male character is described as a proficient fighter, and is considered the best of hunter in all of England. The main female character on the other hand is described as weak and useless for most of the book. When she is granted tremendous power towards the end of the book, she uses it almost exclusively to open doors. There is also a completely unnecessary romance plot between the two of them, that probably takes up less than an entire page of dialogue, and doesn’t fit the rest of the story.
Feeling even more shoehorned in is the sudden inclusion of religion during the climax of the book. Besides church architecture there had been no mention of religion prior to this point. But now they were all acting according to a higher plan and the very reason the monsters started appearing in the first place was because more people were atheist? This fits the book so poorly that I feel they were made to add it in an attempt to avoid extremely religious parents banning their kids from reading it.
Overall its a good example of YA horror and I probably wouldn’t have picked up on most of this when I was younger, but it doesn’t sit well with me now.
This book delivers on its premise. It is easily the scariest YA book I have read and would have terrified middle school me. It has some serious issues with it’s characterization though, especially with women.
There is a serial killer who only murders women, and the book follows each of his victims before their deaths. All of their deaths are described as justified. The women are whores, stupid, or evil. Instead of being made to feel for these women in their final moments, you are intended to think that they got what they deserved. This is rubbed in further when the serial killer releases the main female character, stating she is too young and innocent to be killed.
The main male character is described as a proficient fighter, and is considered the best of hunter in all of England. The main female character on the other hand is described as weak and useless for most of the book. When she is granted tremendous power towards the end of the book, she uses it almost exclusively to open doors. There is also a completely unnecessary romance plot between the two of them, that probably takes up less than an entire page of dialogue, and doesn’t fit the rest of the story.
Feeling even more shoehorned in is the sudden inclusion of religion during the climax of the book. Besides church architecture there had been no mention of religion prior to this point. But now they were all acting according to a higher plan and the very reason the monsters started appearing in the first place was because more people were atheist? This fits the book so poorly that I feel they were made to add it in an attempt to avoid extremely religious parents banning their kids from reading it.
Overall its a good example of YA horror and I probably wouldn’t have picked up on most of this when I was younger, but it doesn’t sit well with me now.