A review by makealongstorycourt
Penance by Eliza Clark

challenging dark reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

WOW WOW WOW. 

I didn’t know I loved metafiction this much until I read this. 

I was not a huge fan of Boy Parts, so I was a little hesitant picking up this. I knew Eliza Clark was a young author, but I had heard fantastic things about penance so I knew I had to try it out. 

Holy lord. This was dark, twisted, and so so meta. The entire concept of the novel had me gripped the whole way through. I haven’t stayed up late to read a book in so long, but this one did it for me. 

The teen speak was hard to digest sometimes, I will admit. Yet, I appreciate it because of the metafiction present in this book. As I was reading, I had a hard time understanding how the prose in this book could be considered “literary.” Not until the last few sections did I realize that it’s less of the prose and more of the plot/concept of the novel that is more literary. 

A critique of society’s consumption of true crime at the expense of real people’s pain and suffering, Penance is both grotesque and brilliant.