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A review by ladymacbeth_1985
Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede
dark
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.25
I received this e-arc from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.
Normally, I have some pithy one-word wrap-up for the book I’m reviewing, but I got nothin' regarding this one. I don’t think you write a book like this expecting everyone to love it, so that’s what’s coming.
The first third of the novel is excellent. The prose is engaging, and I was immediately hooked on the Wednesday-Addams-on-steroids character and mix of dark humour. I wasn’t as keen on the copious descriptions of LA - a city I have never been to and have no desire to visit - but there weren’t too many of them. Maeve was a great balance of demented and understandable. Her life is interesting and intriguing. The author has a fantastic style that is visceral and detailed but moves at a great clip. Honestly, the first third had me hooked.
Unfortunately, I started to lose interest once she started going gah-gah over the guy mentioned in the blurb (it kind of drifts into a Dark Romance at this part), and then the last third just went so off-the-rails and included so much shock value gore it grew tedious. Maeve, in the first third, isn’t a sympathetic character, but she’s at least an interesting weirdo. But when the book got really rapey and torturey and included so many sex scenes (I don't mind sex scenes at all, but I prefer a slow-burn romance), I was no longer invested in her story. The end twist was also very predictable. It's a horror novel, but it's not scary.
Likewise, while Maeve is very intriguing at the start, we never really learn the “why” about a few things. Why does she love her job? Why is she so dependent on Kate’s friendship? I also thought the concept - how she’s a Disney princess during the day but a dark and edgy woman in the evening - wasn’t fleshed out enough to be making any sort of commentary.
If you enjoy really dark novels with lots of gore and sexual content, you will enjoy this (no judgment from me!), but I think I’m done with these edgy books as they seem to be disappointing me as of late. It could be that in my old age, I’ve softened a bit. When I was 21, I probably would have loved this book, but given my nearly four decades on this earth, I’ve seen and read a lot of horrible things, and they no longer shock me but sadden me. There is one particularly gross thing that happens in this novel in the climax that seems like it’s really over-the-top; yet, I read an article about this particular thing happening in real life to a woman while they were being tortured under interrogation. I think because I’ve read about so many awful things in real life, and especially at my old job where I worked in criminal case law, that shock value horror just serves to make me disheartened. Now, if these things were happening in the novel for a social critique or an allegory of a systemic problem in society, it would have worked better for me. But to have these things happen to innocent people, not as a form of justice against someone awful or to make a statement, rubbed me the wrong way. No one who receives violence in this novel deserves it, even remotely so.
As such, a novel about a woman murdering people or harming them in disgusting ways, but with no real “downfall” or “comeuppance” moment (I guess you could argue the ending was such, but I would hardly call that “justice”) makes me wonder who are we to be rooting for in this novel? What is it trying to say? American Psycho, which this has been compared to, was gory too, but it was a comment on corporate culture in comparing the quest for greed and status with homicidal sociopathy. I think the only reason Maeve Fly is being compared to American Psycho (a book I find overblown, by the way) is because she’s someone you wouldn’t expect to be a serial killer, just like Bateman was at the time of publication. Back when American Psycho first came out, part of the resonance behind it was the idea that a serial killer isn’t just some weirdo, but could be someone “successful.” We don’t have that bias anymore.
Another idea I had was that the novel might simply be showing a woman serial killer who is just born bad. This is an increasing trend in media right now that we have women killers or evil women who haven’t been “turned” bad by trauma, but who are just naturally evil. This rise is a response to, perhaps, how many male killers we have in media who haven’t needed to be “corrupted” by anything. Up until recently, there was this latent idea in society that women were inherently good-which is a form of sexism-and having just plain evil women in books and movies today is an attempt to disprove that notion. If that is the purpose of the book, then it definitely hits that mark on that front, though I don’t think that idea is strong enough to carry the entire novel and the torture and rape aspects of it.
I do love things that are subversive and push the envelope but perhaps I just prefer it to be more subtle? As I’ve said, I think the author has definitely talent with their prose and descriptions, so perhaps I’ll check out another of hers in the future.
Normally, I have some pithy one-word wrap-up for the book I’m reviewing, but I got nothin' regarding this one. I don’t think you write a book like this expecting everyone to love it, so that’s what’s coming.
The first third of the novel is excellent. The prose is engaging, and I was immediately hooked on the Wednesday-Addams-on-steroids character and mix of dark humour. I wasn’t as keen on the copious descriptions of LA - a city I have never been to and have no desire to visit - but there weren’t too many of them. Maeve was a great balance of demented and understandable. Her life is interesting and intriguing. The author has a fantastic style that is visceral and detailed but moves at a great clip. Honestly, the first third had me hooked.
Unfortunately, I started to lose interest once she started going gah-gah over the guy mentioned in the blurb (it kind of drifts into a Dark Romance at this part), and then the last third just went so off-the-rails and included so much shock value gore it grew tedious. Maeve, in the first third, isn’t a sympathetic character, but she’s at least an interesting weirdo. But when the book got really rapey and torturey and included so many sex scenes (I don't mind sex scenes at all, but I prefer a slow-burn romance), I was no longer invested in her story. The end twist was also very predictable. It's a horror novel, but it's not scary.
Likewise, while Maeve is very intriguing at the start, we never really learn the “why” about a few things. Why does she love her job? Why is she so dependent on Kate’s friendship? I also thought the concept - how she’s a Disney princess during the day but a dark and edgy woman in the evening - wasn’t fleshed out enough to be making any sort of commentary.
If you enjoy really dark novels with lots of gore and sexual content, you will enjoy this (no judgment from me!), but I think I’m done with these edgy books as they seem to be disappointing me as of late. It could be that in my old age, I’ve softened a bit. When I was 21, I probably would have loved this book, but given my nearly four decades on this earth, I’ve seen and read a lot of horrible things, and they no longer shock me but sadden me. There is one particularly gross thing that happens in this novel in the climax that seems like it’s really over-the-top; yet, I read an article about this particular thing happening in real life to a woman while they were being tortured under interrogation. I think because I’ve read about so many awful things in real life, and especially at my old job where I worked in criminal case law, that shock value horror just serves to make me disheartened. Now, if these things were happening in the novel for a social critique or an allegory of a systemic problem in society, it would have worked better for me. But to have these things happen to innocent people, not as a form of justice against someone awful or to make a statement, rubbed me the wrong way. No one who receives violence in this novel deserves it, even remotely so.
As such, a novel about a woman murdering people or harming them in disgusting ways, but with no real “downfall” or “comeuppance” moment (I guess you could argue the ending was such, but I would hardly call that “justice”) makes me wonder who are we to be rooting for in this novel? What is it trying to say? American Psycho, which this has been compared to, was gory too, but it was a comment on corporate culture in comparing the quest for greed and status with homicidal sociopathy. I think the only reason Maeve Fly is being compared to American Psycho (a book I find overblown, by the way) is because she’s someone you wouldn’t expect to be a serial killer, just like Bateman was at the time of publication. Back when American Psycho first came out, part of the resonance behind it was the idea that a serial killer isn’t just some weirdo, but could be someone “successful.” We don’t have that bias anymore.
Another idea I had was that the novel might simply be showing a woman serial killer who is just born bad. This is an increasing trend in media right now that we have women killers or evil women who haven’t been “turned” bad by trauma, but who are just naturally evil. This rise is a response to, perhaps, how many male killers we have in media who haven’t needed to be “corrupted” by anything. Up until recently, there was this latent idea in society that women were inherently good-which is a form of sexism-and having just plain evil women in books and movies today is an attempt to disprove that notion. If that is the purpose of the book, then it definitely hits that mark on that front, though I don’t think that idea is strong enough to carry the entire novel and the torture and rape aspects of it.
I do love things that are subversive and push the envelope but perhaps I just prefer it to be more subtle? As I’ve said, I think the author has definitely talent with their prose and descriptions, so perhaps I’ll check out another of hers in the future.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Torture, Blood, Murder, and Toxic friendship