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A review by heelturn2
Fayne by Ann-Marie MacDonald
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
what a genuinely weird book.
if you have the patience and the time, finish the whole thing. but I wouldn’t blame you for stopping halfway through. I think saying anything more if you haven’t read it is saying too much!
I knew exactly what my review was going to be through the first 80%. and then this book became something else, and something else again.
I spent most of the book enjoying it, but asking what the point of a gothic novel was at this point in time. like, gothic novels themselves are weird and sexy and salacious and tense and scary and fundamentally about the ☠️female condition👻 — like if you’re reading this giant fucking CanLit tome you’ve probably taken an english lit course and you probably Know About Feminism already. so you don’t need Ann-Marie MacDonald to tell you that women had it bad at the turn of the 20th century. and yet so much of this book is detailed suffering - Mae’s story is just awful, paced very slowly, just awful lies and torture and misery at a snail’s pace. as the reader you’re cursed with dramatic irony and you know that none of this will turn out well; it becomes excruciating in the third or fourth act when you realize Mae’s child is almost definitely going to the same fate unless things REALLY turn around. at this point I was like, why are you torturing me and these characters? why don’t you think your reader is already on the same page about this stuff? like what in the second wave feminism makes you think I want to read 700 pages of the saddest most devastating shit in intricate detail, when the historical genre you are writing in already does this, but faster and way horny-er? so that was my review: “intriguing, but thinks it’s elevating gothic when gothic is already about women going debatably insane because their husbands are evil.”
but then it kind of transforms at the 11th hour? and suddenly the book is full of happiness and justice and good people? there are suddenly queers everywhere, and proto-feminists, and Good Men? (also sorry, an aside, this book has a great description of the way in which gay middle aged dudes are sometimes just SO endearing for no reason, you’re just like, ugh I love this gay guy… his gay little Comportment….) and all is made right. the villains meet bad ends. it’s like, gothic fix-it fic! suddenly! what is happening!
and many things happen. and it becomes more magical than it has been, mostly, but in a way I found enjoyable and satisfying. and it gets quite weird at the end, and becomes an eco-novel-thing. but I won’t begrudge it that. I think most novels could probably become climate fiction very suddenly these days and I’d be like, oh, for sure.
anyways I liked this much more the weirder it got and it made me cry a lot in the last 150 pages (lol!) which were worth the other 600 or so. even the sluggish first 600 pages were very solid and good. what a book!!!
if you have the patience and the time, finish the whole thing. but I wouldn’t blame you for stopping halfway through. I think saying anything more if you haven’t read it is saying too much!
I knew exactly what my review was going to be through the first 80%. and then this book became something else, and something else again.
I spent most of the book enjoying it, but asking what the point of a gothic novel was at this point in time. like, gothic novels themselves are weird and sexy and salacious and tense and scary and fundamentally about the ☠️female condition👻 — like if you’re reading this giant fucking CanLit tome you’ve probably taken an english lit course and you probably Know About Feminism already. so you don’t need Ann-Marie MacDonald to tell you that women had it bad at the turn of the 20th century. and yet so much of this book is detailed suffering - Mae’s story is just awful, paced very slowly, just awful lies and torture and misery at a snail’s pace. as the reader you’re cursed with dramatic irony and you know that none of this will turn out well; it becomes excruciating in the third or fourth act when you realize Mae’s child is almost definitely going to the same fate unless things REALLY turn around. at this point I was like, why are you torturing me and these characters? why don’t you think your reader is already on the same page about this stuff? like what in the second wave feminism makes you think I want to read 700 pages of the saddest most devastating shit in intricate detail, when the historical genre you are writing in already does this, but faster and way horny-er? so that was my review: “intriguing, but thinks it’s elevating gothic when gothic is already about women going debatably insane because their husbands are evil.”
but then it kind of transforms at the 11th hour? and suddenly the book is full of happiness and justice and good people? there are suddenly queers everywhere, and proto-feminists, and Good Men? (also sorry, an aside, this book has a great description of the way in which gay middle aged dudes are sometimes just SO endearing for no reason, you’re just like, ugh I love this gay guy… his gay little Comportment….) and all is made right. the villains meet bad ends. it’s like, gothic fix-it fic! suddenly! what is happening!
and many things happen. and it becomes more magical than it has been, mostly, but in a way I found enjoyable and satisfying. and it gets quite weird at the end, and becomes an eco-novel-thing. but I won’t begrudge it that. I think most novels could probably become climate fiction very suddenly these days and I’d be like, oh, for sure.
anyways I liked this much more the weirder it got and it made me cry a lot in the last 150 pages (lol!) which were worth the other 600 or so. even the sluggish first 600 pages were very solid and good. what a book!!!