A review by dukegregory
The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld

2.0

This is, on one hand, a viscerally written conception of toxic masculinity as an intergenerational struggle of the sexes with a Gothic backing and, on the other hand, a clumsily constructed narrative triad that never allows the reader to actually consider the humanity of a single woman (or man, but I don't care about the men), as every female character comes off as a caricature: a witchy woman, a docile/domestic woman, a contemporary woman who is actually an alcoholic and is self-destructive in a number of ways. All three of these descriptions are archetypes of their respective eras. It seems odd to write a blatantly feminist novel and fail to actually complexity some literary archetypes of what a woman can be. I don't care about anything in this novel whatsoever on reflection, even if it maintained suspense and kept me tense while reading. I'll forget this in the next two weeks.