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A review by emilyrainsford
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
5.0
Ahhhhhhhhhhh I am rendered incoherent by how much I loved this book!!
Sometimes book endorsements will be like "this book crept up on me" but this is the first time I've actually had that experience with a book. Like, it really crept up on me. It starts out with the slow, lethargic small town US claustrophobia of a Stephen King novel with a touch of Jane Eyre and I'm like okay, it's kinda interesting I guess, and then it steadily sucked me under until WHAM it had me by the THROAT and I was frantically reading heart in throat like I had never needed ANYTHING the way I needed Arthur and Opal to have a happy ending omgggggg.
And then towards the end I realised it had burrowed all the way under my skin and that last sentence was an OOOF in the best way possible.
Look, I can't even be bothered trying to distill this down into something reasoned and coherent. How something composed entirely of words like a book can sometimes somehow say something that is so beyond words is hard to fathom but none the less true.
The sparsely scattered artwork throughout was absolutely perfect also. I couldn't find an artist credited? It was the perfect touch.
I think this is one of those books that will either resonate with you or it won't. If it doesn't, you'll be like, eh. If it does, you'll close the last page and be like: oh okay, somewhere along the way that became the BEST FUCKING BOOK I'VE READ IN MY LIFE??
No inbetween, I don't think. May the odds be ever in your favour.
Sometimes book endorsements will be like "this book crept up on me" but this is the first time I've actually had that experience with a book. Like, it really crept up on me. It starts out with the slow, lethargic small town US claustrophobia of a Stephen King novel with a touch of Jane Eyre and I'm like okay, it's kinda interesting I guess, and then it steadily sucked me under until WHAM it had me by the THROAT and I was frantically reading heart in throat like I had never needed ANYTHING the way I needed Arthur and Opal to have a happy ending omgggggg.
And then towards the end I realised it had burrowed all the way under my skin and that last sentence was an OOOF in the best way possible.
Look, I can't even be bothered trying to distill this down into something reasoned and coherent. How something composed entirely of words like a book can sometimes somehow say something that is so beyond words is hard to fathom but none the less true.
The sparsely scattered artwork throughout was absolutely perfect also. I couldn't find an artist credited? It was the perfect touch.
I think this is one of those books that will either resonate with you or it won't. If it doesn't, you'll be like, eh. If it does, you'll close the last page and be like: oh okay, somewhere along the way that became the BEST FUCKING BOOK I'VE READ IN MY LIFE??
No inbetween, I don't think. May the odds be ever in your favour.