Today @KirkusReviews...

...I wrote about Anna Collomore's The Ruining, which made me truly, literally nauseous.

In a good way.

Because of the tension and the claustrophobia and the psychological yickiness.

BASICALLY, I REALLY LIKED IT.

(Note: the cover art on the ARC is totally, totally different, but I can't find a decent image of it. Oh. Here. See? Way different. I think that the art on the ARC echoes the actual book more closely, but I understand why it was changed, I guess. Ish.)

Comments

[Kate]

This has been in my galley pile for a while, but I picked up it right away after reading your review.

***VAGUE SPOILERS***

I'm a little bit perplexed by how much every woman in this book seems to be pitted against every other woman--even Annie's friendship with Morgan comes down to an argument about her boyfriend--since The Yellow Wallpaper indicts men, husbands, and their faith in institutionalized medicine, all of whom come off as well-intentioned but totally manipulated in the end here. From the first "Mommy," I wondered if we were headed in a more Rebecca-y direction.

I really enjoyed the high creepy/claustrophobic factor, and I tore through the book, but if the ending was supposed to be either unsettling or all in her head, I wish there had been a clearer textual clue. (I was reading quickly--maybe I missed something?)

[Leila]

***VAGUE SPOILERS***

That is an OUTSTANDING point about the relationships between the women in the book, and I think, actually, that could be HUGELY problematic for some readers. While I definitely didn't see it as a direct response to or rewrite of The Yellow Wallpaper, it still references it heavily, so the lack of discussion about the relationships between women and men (and the balance of power) is weird. I'm so glad that you brought it up, because it didn't occur to me AT ALL.

Yeah, I think I might be reaching a bit on the ending? Because you're right in that there wasn't really a clearly identifiable textual clue that suggests sketchiness of some sort. But if the ending is just a plain-old-what-you-see-is-what-you-get, I'd find that really disappointing, especially given the terror I experienced over the course of the book... so I prefer my ending, even if it wasn't intended by the author. My thing about True Horror is that the ending is almost always a downer in some way, and so if she just gets a misty-morning-beautiful-happy-ending, I almost feels like that detracts from the horror, somehow? Is that even allowed? Can I just decide that that's what happens at the end, even if I can't necessarily back it up with concrete textual clues? ... HOLY COW, I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT ANYMORE. :D

TL;DR: I think you might be right about EVERYTHING YOU JUST SAID. :P