Book #38 for 2023: Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore
Acts of Violet by Margarita Montimore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It's been ten years since magician Violet Volk went missing. Cameron Frank wants to investigate using his podcast series, to ask everyone involved in her life, and tries to get Violet's sister Sasha to take part; she declines.
Meanwhile, Sasha is having her own problems; as well as dealing with the loss of her sister, she has also started sleepwalking.
I was intrigued by this book, but found it to be a bit different to what I was expecting. The main difficulty I had with this was getting used to the different narrative styles.
First off, every other chapter is in the form of a podcast transcript, so more like reading a screenplay, while the other chapters are from Sasha's point of view, and appear as journal entries, written in the present tense. In between the chapters, there are other bits written in the form of newspaper articles, letters and e-mails.
There were several good aspects of this book; reading this, I really got a sense of who Violet was, and about her often fractured relationship with Sasha. There was some good feminist commentary too; for example, about how most stage magicians are men who use female assistants, and almost seem obsessed with manipulating them. Hence, Violet insisted on only having male assistants.
I was expecting more of a straightforward mystery with a clear resolution; here, the podcasts served as a kind of suspect interrogation, and I was surprised when the book started to introduce metaphysical and supernatural aspects, effectively turning this into a fantasy novel. I was never clear as to what the significance of Sasha's sleepwalking episodes was.
So, overall I'd say this is worth trying, but you need to be patient at times, as this felt a bit long-winded in places. I found myself loving Violet and Sasha though.
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