literary nonsense: 5/20
Finished In This Way I Was Saved by Brian DeLeeuw this weekend, and OMG. It's definitely not a book for the faint of heart or those of us who dislike books with Bad People doing Bad Things in them. There is a lot of triggery subject matter in this book, and at one point, I actually had to put the book down and take a mental break from it, because there was a scene that happened that just completely pushed my buttons in a very, very bad way. if you want to know what it was, I'd be happy to discuss in comments
The novel works around a very unique premise, which I actually can't discuss without giving a bit of the book away. But I will say that the main character, Daniel, is captivating, alluring, sexy, sinister, and unredeemable in all the horrible things that he does. As the "protagonist" (though it could be argued that his best friend, Luke, is the lead), you expect to like him eventually, but I don't think you ever do. Not in the same was that you instantly fall in love with his friend Luke, who is everything Daniel is not. Luke has depth and sincerity and emotional connection and sympathy and guilt. Daniel is more a sociopath than anything else, dragging Luke down with him in the same kind of way I imagine Tom Riddle could seduce his followers into believing that whatever he said was the way of the world.
The descent of the characters is just...gripping. Thrilling. And it's hard to put the book down. Despite having to take that "mental break" from the specific scene I mentioned, the rest of the book was so captivating that I literally couldn't stop reading. It's essentially a psychological thriller, something that if it were a movie would probably scare the shit out of me. But it's beautifully written, and as DeLeeuw's first novel, it's just incredible. I was telling Aurora the other day that I've never seen someone seamlessly weave present-to-past tense narrative in this easy way that he does. There's a part at the end of the book where it's all past tense and then suddenly, I realised, "whoa, when did it turn to present tense again??" and I read back, only to find he had seamlessly changed tenses in the middle of a single sentence without me realising it. I re-read the sentence a few times, because I loved how it worked and how he made the tense-shift so invisible to me.
Here's the sentence: Four hours later, Victor helped Claire out of a taxi and through her building's bright glowing doorway, and now here I stand in front of the brass elevator, my hands pinned behind my back, as still and straight as a rod driven into the earth.
So simple but so effective.
Loved this book. I'm on a book-loving roll! :) And because I feel like saying more about it, here's a snippit of the book, to get you all intrigued:
The day I met Luke, I was alone in the playground when I heard someone call my name. I turned around and his face was there in front of mine. He was six years old then. His skin was pale, his features delicate and precise, just like his mother's. His left eye was yellow-flecked green, the right brown, as if, instead of melding, his parents' genes had been split evenly, an eye for each. Later, I liked to remind him that he came looking for me first. I didn't ask for any of it.
"Hi, he said. "I'm Luke. Want to play a game?"
The novel works around a very unique premise, which I actually can't discuss without giving a bit of the book away. But I will say that the main character, Daniel, is captivating, alluring, sexy, sinister, and unredeemable in all the horrible things that he does. As the "protagonist" (though it could be argued that his best friend, Luke, is the lead), you expect to like him eventually, but I don't think you ever do. Not in the same was that you instantly fall in love with his friend Luke, who is everything Daniel is not. Luke has depth and sincerity and emotional connection and sympathy and guilt. Daniel is more a sociopath than anything else, dragging Luke down with him in the same kind of way I imagine Tom Riddle could seduce his followers into believing that whatever he said was the way of the world.
The descent of the characters is just...gripping. Thrilling. And it's hard to put the book down. Despite having to take that "mental break" from the specific scene I mentioned, the rest of the book was so captivating that I literally couldn't stop reading. It's essentially a psychological thriller, something that if it were a movie would probably scare the shit out of me. But it's beautifully written, and as DeLeeuw's first novel, it's just incredible. I was telling Aurora the other day that I've never seen someone seamlessly weave present-to-past tense narrative in this easy way that he does. There's a part at the end of the book where it's all past tense and then suddenly, I realised, "whoa, when did it turn to present tense again??" and I read back, only to find he had seamlessly changed tenses in the middle of a single sentence without me realising it. I re-read the sentence a few times, because I loved how it worked and how he made the tense-shift so invisible to me.
Here's the sentence: Four hours later, Victor helped Claire out of a taxi and through her building's bright glowing doorway, and now here I stand in front of the brass elevator, my hands pinned behind my back, as still and straight as a rod driven into the earth.
So simple but so effective.
Loved this book. I'm on a book-loving roll! :) And because I feel like saying more about it, here's a snippit of the book, to get you all intrigued:
The day I met Luke, I was alone in the playground when I heard someone call my name. I turned around and his face was there in front of mine. He was six years old then. His skin was pale, his features delicate and precise, just like his mother's. His left eye was yellow-flecked green, the right brown, as if, instead of melding, his parents' genes had been split evenly, an eye for each. Later, I liked to remind him that he came looking for me first. I didn't ask for any of it.
"Hi, he said. "I'm Luke. Want to play a game?"