Four women who work for the same company have experienced sexualised violence by the CEO. This is a man who will use all of his considerable power to silence the women he assaults.
He’s counting on us not telling anyone because we’re afraid they won’t believe us.
Jo, Abony, Ranjani and Maia have all tried to find ways to be heard but each has been constricted, by fairy tales of all things. These are definitely not the Disney sanitised versions with songs and adorable talking animals.
This is a difficult but important read. It highlights the many ways people who have experienced sexualised violence can be silenced by not only the perpetrator but also the systems we expect to help victims of these crimes.
“If you weren’t so scared that people would believe women, why have you tried so hard to silence us?”
It also clearly explores trauma responses and how the impacts can vary from person to person and across time. These can include the inability to say the words and the shrinking of your world.
There are scenes that describe the violations the women have experienced. While they’re not especially graphic, they don’t allow any doubt about what each woman has experienced so please tread carefully if you are likely find this content difficult to read.
Content warnings include addiction, dementia and sexual assault. Readers with emetophobia may want to skip this one.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Four women. Four enchantments. One man. But he is no handsome prince, and this is no sugar-sweet fairy tale. Jo, Abony, Ranjani, and Maia all have something in common: they have each been cursed by the CEO of their workplace after he abused his power to prey on them. He wants them silent and uses his sinister dark magic to keep them quiet about what he did. But Jo, Abony, Ranjani and Maia are not fairy-tale princesses waiting to be rescued. They are fierce, angry women with a bond forged in pain, and they’re about to discover that they have power of their own.
In this sharply written, bitingly relevant modern fable, the magic is dark and damaging, and the women are determined to rescue themselves.
It’s a miracle and it’s a curse, the secrets our bodies keep.
When Rory agreed to temporarily move back to her hometown to support her pregnant twin, Scarlett, irrevocable changes to her life (and body) weren’t what she had in mind. After running into Ian, who’s been in love with her forever, at a bar, she has an accident on her way home.
It wasn’t a bear that attacked Rory that night under the watchful gaze of the full moon. It turns out werewolves aren’t as fictional as we’ve all been led to believe.
“Yep. Werewolf,” I say. “A real thing apparently. Who knew?”
While Rory was justifiably concerned about Bambi’s welfare after the accident, it’s not Rory’s car Bambi needs to worry about; it’s her appetite.
The body horror is strong with this one, with the transformation process a particularly visceral experience. The close encounters with a smorgasbord of meats will mean you’re likely to either crave a big juicy steak while reading or reconsider your carnivore status entirely. Or, if you’re like me, your stomach will be turning even as you wish you had a cheeseburger in front of you waiting to be devoured.
Having a female werewolf central to the story doesn’t just make for an entertaining read. It also paves the way for themes of power and control, rage, how we live after trauma and the reclamation of bodily autonomy when your body has been used by another as an object and it doesn’t feel like you inhabit it anymore. Rory’s struggles with what her life looks like now and with her family and past are explored while she works her way through the deli section of the local supermarket.
In all the fairy tales, the wolf is big and bad and dangerous. A predator. Devious and evil. Something to be feared. But fairy tales are bullshit. Maybe wolves just get a bad edit.
There are worse things to be. I know because I’ve faced those monsters.
Content warnings include mention of domestic abuse, grooming, physical abuse and sexual assault. If you have emetophobia, do an about-face now. This is not the book for you.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Titan Books for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Rory Morris isn’t thrilled to be moving back to her hometown. There are bad memories there. But her twin sister, Scarlett, is pregnant and needs support, so Rory returns to the place she thought she’d put in her rearview. After a night out at a bar where she runs into Ian, an old almost-flame, she hits a large animal with her car. And when she gets out to investigate, she’s attacked.
Rory survives, miraculously, but life begins to look and feel different. She’s unnaturally strong, with an aversion to silver – and suddenly the moon has her in its thrall. She’s changing into someone else – something else. But does that mean she’s putting those close to her in danger? Or is embracing the wildness inside her the key to acceptance?
This darkly comedic love story is a brilliantly layered portrait of trauma, rage and vulnerability.
Anorexia was in some ways like a security blanket for me because it allowed me to hide from the world, it provided structure and rules, and there was always one simple right answer: don’t eat.
I love memoirs. Sometimes they make you feel seen through shared lived experience. Other times they invite you into a world that’s unlike what you’ve known. You are given the opportunity to see your struggles in a new light and may discover new ways to cope, survive and maybe even thrive. There are just so many possibilities when you open yourself up to accompanying someone as they do life in their own unique way, even if you only meet one another within the pages.
I have read about eating disorders since I was an early teen. Although never officially diagnosed, I absolutely had one at the time. I was lucky enough to stumble upon the right book at the right time, something that allowed me to change some of my eating habits before the slope got too slippery. That’s not to say that disordered eating didn’t follow me into my adult life. But this book reminded me that Hadley’s story could have very easily been my own.
Hadley stopped eating when she was fourteen and spent several years living in psychiatric wards.
I had developed, the doctor said, anorexia nervosa. He was right about that, but pretty much nothing else he told me about anorexia turned out to be correct: why I had it, what it felt like, or what life would be like when I was in so-called recovery.
Hadley’s experience was so different to my own and pretty much everything I’ve ever read about eating disorders. But that’s a good thing. Eating disorders, much life like itself, aren’t one size fits all. (Pun purely accidental but now my brain can’t come up with an alternative.) When we’re only looking for a specific presentation of something, we’re likely to miss more than we see.
That’s what I remember perhaps most of all: the loneliness. I genuinely didn’t understand what was happening to me, and nor, it often seemed, did anyone else.
Content warnings include mention of addiction, attempted suicide, death by suicide, eating disorders, mental health and self harm.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and 4th Estate, an imprint of HarperCollins, for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
From Hadley Freeman, the bestselling author of House of Glass, comes her searing and powerful memoir about mental ill health and her experience with anorexia.
This is how the Anorexia Speak worked in my head:
‘Boys like girls with curves on them’ – If you ever eat anything you will be mauled by thuggish boys with giant paws for hands
‘Don’t you get hungry?’ – You are so strong and special, and I envy your strength and specialness
‘Have you tried swimming? I find that really improves my appetite’ – You need to do more exercise
In this astonishing and brave account of life with anorexia Hadley Freeman starts with the trigger that sparked her illness and moves through four hospitalisations, offering extraordinary insight into her various struggles.
For more than a hundred years, the people of Vermont had, knowingly or unknowingly, sent their children in reverent offering to the huge house on the hill outside of town. The obedient servants of the Catholic God took the children in, and in return, behind the locked doors of St. Joseph’s Orphanage, out of their own pain and misery, and with all their immense entitlement, they devoured them.
Some books stay with me because they were so well written. Others linger because they invited me into a world that I previously knew very little of, or their content haunts me. Then there are those that introduce me to people I’ll never forget.
This book was all of the above. I expect it to be one of my favourite non-fiction reads of the year.
Investigating some of the worst abuses of power I’ve ever read about, abuse that took place over the course of decades and throughout continents by seemingly countless perpetrators, this is not an easy read. Important, absolutely. Easy, not even close.
However, despite detailing abuses that run the gamut – verbal, emotional, physical, sexual, medical, neglect, torture, even murder – the descriptions are not as graphic as I had expected them to be. That’s not to say that there’s any doubt about the level of brutality these children survived (or didn’t, in some cases). The content is potentially triggering but it’s delivered as sensitively as possible.
The research that preceded this book was extensive, consisting of hundreds of interviews as well as … take a deep breath …
thousands of pages of transcripts from the St. Joseph’s litigation in the 1990s and files from Vermont Catholic Charities, which included contemporaneous logs from social workers at the orphanage, medical records, historic photographs, and letters written by priests and other workers in child welfare at the time, as well as handwritten diaries, police records, autopsy reports, transcripts from secret church tribunals, priest rehabilitation reports, orphanage settlement letters, historic newspaper articles, death and birth certificates, and government files and reports from many jurisdictions.
While the bulk of the book focuses on the atrocities that took place at St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Vermont, you’ll also learn about other orphanages in America, Canada, Australia, Ireland and Scotland.
“I thought I was the reason all that stuff happened,” he told me. “All that time, I thought it was only happening to me, but it was happening all over the place.”
Geoff Meyer
Sally Dale is integral to this book but hers is not the only story that will stay with you. I’m in awe of the courage, resilience and determination of the children I was introduced to, those who lived to become adults as well as those who didn’t.
As adults, many have fought for justice against one of the oldest institutions in the world. The pain of hearing their stories was well and truly offset by the privilege of getting to know these remarkable survivors.
I can’t recommend this book highly enough, but my recommendation comes with a word of warning: please take good care of yourself while you’re reading it. And make sure you have tissues on hand.
Now I know that some people have always moved freely between the reality that is plain to see and its hinterlands: the institutions, the orphanages, the places where things happen behind closed doors and stay hidden.
Content warnings include death by suicide, domestic abuse, emotional abuse, forced labour, medical experimentation, mental health, murder, physical abuse, sexual assault and torture. Readers with emetophobia are really going to struggle.
Thank you so much to Hachette Australia for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
A shocking expose of the dark, secret history of Catholic orphanages – the violence, abuse, and even murder that took place within their walls – and a call to hold the powerful to account.
Ghosts of the Orphanage is the result of ten years of investigation by award-winning journalist Christine Kenneally. What she has uncovered is shocking, yet it was all hiding in plain sight.
Terrible things, abuse, both physical and psychological, and even deaths have happened in orphanages all over the world for many years. The survivors have been telling what happened to them for a long time, but no one has been listening. Authorities have too often been unwilling to accept their stories. And a victim’s options for recourse have been limited by the years it has taken many survivors to process their trauma, tell their stories, and pursue legal action.
Centering on St. Joseph’s, a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, Kenneally investigates and shares the stories of survivors. She has fought to expose the truth and hold the powerful – many of them Catholic priests and nuns – to account. And it is working. As these stories have come to light, the laws in Vermont have been forced to change, including the statute of limitations on prosecuting them.
Told with human compassion, novelistic detail and a powerful sense of purpose, Ghosts of the Orphanage is not only a gripping story but a reckoning. It is proof that real evil lurks at the edges of our society, and that, if we have the courage, we can bring it into the light and defeat it.
I’ve read books about complex trauma before. Most focus exclusively on those who have experienced trauma, classifying them as victims or survivors. They tend to talk about what happened to people and then discuss the various short and long term impacts, and offer suggestions for managing them.
I’ve also read books about perpetrators before, although these reads generally focus on serial killers, a result of my interest in criminal profiling. More often than not, a perpetrator is painted as only that. If mention is made of any victimisation that they have experienced, it’s in a reductive manner. This happened to this person as a child. Therefore, this person acted in this way as an adult.
This book is designed to be a guide to evidence-based psychological frameworks that can aid in understanding the nature of complex traumas, the tasks of recovery, the nature of those who perpetrate abuse, and broader issues involved in service provision and trauma management.
What drew me to this book was the fact that its author works as both a clinical and forensic psychologist. As someone with a trauma history, I’m always looking for new, better ways to manage its impacts. As someone with a psychology degree (the most expensive piece of paper I own), I am interested in the why behind the what when people act in ways that victimise others.
I love that this book delves into something that most people conveniently ignore: sometimes a person is both victim and perpetrator.
We have neat binaries in our minds: victims and perpetrators. Some people are both, and we struggle to know where to place these people and how to respond to them.
One of my favourite parts of this book was its exploration of the way the media highlights the stories of survivors of trauma whose impacts are socially acceptable; these are usually young, attractive, educated, heterosexual, white women. What’s lost in the narrative is everyone else, including those who are incarcerated, homeless, struggle with addiction or virtually any other impact that makes it easier for us to focus on someone’s behaviour at the risk of ignoring their underlying trauma.
When we think about complex trauma it is essential to hold all survivors in mind – not just those we judge to be worthy of healing (typically those we see as being most like us).
I also appreciated the acknowledgment that many perpetrators are very skilled at hiding their true colours from the people they’re not victimising. So many times when I’m reading news articles about a horrific crime, I see quotes from people who know the alleged perpetrator, who talk about what a nice, wonderful, community minded person they are. They can’t believe that their friend, coworker, family member or acquaintance would be capable of such violence.
People who engage in abusive acts often demonstrate situation and context-dependent behaviours, so that people who are not being victimised by them will often see very different behaviours.
A blend of theory and case studies (composites so as not to breach confidentiality), this book would be of interest to both trauma survivors and those who work in helping professions. I anticipate that readers who work with trauma survivors will find the information relating to managing vicarious trauma particularly helpful.
Content warnings include mention of addiction, bullying, child abuse, coercive control, death by suicide, deaths in custody, domestic abuse, eating disorders, emotional abuse, mental health, physical abuse, self harm, sexual assault and stalking.
Thank you so much to Scribe Publications for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
A groundbreaking book that will broaden and expand your thinking, whether you are a trauma survivor, a clinician, someone who loves a survivor, or someone seeking to understand abuse.
The relationship between trauma and mental health is becoming better recognised, but survivors and professionals alike remain confused about how best to understand and treat it. In Reclaim, through a series of case studies and expert analysis, Dr Ahona Guha explores complex traumas, how survivors can recover and heal, and the nature of those who abuse. She shines a light on the ‘difficult’ trauma victims that society often ignores, and tackles vital questions such as, ‘Why are psychological abuse and coercive control so difficult to spot?’, ‘What kinds of behaviours should we see as red flags?’, and ‘Why do some people harm others, and how do we protect ourselves from them?’
As a clinical and forensic psychologist, Dr Guha has had extensive experience in working with those who perpetrate harm – including stalkers, sex offenders, violent offenders, and those who threaten, bully and harass – and she has a deep understanding of the psychological and social factors that cause people to abuse others. In turn, her clinical work in the trauma treatment field has led her to recognise the enormous impacts of complex trauma, and the failures of systems when working with those who have been victimised.
By emphasising compassion above all, Dr Guha calls for us to become better informed about perpetrators and the needs of victims, so we might reclaim a safer, healthier society for everyone.
Dorrit is dispensable. Society says she’s not needed because she unmarried, childless and doesn’t work in one of the specified professions that would give her an exemption for failing to fulfil her duties as a woman. Having just turned fifty, Dorrit has earned herself a one way trip to the Second Reserve Bank Unit for biological material.
From now on it was important that I was kept in good condition and good health in every way. That was the whole point, after all.
It’s almost like an all expenses paid resort, where your food, entertainment, medical expenses and even shopping are on the house. All it costs is your life.
A dystopia for the childless, this book introduces readers to a democratic society that’s come to the conclusion that every body is a commodity. Those who have been designated dispensable – fifty year old women and sixty year old men who don’t have children – have all of their needs met as they participate in drug trials and experiments, and ‘donate’ their organs to the indispensable.
The best dystopias are the ones you can imagine happening. The worst dystopias are the ones you can imagine happening. This is a best-worst dystopia.
I liked Dorrit and, despite the circumstances, enjoyed seeing her belong for the first time in her life. I loved the camaraderie between her and the friends she made at the Unit. I had such hope for her when she found love.
Then I remembered this was a dystopia and all of the things I loved about this book became things that could be taken away from Dorrit and, by extension, myself as I became more and more invested in her story.
Interestingly, while I liked most of the characters, I didn’t become emotionally attached to any of them. When I learned about various characters having made their final donation I was interested but didn’t need a single tissue.
Considering how much money was being invested in keeping dispensables as healthy as possible for as long as possible (alcohol isn’t even allowed), I wondered how management would feel about the potential drug trials had to destroy previously viable organs.
Content warnings include mention of abortion. Readers with emetophobia may have trouble with some scenes.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Oneworld Publications for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
In paradise, nobody can hear you scream.
Ninni Holmqvist’s eerie dystopian novel envisions a society in the not-so-distant future where men and women deemed economically worthless are sent to a retirement community called the Unit. With lavish apartments set amongst beautiful gardens and state-of-the-art facilities, elaborate gourmet meals, and wonderful music and art, they are free of financial worries and want for nothing. It’s an idyllic place, but there’s a catch: the residents – known as dispensables – must donate their organs, one by one, until the final donation. When Dorrit Weger arrives at the Unit, she resigns herself to this fate, seeking only peace in her final days. But she soon falls in love, and this unexpected, improbable happiness throws the future into doubt.
Clinical and haunting, The Unit is a modern-day classic and a spine-chilling cautionary tale about the value of human life.
Sixteen year old Georgia knows she’s destined to be an Aspera girl. She’s known it ever since Michael Hayes found her three years ago on the road leading to Aspera, a 12,000 acre members only resort in the mountains he and his wife, Cleo, own. Georgia is determined to do everything in her power to make her dream a reality.
Georgia is on that same road when she discovers the body of thirteen year old Ashley James, the deputy sheriff’s daughter. Nora, Ashley’s sister, and Georgia begin their own investigation into Ashley’s rape and murder.
Based on the blurb, I expected there to be more of a focus on Georgia and Nora investigating Ashley’s murder. There’s some of this scattered through the book but really it’s the abuse of power and privilege, so much privilege, that abound here.
This book was … a lot. It’s motherless daughters and grief and kidnapping and murder and on page sexual assault and trafficking and grooming and incest and it’s all a case of wondering who’s going to do the next horrific thing. I feel like I need a shower to wash it all away.
Some part of me will always be finding her here. Some part of her will always be here, waiting to be found.
Content warnings include child pornography, grooming, incest, self harm, sexual assault and trafficking.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
All sixteen-year-old Georgia Avis wants is everything, but the poverty and hardship that defines her life has kept her from the beautiful and special things she knows she deserves. When she stumbles upon the dead body of thirteen-year-old Ashley James, Georgia teams up with Ashley’s older sister Nora, to find the killer before he strikes again, and their investigation throws Georgia into a glittering world of unimaginable privilege and wealth – and all she’s ever dreamed. But behind every dream lurks a nightmare, and Georgia must reconcile her heart’s desires with what it really takes to survive. As Ashley’s killer closes in and their feelings for one another grow, Georgia and Nora will discover when money, power, and beauty rule, it’s not always a matter of who is guilty but who is guiltiest – and the only thing that might save them is each other.
I’m the Girl is a brutal and illuminating account of how one young woman feels in her body as she struggles to navigate a deadly and predatory power structure while asking readers one question: if this is the way the world is, do you accept it?
Imagine a world where, if you’re female, you are only allowed to speak one hundred words a day. When you utter word one hundred and one, your wristband will shock you. The more you exceed your quota, the greater the shock.
Not only that, you are no longer allowed to work. You’re no longer allowed to read. You’re not allowed to own a phone, computer or anything that connects to the internet.
Your child’s education is no longer educational; they will learn how to become a submissive housewife but that’s about it.
Welcome to Jean’s world. Run as fast as –
And that’s already one hundred words. Now you’re silenced for the rest of the day. Your wristband’s counter will reset to zero at midnight.
I’ve become a woman of few words.
In Jean’s world, the word count may be small but the indoctrination is big. People saw this coming. Some protested. Others sheltered behind denial, sure that something like this couldn’t actually happen. It did.
They didn’t think it could get any worse. It could.
“This would never happen. Ever. Women wouldn’t put up with it.”
“Easy to say now,” Jackie said.
I was hooked for the first half of the book but the second half seemed to unravel. Some things were a bit too convenient. The ending was a bit too rushed and seemed to go against the message of the book up until that point. I didn’t connect with the characters.
Still, this book made me think about the things I consider to be rights and how easily they can be removed. It made me angry every time I thought about how easily this fiction, or something similar to it, could become fact.
Reading just a few reviews has made it obvious how divisive a read this book has been. It’s about as subtle as a sledgehammer but it made me think so it did its job.
Think about what you need to do to stay free.
Content warnings include mention of abortion, animal experimentation, death by suicide, homophobia, physical abuse and sexual assault.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and HQ, an imprint of HarperCollins, for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3.5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Set in an America where half the population has been silenced, Vox is the harrowing, unforgettable story of what one woman will do to protect herself and her daughter.
On the day the government decrees that women are no longer allowed to speak more than 100 words daily, Dr. Jean McClellan is in denial – this can’t happen here. Not in America. Not to her.
This is just the beginning.
Soon women can no longer hold jobs. Girls are no longer taught to read or write. Females no longer have a voice. Before, the average person spoke sixteen thousand words a day, but now women only have one hundred to make themselves heard.
But this is not the end.
For herself, her daughter, and every woman silenced, Jean will reclaim her voice.
Every time I read a Mary SanGiovanni book I remember how much I love them. I’m also reminded of how fun it is when she introduces something I’ve either never heard of or know very little about, generating enough interest in me that I decide I need to become an expert in whatever the something is.
In Inside the Asylum, this was tulpas. I’d never heard of them but by the end of the book I’d read everything I could find about them. Years later, they came up in some random TV episode. The person sitting next to me asked if I knew what that word was. Naturally, I proceeded to tell them all about tulpas, including some handy hints for how to make one if they were so inclined.
While I was trying to find my way out of the Savage Woods, I began reading about tree spirits. When I wasn’t busy trying to pronounce Kèkpëchehëlat.
This is my first Mary SanGiovanni read that isn’t a Kathy Ryan book (note to self: read the rest of Mary’s books!). I kept thinking that the subject matter was right up Kathy’s alley and loved that her research had a cameo, even though she didn’t.
Brothers Todd and Kenny decide Nilhollow is the perfect place for their camping trip. They don’t believe the “clichéd stuff about cursed grounds, unexplained hiker deaths and disappearances, lights in the sky, that sort of thing.”
They’re also dismissive about the reports of the missing people “turning up inside-out and hanging from trees”. What brothers Todd and Kenny don’t realise is that they’re first chapter characters and, as such, they’re almost certainly destined to stop breathing before the main characters show up.
Something about Nilhollow was just … all wrong.
Which brings me to Julia Russo, who’s trying to escape her abusive ex-boyfriend, Darren. Darren, who clearly doesn’t understand the purpose of a restraining order, decides to run Julia off the road. In the wrong part of the woods.
Officer Pete Grainger, a New Jersey state trooper, knows Julia’s situation well and has developed some not especially professional feelings for her. Of course, when he learns she’s in trouble, Grainge responds. So do a whole gaggle of law enforcement corpses in the making.
This book is an absolute splatterfest and I loved every squishy, crunchy, rending moment. I flew through it, cheering on the trees as they painted the woods red. I’m more convinced than ever that I need to read everything Mary SanGiovanni ever writes.
“You need to warn the others that whatever slept in these woods is awake now, and it wants blood.”
Content warnings include mention of death by suicide, domestic abuse, stalking and suicidal ideation.
Thank you very much to NetGalley and Lyrical Underground, an imprint of Kensington Books, for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Nilhollow – six-hundred-plus acres of haunted woods in New Jersey’s Pine Barrens – is the stuff of urban legend. Amid tales of tree spirits and all-powerful forest gods are frightening accounts of hikers who went insane right before taking their own lives. It is here that Julia Russo flees when her violent ex-boyfriend runs her off the road … here that she vanishes without a trace.
State Trooper Peter Grainger has witnessed unspeakable things that have broken other men. But he has to find Julia and can’t turn back now. Every step takes him closer to an ugliness that won’t be appeased – a centuries-old, devouring hatred rising up to eviscerate humankind. Waiting, feeding, surviving. It’s unstoppable. And its time has come.
Meiko and her twelve year old daughter, Aiko, have been at Camp Minidoka, an internment camp in Idaho, for two years when an unidentified illness begins to spread through the camp.
Archie is a preacher with a past that haunts him.
He’d thought he’d outrun it, but all this time Hell had been waiting for him with its mouth wide open.
Fran is a journalist who’s on the verge of uncovering the story of her career.
You’d think the spider demon would be the scariest thing about this book, but it’s not. The real monster in this story is fear of the other and the hatred it spawns.
This story is mostly set in the 1940’s and, although I’d love to be able to say otherwise, it could easily have been written about today. The racism and xenophobia are incredibly difficult to read about because, although this book is fiction, the interactions between the characters are all too real, and that’s terrifying.
I loved Aiko, an outcast wherever she goes because her mother is Japanese and her father is white. She’s resilient, she’s resourceful and she spends her free time drawing demons.
The demons, Aiko said, knew everything.
I wish more time had been spent with the jorogumo but Google has answered my outstanding questions and shown me some decidedly creepy artwork so I’m all good. For now. I need more Japanese mythology in my life.
The world is rarely what it shows you.
I definitely want to read more books by this author.
Content warnings include death by suicide, miscarriage, physical abuse, racism and xenophobia.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
As World War II rages, Meiko shares eerie childhood stories, of yokai and malevolent demons, with her daughter, Aiko. These stories hold them together as they must confront the horror of being shipped to an internment camp in the Midwest. Never mind that Aiko is American, that her father is in the US Navy. They are Japanese.
As Meiko and Aiko learn to live in captivity, a contagion begins to spread in the camp. What starts as a cold quickly becomes fits of violence and aggression, even death, and soon a government medical team arrive, more sinister than the illness itself.
Meanwhile strange things are happening outside the camp. Wrecked weather balloons and tragic explosions draw Fran, a German expat journalist, and Archie, a widowed minister, into a world of conspiracy and creatures in the shadows.
As the world tears itself apart, it falls to Meiko, Fran and Archie to lay their country’s demons to rest.
Schizanthus Nerd 