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Ava Reid's Reviews > A Lesson in Vengeance
A Lesson in Vengeance
by
by
I was lucky enough to read an early copy of this, and (unsurprisingly, since I adored Lee's FEVERWAKE series) it blew me away.
This is a contemporary thriller, with very light speculative elements, where FEVERWAKE is of course sci-fi, but this shares with FEVERWAKE Lee's tight, deft plotting, intimate and nuanced characterizations, and devastatingly beautiful - yet still propulsive - writing. There are shades of THE SECRET HISTORY here, but ALIV is more than that: it's a disturbing yet sympathetic portrait of a traumatized, mentally ill girl, a razor-toothed romance, and a story of the ghosts we cannot exorcise.
It's deeply intellectual, yet very accessible - Lee's prose cuts to the bone. It's a thriller, yes, but it's also a rumination on trauma, psychopathy, class privilege, gender, sexuality, and morality. I would say, ultimately, it's a book about being possessed: whether it's Felicity haunted by ghosts both real and imagined or Ellis driven to extreme lengths by her desire to produce art. It possessed me as a reader, too. By the time the book heads into the third act, I was flipping the pages frantically, carried to its twisty, pulse-racing conclusion.
A smart, layered, thought-provoking thriller about female desire and the intimacy of violence.
This is a contemporary thriller, with very light speculative elements, where FEVERWAKE is of course sci-fi, but this shares with FEVERWAKE Lee's tight, deft plotting, intimate and nuanced characterizations, and devastatingly beautiful - yet still propulsive - writing. There are shades of THE SECRET HISTORY here, but ALIV is more than that: it's a disturbing yet sympathetic portrait of a traumatized, mentally ill girl, a razor-toothed romance, and a story of the ghosts we cannot exorcise.
It's deeply intellectual, yet very accessible - Lee's prose cuts to the bone. It's a thriller, yes, but it's also a rumination on trauma, psychopathy, class privilege, gender, sexuality, and morality. I would say, ultimately, it's a book about being possessed: whether it's Felicity haunted by ghosts both real and imagined or Ellis driven to extreme lengths by her desire to produce art. It possessed me as a reader, too. By the time the book heads into the third act, I was flipping the pages frantically, carried to its twisty, pulse-racing conclusion.
A smart, layered, thought-provoking thriller about female desire and the intimacy of violence.
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