Well, hot patootie, bless my soul, I really love that rock n’ roll. 

 

Look, I can’t help if that line from Meatloaf’s RHPS song kept looping inside my head while I was reading this book, because as Ruby (the protagonist) says more than once: punk rock saved her soul. It put me in a rhyming mood. It put me in the mood for music. It reminded me of when I was growing up in the 1980s and early 90s and some days it felt like music was the only thing holding you together. Especially if you’re like Ruby (and me) and grew up mentally ill. 

 

I expected to love this book, but I ended up only liking it for one read. It’s a good book, but I felt a bit uncomfortable with the way Ruby’s mental illness was handled by the author and I could feel how that affected my enjoyment of the novel as a whole. I am not saying Brom did anything wrong in her portrayal of Ruby as a mentally ill character and I’m not saying her approach to mental illness was wrong. This book takes place in the 1980s and the way mental illnesses such as bipolar disorder were discussed, researched, and diagnosed back then is worlds different than now. So I can’t speak as to Brom’s intentions when writing this novel and I’m not going to outright condemn an author when I don’t see definite evidence of malicious intent in the text. 

 

I also ended up feeling like there were too many different POVs and the book was getting too cluttered in the second half of the book. It started to feel messy and not as tense and dreadful as the first half. 

 

Brom is a great writer when it comes to language, but I’ve seen plots similar to this done better. I’d gladly read another Brom book, but this one was a pass. 

 

I was provided a copy of this title by the publisher and the author via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. All reviews rated three stars or under do not appear on my social media. Thank you. 

 

File Under: Body Horror/Dark Fantasy/Disability Rep/Historical Fantasy/Occult Fiction/Psychological Fiction/Serial Killer/Supernatural Horror