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thegreatmanda 's review for:
Oleander: A Great Expectations Reimagining
by Scarlett Drake
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Make it hurt.
The angst was angsting in this book from page one.
This poor kid, having to carry so much and be emotionally older than his years, and this other poor, smitten idiot with no idea what he’s getting into. Cas and Jude are the kinds of characters I want to reach through the pages and folds of reality to hold and protect and parent as no one in their lives is really doing (Luke, bless him, does a great job when he can, but he can only do so much if Jude won't talk to him). The other adults in their early lives can all go directly to hell, with a special circle of that hell reserved for a certain lawyer.
When I got to the end of part one,the scene of Jude walking in on Caspien and Blackwell was as heartbreaking and visceral as it could have been. The repetition of saying the bedroom door was closed, the significance of it, was such a great detail. There was enough coldness in Caspien to thoroughly break Jude wide open, but he also had those minute flashes of feeling, there and gone again, to make the reader suspect what he’s really feeling in the moment.
I thought the author did a masterful job of showing us Jude's heartbreak and despair without forcing the reader to wallow in it.
It broke my heart the way Caspien, during the harrowing encounter he and Jude have after Finn's party, equated forcing a sexual encounter with dubious or no consent with behaving "like a man instead of a little boy". As a character, he shares a lot with Laurent from Captive Prince for me; they both speak volumes about their past abuses as subtext only. The minute Jude saw his bruises in Oxford, I had a feeling about where they had come from, and I hated finding out how right I'd been.
I gasped aloud when I realized the epilogue was Caspien's POV, and I loved getting those little insights into his thoughts and memories. I think I read the page where he finally says I love you three times.
The ups and downs of Jude's life are heart-wrenching to the point that I had to briefly glance at the novel's postscript, just to make sure some of it would somehow work out in the end. I'd gone through so many emotions when I finished reading that I felt physically tired. This is the kind of book that makes me want to go back and finish writing my own half-novel, with the hope that it could also make a reader feel some big feelings.
Favorite Quotes:
The angst was angsting in this book from page one.
This poor kid, having to carry so much and be emotionally older than his years, and this other poor, smitten idiot with no idea what he’s getting into. Cas and Jude are the kinds of characters I want to reach through the pages and folds of reality to hold and protect and parent as no one in their lives is really doing (Luke, bless him, does a great job when he can, but he can only do so much if Jude won't talk to him). The other adults in their early lives can all go directly to hell, with a special circle of that hell reserved for a certain lawyer.
When I got to the end of part one,
I thought the author did a masterful job of showing us Jude's heartbreak and despair without forcing the reader to wallow in it.
It broke my heart the way Caspien
I gasped aloud when I realized the epilogue was Caspien's POV, and I loved getting those little insights into his thoughts and memories. I think I read the page where he finally says I love you three times.
The ups and downs of Jude's life are heart-wrenching to the point that I had to briefly glance at the novel's postscript, just to make sure some of it would somehow work out in the end. I'd gone through so many emotions when I finished reading that I felt physically tired. This is the kind of book that makes me want to go back and finish writing my own half-novel, with the hope that it could also make a reader feel some big feelings.
Favorite Quotes:
"There's not a soul alive who cares about me, Jude. This isn't bloody news to me." It didn't come out like he was looking for pity, but like some well-known fact he was tired of.
"You don't need to act like this, you know," I said calmly, though my heart was thundering behind my ribs. "Like nothing means anything or like everything's a joke. You don't need to act like that with me."
How had I gone from loathing his every molecule to hanging on his every word? How had I gone from plotting his murder to dreaming about the scent of his skin and the shape of his hands? The wanting of him had grown so immense that it had the power to stop me in my tracks.
All of my fears then led directly back to the same place: Never seeing Caspien again.
As long as Caspien Deveraux breathed, I would love him.
What on earth was wrong with me that I wasn't satisfied with this? Here was a man holding me to his chest and telling me my comfort was important to him, my feelings were important to him and yet my fucking soul ached for someone who'd thought nothing of either.
"Do you hate me?" I asked.
He frowned and shifted forward, closer, and held open his arms. I went into them and let him hold me.
"You know I don't. Jude, sometimes you're so fucking childlike, it scares me a little." He said, "I think I hate the person who hurt you, but then I remember that he was a child too."
"I miss you," he whispered, so softly it felt like an exhale.
I froze, unable to breathe or move, pinned there by the hint of desperation in his voice. If I hadn't watched his mouth move, I'd have assumed I imagined it.
"Was Bennett based on anyone?"
"What do you think?"
He nodded, smiling a little. "Thought so. Christ, he was awful."
I looked at him. "Misunderstood, I'd say. Easy to hate a guy like that without taking the time to understand him."
I nodded, watching him now with the same sort of covetous look strangers often did. Everything about him drew me in. How he smelled, the sound of his voice, his laugh, the shape of his mouth. But mostly, it was always this: the way he had of looking at me. As though I was something he needed in order to breathe. Some vital commodity he would die without.
No matter who or what I came to him as, he'd loved me. Every version of me. And I felt like myself only when he saw me. He looked at me the same way he looked at the world, with warmth and wonder and curiosity.