The Girl from Rawblood - Catriona Ward
I finished the book last night. This might end up being more of a rant about the audiobook than actual thoughts about the book itself but I'll try not to get too whiny .
The audiobook was available free on Audible Plus so I thought why not. But it ended up being a horribly-produced audiobook, just so you know. The sound balancing was horrible, each different POV ended up being different volumes, and the Meg Villarca chapter was the worst because the volume was all over the place with that one POV. It was either too soft and I couldn't get what she was saying, or too loud and it hurt my ears. All this to say, it was difficult at times to follow exactly what was going on in the book.
Also, to be fair, I think even if the sound balance was fine, it might've still be difficult to follow because of the change in POVs and timelines. I had to go back to the beginning of the chapters many times to figure out whose POV and timeline it was, and I did also replay a couple of chapters a few times because I feel like I might have missed some things.
I really wanted to love this, right from the start: the interesting dynamics between Iris and her father, the lovely, Gothic writing and Dracula-esque narration by an unsuspecting third party, trapped in an evil residence, Alonso and Charles and the homoerotic subtext, the creepy experiments and chilling descriptions.
Then you started going back and forth, as you usually do, and things got so... muddied. I kept trying to refer to the family tree at the beginning of the book but I just lost interest. The writing became obnoxiously hard to follow, the changes in plot and characters more so, the different generations and their relationships were a jumble of words in my mind and I had to put this book down so many times not to totally abandon it. I understand there was an intentional "confusion" written into the story, as Iris and her mother and whoever came before (or not? I honestly forget) became one and moved across time and the events of the story... but it was too chaotic. Too much effort and too much kerfuffle for a simple plot that has been told time and time again. I shouldn't feel bored when reading and I'm afraid it happened far too many times for me. This was 2 stars for me at best.
