And just like that we’re back to book reviews. It’s been a hectic, wild, and fun couple of months and I’ve been doing a lot of reading in that time. And so now what I’m left with is a lot of reviewing to do. It’s a good problem because there’s nothing I love more than talking at length about the things that really only I care about, like the books I’m reading!
First up we have Dearest by Jacquie Walters. I had no idea what to expect from this book as I did almost no research on it and it was not recommended to me. Truthfully, I judged this book almost solely by its cover and the promise that it was gothic. I was in New York at a cute little bookstore and found myself unable to save money in the ways I both generally should and very much needed to. I saw the spooky little girl, I read the little plot synopsis, and I said “yeah okay sure.”
The premise is a simple one: A new mother is in a big, old house with only her newborn to keep her company but begins to wonder whether or not she’s truly alone. It’s a tale as old as time, really. I’d been looking for some good horror, and a haunted house mixed with pregnancy-specific body horror sounded unsettling enough to fill that spot. Overall, I do think the book delivered on what it promised in a lot of good ways. I’m going to keep this review as relatively spoiler free as I can.
Dearest isn’t the scariest book I’ve ever read, and could at times be predictable. It promises a lot of mysteries that sometimes paid off in interesting ways, but I would say that most didn’t take me by legitimate surprise. “Who is this and what are they doing here? What does this strange thing mean?” More often than not I figured it out before I was explicitly told it, which can take away from it if you’re expecting a hard and fast mystery book. However, this is first and foremost a horror book and not a mystery, and the most egregious example I have of this was for a twist that’s revealed about halfway through the book, so I wouldn’t say it took too much away from the book’s quality. If it was the book’s final offering that the audience could see miles away I would have some nasty things to say, but it’s a complication to the story that sets up the second half to have higher stakes instead and gets a pass for it this time. This time.
The story was, like I said, a concept that’s been explored in millions of ways, girl alone in creepy house might not actually be alone. It takes some finagling to make it fresh, and while every page isn’t bleeding with innovation I do think the character’s body almost rebelling against them with exhaustion, with pains, with infections and the delirium that can follow pregnancy added some of that ingenuity and helped the book come into its own in some fun and gruesome ways. The body horror stemming from the character’s new motherhood alone was unsettling, mostly just in how grounded the concepts were and the underlying knowledge that all these complications were very real and very much happening to people as I was reading the book. Outside of this, I’ll still say that the body horror was the most successful source of scares. While it was far from the most gratuitous of books, not splattercore or straight up gore by any means, Walters does have a good grasp on the things that make your skin crawl. Mostly it’s when the things underneath it rip like tissue paper, but if it works it works.
The book’s prose was, I thought, far from perfect. I rolled my eyes more than once at some of the word choices and the characters’ inner monologues and additions could sometimes be too corny to bear. I did think the idea of the twin definitions at the end of some chapters was a cute one. Basically, if there was a pregnancy term discussed in the chapter there would be two definitions at the end: one that was a more genuine expression of what the term meant, and one that was how our main character Flora approached it and viewed how people used it. I thought it was a really inventive tool to look straight into a character’s thoughts without having them break the flow of the story, look directly into the camera, and say, “I hate when people say this.” Scene’s over, dialogue concluded, sly looks of frustration and nuanced approaches have finished, and here’s a way that Flora looks at the world just between you two. So while the writing sometimes left a bit to be desired, Walters also had a style with some unique enough offerings to push past it.
The characters felt unique enough to themselves to still drive the story, even in spite of it being largely about Flora’s isolation. While some characters only had brief time on the page the book still largely succeeded in being a character driven one.
Like most good horror stories it all truly comes down to the payoff for me. I could post a more detailed review if anyone would like me too (leave a comment below har har) but that’s my big beef with Hereditary. If you’re spending the whole book building this mystery and a crescendo of scares then it needs to crash in a way that feels satisfying, or at least like a proper escalation. Dearest paid off in this way for me. I think that Walters tied her ends together very well and created a satisfying final confrontation. I did have one medium-sized problem here, but I can’t really discuss it while remaining spoiler-friendly, so if it matters enough to you shoot me a dm or a comment and I’ll happily discuss it more in private.
Overall, the book was successful for me. It had some good tension, interesting story beats, fun little critters, character drama, and gore. It’s not my favorite book I’ve ever read, but that’s not saying much because I’ve read a lot of books. It was a fun and fast read and one that I would suggest if you have the time to spare.
Lovely review! But it makes me want to ask- what is the scariest novel that you have read?
It's really hard to say, Under the Skin is one that I think about a lot just because it's got some nasty gnarly concepts but it's not exactly scary. I hate to say a Stephen King book but The Shining had some good and spooky moments.