Callie has found the Bitten and is now learning how to
harness her abilities and learn all the things she needs about the world she
has found herself in. Some of it is fascinating, a lot of it boring.
But Callie has reached the attention of Phaedron, his
group and assorted allies pretty much united in their dislike of Silas – and Callie
looks like an ideal tool with which to strike against him. Indeed, even Silas’s
seeming growing affection towards Callie may consider it to be a weakness.
Other groups have laid their snares as well, and Edie finds
another net laid for her and Silas through one of her close contacts.
Behind it all is the eternal threat of the One – a threat that seems to be encouraging the witches to set their own plans in motion
This is one of those reviews where I want to point to my
review of the first book and say “ditto”. This is always a problem of
reviewing a sequel when the author is consistent. Like the first book, I found the
characterisation, the world building and the writing excellent. The pacing
moves well, the story is exciting and intriguing.
Like in the first book, this book has a lot of POV
switches, we move from character to character and get their impression of what
is happening around them, what they’re involved in and the other characters.
Again, I have to say that POV switching is normally something I despise since
it forces an almost all-knowing narrator and is often clumsy and repetitive.
This isn’t – when the POV shifts it doesn’t rehash what has already been made
clear. The POV isn’t used to make grand revelations but nor do we have
convoluted situations where characters manage to keep secrets they shouldn’t be
able to while we are in their heads. It’s really well written, really finely
balanced and really works well. It serves to do an extremely good job of
fleshing out all of the characters and making them all strong and with their
own agendas.
It also means characters that, in most books, would be relegated to side roles, particularly Edie, don’t. We’re in her head, her viewpoint is as important and powerful as Callie’s – which in turn leads to her having her own story, her own plot line and her own agenda. Even without that, she has her own, clear opinions about Callie, the other characters and the plot that are purely about her, not just as a way to characterise other people. It makes her a major character rather than a support character – which is especially beneficial since she’s a Black woman.
I do think Mark is rather uncharacterised – to a degree
that I was surprised by how young he is and had to mentally reset my impression
of the character, which means something was missed in the first book, really.
The main difference between this book and Bitten is that we’re moving beyond the
introduction phase and doing it well. Even with the POV switches, Bitten was about Callie, her
introduction to the new world and her acclimatising to that. Now we have that foundation
everything expanded – and expanded well. We have the world building of the
Demonridden expanded, the very nature of the One (a big bad, apocalyptic force),
explained as well as the motivations of various forces – the witches, Phaedron’s
group, Silas. And all of them were expanded in a very sensible way – the history
means that none of these groups are pure shining paragons of good any more than
any of them are cackling maniacal fiends for the sake of being fiends. There is
a depth to the world and the worldbuilding and the shifting POV gains us
insight into the motivations and personal histories of each character.
In short, the world is expanding – it’s growing deeper
and wider, with history and several parallel plot lines, while at the same time
remaining personal to the characters within. It’s a difficult balancing act
that is excellently maintained.
Callie is definitely non-neurotypical. I don’t know if
her mindset stems from her powers, an underlying mental illness or the years
she spent in wrongly-applied therapy and drug treatments, but she has a
different mindset entirely that is really well conveyed both through her pov
but also through the views of her fellows. Callie is also a complex character,
nervous and afraid most of the time despite her immense power, incredibly
unsure and insecure – until you push her. And when pushed she’s not just
powerful and dangerous, she’s outright vicious, completely merciless and even brutally
cruel in defending herself. I feel like she’s so nervous all the time but if
driven to defend (or avenge) herself she has no limits.
There are some sex issues here that churn around my mind
since they approach difficult areas – some are done well, some not so much. The
Bitten have to feed on energy. That happens through a variety of ways – Mark
usually feeds on anger, for example – but one of the most common method is sex.
Both Callie and Edie can feed through sex and it is explored through Edie. I am
always wary at the idea of forcing sex on characters through woo-woo,
particularly because this form of magical rape is so often presented as
romantic. But this isn’t – Edie hates feeding on sex, hates that sex has become
a necessary part of her life, hates that a personal, intimate part of her life
has become work. When she has sex to charge up it is presented as cold, as clinical
as it is possible to do – there’s no joy or passion there. It’s not traumatic
rape, but it isn’t “sex” either, it’s a chore. An onerous chore which is a
welcome change from woo-woo
forced sex being presented as sexual empowerment.
There’s also a contrast with the man she is actually
attracted to, the man she has affection for, the man she is developing a
relationship with. There we have passion, attraction and passion in stark comparison.
Edie is a sexually active woman because of her like of sex with men she
chooses, not because of the woo-woo that compels her.
Then there’s Callie’s use of her abilities on Mark which,
again, has all kinds of fuzzy consent issues around it. He agreed, but then he
said stop and she didn’t – with an added level of “I just can’t help it”. But
afterwards everyone – Mark, Callie et al were very clear about what Callie
doing being a form of rape.
We have Phaedron and Olivia who have, well, a complicated
relationship. It could be BDSM roleplay, it seems to be BDSM roleplay – but there
are certainly instances where the consent is… fuzzy. There’s an added level of
discomfort coming from Olivia’s abusive past that also serves to partially pathologise
their relationship/BDSM
Phaedron thinks of women in a highly abusive, dehumanising
manner – and so does Mark when he is attracted to a woman. Whenever we have a
male POV about women they find attractive, it’s skeevy.
This all combines together with the fact Callie was
raped, with the rape Callie herself perpetuated in the last book, with Olivia’s
sexually abusive past and the exploitation of it to form rather a lot of
uncomfortable rape threads – though every one is challenged, condemned,
labelled as such and presented in a non-sanitised, non-dismissive manner.
Difficult topics handled well – but also handled rather often.
There are several other POC in the book besides Edie,
including Edie’s love interest who is another Bitten who runs a shelter for
recovering addicts and Olufembi, a bitten with her own interlocking agenda,
showing that not every bitten is affiliated with an organisation. One of the witches
is also Asian – I think Silas may also be a POC. All of these characters except
Jiye have a level of complexity, but Jiye is a minor character I think may be
expanded in the future. The portrayals are pretty free from tropes so far
(except Jiye having an edge of “dragon lady”) and are promising for the future.
Sexuality is more fraught. We learn that Callie had a
relationship with a woman – but it was coercive and at least emotionally
abusive (which further adds to the sex consent issues of this book) and she’s
attracted entirely or nearly entirely to men. One of the witches (who, again,
are background characters I think will be developed) is bisexual and in a
relationship with Jiye – but she’s also basically plotting to use Jiye as a
piece in their manipulations which is pretty much dooming their relationship.
The story is becoming deeper, the world broader and some
very fine meta is developing, all laid on a backbone of some excellent
characterisation and some wonderful writing. There are issues, but they are few
and generally handled with a level of nuance and respect that is so often
lacking – an excellent read.
