I did finish this, but at what cost.
Perhaps the most notable thing about this book (aside from the content, but we'll get there) is how much it needed another editing pass. The prose is really atrocious, particularly after the first few chapters. I was willing to forgive the first chapters for just feeling a bit dream-like and detached from reality as a stylistic choice, but when Mira is introduced in what is clearly the normal world, it stops working. The dialogue is often stilted and unnatural, with my personal favorite instance of this being when a characters tells another "'You know, in our culture, plastic surgery is often seen as taboo'". Two scenes begin with very similar descriptions of a character drinking coffee that wasn't a particularly good description to begin with. Considering the importance of music to the novel, it's really unfortunate that the descriptions of music are so nothing and sound somewhat odd (the description of the choir being a prime example). The less said about the sex scenes the better (I will be forever haunted by the phrase "wet pearl"). It often reads like mediocre fan fiction, because where else would you encounter a character unironically referring to "my twisted psyche".
[SPOILERS FOR LATER PLOT INCIDENTS]
The frequent scenes of sexual violence overall just feel... gauche. To be clear, I'm not opposed to the portrayal of sexual violence in fiction; I object when it seems to just be thrown in with little interest in exploration of its complexities and effects. The novel seems deeply convinced that it has a lot of to say about abuse, but it really doesn't. It says that abuse is bad, and sometimes people are just broken and cannot be fixed. This is not as hot a take as the novel seems to think it is, and the exploration of these ideas is one-note and basic. There is no acknowledgement of the fact that almost everyone in the Montreal family can be read as a victim and perpetrator, particularly Ramiro. This isn't to say that he did nothing wrong (he VERY much did), but he presumably was impacted by the culture of abuse that her father created in the household, and the novel never acknowledges that beyond him saying "I'm so fucked up, you're the only person who can love me" (not a direct quote) to Celine. Celine is the only person in the text who is allowed to be harmed and cause harm, but there's no complexity in her portrayal either. She just magically becomes evil after suffering an almost comical amount (including vaguely orgasmic self-harm, which just. Kill me now.). Kevin has dubiously consensual (at best) sex with Mira a few times, but it's just treated as something scary that's happening. It's unclear if Mira remembers what happens, and Kevin never reacts to it (which, considering later revelations in the book, suggests some rather unsavory things about the origins of familial abuse). Mira is quite literally violently raped, but the novel totally glosses over it. It's treated as part of Celine's revenge and Mira is not given much space to react to her rape. SPEAKING OF THAT
[SPOILERS FOR THE FINAL TWIST]
So Mira is a secret trans woman! She was Ramiro the whole time! Celine/Lauren did surgery on her and got her to take hormones this whole time! Oh my god! Don't piss me off! It plays into so many harmful stereotypes about trans women, with them being deceptive, sexually violent, and secretly men. It also treats transition as a kind of body horror, especially because it's done as a way for Celine to emasculate Ramiro, and like much of the on-page rape in this novel, it seems included for shock value more than to really work through Mira's feelings about what happened to her. It's gross and dehumanizing of trans people, and it's a little shocking to me that this plot point is in a book published in 2025.
There are other things that I could complain about, like the plot holes (who the hell is Mira's mother and how did she get involved, why can that small child see ghosts, how does Celine top and play the violin during sex while partially paralyzed) and the way in which everything is either over- or under-explained (the narration drawing specific attention to the parallels between the nature documentary and George's murder twice in two pages vs. the bit at the end where Celine plays the violin in front of her family, including dead people). But, what sticks with me the most is how boring this book was. Scenes occur. Some of the scenes contain explicit incestuous violence. All of the scenes include characters speaking in a way that no human being has ever spoken. It doesn't really get insane enough to be enjoyable in an ironic way until three quarters of the way through the book, which is not ideal.
Do not read this book. There are much better thrillers out there.
Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.