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FAVSTVS
Your soul for every wish.
Incel Jack Faustus loses his soul twice before he is awarded his PhD in anthropology. First, when he commits an unspeakable crime against a female classmate, and second when he offers a vial of his blood to an international, all-female crime syndicate, HIVE. Loyal to the teachings of the SCUM Manifesto, a document proposing the systematic, global elimination of the male sex, the Honored International Violent Entity offers select men a deal: your wildest dreams, for a number of years, in exchange for a blood debt. That is, eventually, your life.
After linking a murder on his campus to HIVE, Jack becomes hellbent on writing his dissertation on them and exposing their secrets. Undeterred by all warnings, he contracts himself to HIVE agent Mephistophiles to keep her close enough for observation...at least, that’s the reason in the beginning. The riches and fame his contract offers are pretty nice after so many years stuck in the library, and under Meph’s protection, he doesn’t have to worry about being caught for his past crimes. Unfortunately, deals with the devil tend to have catches, and Jack’s is no exception—unbeknownst to him, he is no ordinary blood contract for Meph. In fact, they first met over ten years ago, and she has an old score to settle with him.
FAVSTVS is a modern adaptation of Kit Marlowe’s most infamous and controversial play about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil. Marrying the bloodsport of the play with the venom of Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto, it takes a no-holds-barred look at relationships between men and women today. The current political zeitgeist blames women for all the world’s evils. In FAVSTVS, they really are responsible. And, in FAVSTVS, there is nowhere to hide when you displease them.
Incel Jack Faustus loses his soul twice before he is awarded his PhD in anthropology. First, when he commits an unspeakable crime against a female classmate, and second when he offers a vial of his blood to an international, all-female crime syndicate, HIVE. Loyal to the teachings of the SCUM Manifesto, a document proposing the systematic, global elimination of the male sex, the Honored International Violent Entity offers select men a deal: your wildest dreams, for a number of years, in exchange for a blood debt. That is, eventually, your life.
After linking a murder on his campus to HIVE, Jack becomes hellbent on writing his dissertation on them and exposing their secrets. Undeterred by all warnings, he contracts himself to HIVE agent Mephistophiles to keep her close enough for observation...at least, that’s the reason in the beginning. The riches and fame his contract offers are pretty nice after so many years stuck in the library, and under Meph’s protection, he doesn’t have to worry about being caught for his past crimes. Unfortunately, deals with the devil tend to have catches, and Jack’s is no exception—unbeknownst to him, he is no ordinary blood contract for Meph. In fact, they first met over ten years ago, and she has an old score to settle with him.
FAVSTVS is a modern adaptation of Kit Marlowe’s most infamous and controversial play about a scholar who sells his soul to the devil. Marrying the bloodsport of the play with the venom of Valerie Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto, it takes a no-holds-barred look at relationships between men and women today. The current political zeitgeist blames women for all the world’s evils. In FAVSTVS, they really are responsible. And, in FAVSTVS, there is nowhere to hide when you displease them.
778 pages, Paperback
Published September 22, 2026
About the author
L.N. Loch
2 books20 followerswriter and troublemaker. currently dissertating in the mountains somewhere. i study damn good literature, often out of print.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
September 15, 2026
Amoral and insufferable characters spiral endlessly down together in this genre defying retelling of the legend of Faust. This book is poisonous, slow, and demanding. As I read it, I thought a lot about a recent essay by Emma Adler, titled "Every Novel is Boring--Until it Isn't". Adler opens:
The volta of this novel came for me halfway through its deliciously weighty 777 pages. It was fun to hate the main character, and then it became tiresome. It was tiresome, and then it became exhausting. It was exhausting, and then, suddenly, it became delicious. The satisfaction of sticking with it was its own reward, but there were plenty of other rewards along the way.
This is a book that is for everyone because it is for no one. It's for the author. It's for the legend. In a way, it's for Valerie Solanas, although I don't think anyone (regardless of whether they knew her during her life or not) could say what she'd think of it. The devil in this novel comes in the form of a black box, like Solanas was. And like Solanas, she is far past everything, and the only thing that can trip her up is entanglement with men.
It's not a perfect novel, there might be things I would do differently, or little things I could pick at. But why bother? Instead, I tempt you with the experience of holding this black, slick book in your hands. I just weighed it: two pounds, three ounces. I invite you to be transported: world after world, then into hell. Imagine yourself in these trappings. Pretend to wear their clothes. Or, if you're like me, just read for information, glutting yourself until it's over.
Because of its expansiveness and depth, I look forward to seeing the myriad reactions this book is certain to elicit. I am sated.
With almost every novel I read, I go through the same arc. At first the novel bores me. Then, suddenly, it becomes the most interesting thing in the world. Suddenly, I have made it through the part that was creating my investment in the novel—and now it is all payoff. Now the novel is not just something whose artistry I can appreciate, but something I first order want to keep reading.
I call this point in a novel its volta. The term comes from poetry, where it denotes a shift that sonnets exhibit between their opening octave and concluding sestet or between their first 12 lines and final couplet. At this juncture, the speaker of the poem adopts a new perspective on whatever [she] has been discussing. (In Italian, one meaning of volta is “turn.”)
The volta of this novel came for me halfway through its deliciously weighty 777 pages. It was fun to hate the main character, and then it became tiresome. It was tiresome, and then it became exhausting. It was exhausting, and then, suddenly, it became delicious. The satisfaction of sticking with it was its own reward, but there were plenty of other rewards along the way.
This is a book that is for everyone because it is for no one. It's for the author. It's for the legend. In a way, it's for Valerie Solanas, although I don't think anyone (regardless of whether they knew her during her life or not) could say what she'd think of it. The devil in this novel comes in the form of a black box, like Solanas was. And like Solanas, she is far past everything, and the only thing that can trip her up is entanglement with men.
It's not a perfect novel, there might be things I would do differently, or little things I could pick at. But why bother? Instead, I tempt you with the experience of holding this black, slick book in your hands. I just weighed it: two pounds, three ounces. I invite you to be transported: world after world, then into hell. Imagine yourself in these trappings. Pretend to wear their clothes. Or, if you're like me, just read for information, glutting yourself until it's over.
Because of its expansiveness and depth, I look forward to seeing the myriad reactions this book is certain to elicit. I am sated.
September 16, 2026
Let me start this by saying I really respect L.N. Loch, and I do want to read more from her, and I genuinely feel bad giving this three stars.
I requested this book because it sounds like a no-brainer; the premise is exactly the kind of book that checks all my boxes. From the get-go, I instantly fell in love with the writing style and the darkness of the story and the unlikeability of the characters. This is not an easy read, in part because it’s such a long book, but also because you spend most of that time in the head of a man who is a narcissistic incel who believes he exists on a pedestal above humanity. The book does not shy away from violence or misogyny or xenophobia or brutality. There’s a rape scene about five chapters in, and it only gets more violent from there. And yet, if you’re someone who’s interested in dark literature, or at least someone who’s more adjusted to it than the average reader, most of this book is pretty tame. (At times I actually wished it was darker than it was.) But the central point of the story is violence, specifically gendered violence and how men get away with abusing women.
There’s a lot to like about this book. Part of why I appreciate long books like this is that they lend themselves to philosophical rabbit holes and academic musings. For as much as Faustus rambles on in his head about how unfair his life is, how nobody understands him and his intellect, there are a lot of little paragraphs about rape culture and the gender divide and how power plays out across the world behind closed doors. The epigraphs highlight pieces from Marlowe’s original work and The SCUM Manifesto, and I really liked how SCUM influenced HIVE. It’s challenging with these types of novels because so much of the commentary is made through something akin to satire, that by crafting a character like Faustus who truly believes that women are beneath him and that murder is nothing to feel guilty of, it can seem like you’re advocating for a world of incels. The female characters attempt to balance this out, with Wagner pushing for justice in the wake of her rape and Meph running her crime ring, but even they play into a lot of the stereotype of “Feminist” in a way that doesn’t feel authentic. Yes, Meph doesn’t shave her armpits and Wagner decides to get a hysterectomy, but they feel like a stereotype of the “angry woman” in a way that is neither true satire nor an interesting exploration of the cliche. I think if this book was advertised more like Olivie Blake’s Girl Dinner, I might be more forgiving, but there’s a seriousness to the story that makes it difficult to not take these women seriously. Faustus is one thing, but Meph could have been so much more. Then again, maybe that’s what makes her such a tragic character, that she had so much promise and was not allowed to live up to it in the end.
(We don’t have time to unpack how the significance of female “absence” - here meaning both lacking in the quantity and quality of female characters - can influence a feminist story, but trust that I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Is the story supposed to be more successful because Meph is written like this? Or could it perhaps have been stronger if Meph was both power-hungry and a “girl’s girl?” Is the point here that women are also misogynists or that even misogynists get tired of evil men? Should there be more women in a feminist story? Is it enough that women run the world via HIVE, even if you can’t actually see them? What makes a successful feminist retelling, or a successful feminist story in the first place?)
My main issue with this book, which is possibly the most annoying qualm to have with any story, is that the plot and characters did not truly live up to the advertised concept and implied thesis. There was a switch about halfway through, right around the time when I had to pause the book to pick up something else (so maybe this is on me), where the story shifted and became something…else. I started to really feel like the characters weren’t exemplifying their implied characterization. It’s like they changed their motives partway through, and each of them turned into a caricature. Wagner became a revenge machine, Faustus lost himself in lust, and Meph turned into just another woman who was disappointed by a man. Had the plot played out differently, I would have been okay with the stereotypes (and let’s be clear, I do think Wagner deserved to rage against the machine, she was the only character who I felt was justified and interesting in her actions), but Meph and Faustus became so flat to me as the book went on. Yes yes, they both love killing people, yes yes they’re both lonely because nobody understands how INTELLIGENT they are. And even though , they still managed to fall into the same boring trap that male & female characters always end up in: attraction. It could have been really cool to lean into some level of aromanticism, that they are more attracted to each other’s mind and/or body than anything else, and I think that is the implication that lies underneath it all, but I wanted more from it.
For a book that is advertised as a feminist retelling of Faustus, and yes in some ways it is, I was really disappointed in Meph’s character specifically. While she isn’t necessarily likeable, though I liked her quite a bit upon her introduction, she is interesting, and she had such promise as a female lead. It’s good she’s unlikeable! I like that she's unlikeable!! Sure, she’s both a misandrist and a misogynist, but she has power and she isn’t afraid to use it. And yet, I felt her power was underutilized. Most of her power relied on the fact that she could be anywhere at anytime pulling the strings, and yet, whenever she did pull the strings, it never felt dramatic enough to me. (Not to mention, a lot of this book just felt outlandish and unrealistic in the most bizarre ways. And I am good at suspending my disbelief!!) I kept waiting for there to be some level of true magic, that Meph was immortal or that HIVE had special powers, and yes there was some level of “magic” in Meph’s chemistry (invisibility and greek fire are cool, don’t get me wrong), but it all felt so safe and boring. Frankly, I was most interested in Meph during her final scene. (AND WHAT A SCENE. But what a waste of a character.)
There's also something to be said about gender as a whole in this book. I get that it's a feminist retelling, and I get that so much of this book is centered on women vs men, how men abuse women, how women are never believed when men rape them, but the more I read these types of stories the more exhausting they become when they do not explore the intersectionality of gender, specifically how transness plays into these ideas. What I wouldn't give to have seen Meph as a trans/non-binary person. But I get it, this is about WOMEN.
Unfortunately, this is one of the most frustrating types of books. It’s one with good bones, really great writing, an interesting concept and premise, but it just falls a little flat in the execution…so I can spend days and days expounding on the nuances of where it could have been improved. The other problem is that I did already read a Faustus retelling this year, Knausgård’s The School of Night, and while I can respect that each of these have very different theses, I think it’s difficult not to compare them. While I preferred a lot of Loch’s world-building and her version of Meph and the contract, I do think that Knausgård’s Faustus is more interesting and even more bone-chilling. There’s a realism in Knausgård’s story that makes the whole thing so spooky because it could plausibly happen in the real world. FAVSTVS is full of characters who do exist in our real world, but they are pushed to the satirical brink in Loch’s world and that makes them more laughable in consequence.
I really feel bad about lighting up this review, but I just found myself getting more and more frustrated that a writer who clearly knows what she’s doing could fumble the bag this hard after 700 pages.
Anyway, fuck rapists and rape culture and let’s write more books about women getting hysterectomies and stabbing incels in the neck.
I requested this book because it sounds like a no-brainer; the premise is exactly the kind of book that checks all my boxes. From the get-go, I instantly fell in love with the writing style and the darkness of the story and the unlikeability of the characters. This is not an easy read, in part because it’s such a long book, but also because you spend most of that time in the head of a man who is a narcissistic incel who believes he exists on a pedestal above humanity. The book does not shy away from violence or misogyny or xenophobia or brutality. There’s a rape scene about five chapters in, and it only gets more violent from there. And yet, if you’re someone who’s interested in dark literature, or at least someone who’s more adjusted to it than the average reader, most of this book is pretty tame. (At times I actually wished it was darker than it was.) But the central point of the story is violence, specifically gendered violence and how men get away with abusing women.
There’s a lot to like about this book. Part of why I appreciate long books like this is that they lend themselves to philosophical rabbit holes and academic musings. For as much as Faustus rambles on in his head about how unfair his life is, how nobody understands him and his intellect, there are a lot of little paragraphs about rape culture and the gender divide and how power plays out across the world behind closed doors. The epigraphs highlight pieces from Marlowe’s original work and The SCUM Manifesto, and I really liked how SCUM influenced HIVE. It’s challenging with these types of novels because so much of the commentary is made through something akin to satire, that by crafting a character like Faustus who truly believes that women are beneath him and that murder is nothing to feel guilty of, it can seem like you’re advocating for a world of incels. The female characters attempt to balance this out, with Wagner pushing for justice in the wake of her rape and Meph running her crime ring, but even they play into a lot of the stereotype of “Feminist” in a way that doesn’t feel authentic. Yes, Meph doesn’t shave her armpits and Wagner decides to get a hysterectomy, but they feel like a stereotype of the “angry woman” in a way that is neither true satire nor an interesting exploration of the cliche. I think if this book was advertised more like Olivie Blake’s Girl Dinner, I might be more forgiving, but there’s a seriousness to the story that makes it difficult to not take these women seriously. Faustus is one thing, but Meph could have been so much more. Then again, maybe that’s what makes her such a tragic character, that she had so much promise and was not allowed to live up to it in the end.
(We don’t have time to unpack how the significance of female “absence” - here meaning both lacking in the quantity and quality of female characters - can influence a feminist story, but trust that I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Is the story supposed to be more successful because Meph is written like this? Or could it perhaps have been stronger if Meph was both power-hungry and a “girl’s girl?” Is the point here that women are also misogynists or that even misogynists get tired of evil men? Should there be more women in a feminist story? Is it enough that women run the world via HIVE, even if you can’t actually see them? What makes a successful feminist retelling, or a successful feminist story in the first place?)
My main issue with this book, which is possibly the most annoying qualm to have with any story, is that the plot and characters did not truly live up to the advertised concept and implied thesis. There was a switch about halfway through, right around the time when I had to pause the book to pick up something else (so maybe this is on me), where the story shifted and became something…else. I started to really feel like the characters weren’t exemplifying their implied characterization. It’s like they changed their motives partway through, and each of them turned into a caricature. Wagner became a revenge machine, Faustus lost himself in lust, and Meph turned into just another woman who was disappointed by a man. Had the plot played out differently, I would have been okay with the stereotypes (and let’s be clear, I do think Wagner deserved to rage against the machine, she was the only character who I felt was justified and interesting in her actions), but Meph and Faustus became so flat to me as the book went on. Yes yes, they both love killing people, yes yes they’re both lonely because nobody understands how INTELLIGENT they are. And even though , they still managed to fall into the same boring trap that male & female characters always end up in: attraction. It could have been really cool to lean into some level of aromanticism, that they are more attracted to each other’s mind and/or body than anything else, and I think that is the implication that lies underneath it all, but I wanted more from it.
For a book that is advertised as a feminist retelling of Faustus, and yes in some ways it is, I was really disappointed in Meph’s character specifically. While she isn’t necessarily likeable, though I liked her quite a bit upon her introduction, she is interesting, and she had such promise as a female lead. It’s good she’s unlikeable! I like that she's unlikeable!! Sure, she’s both a misandrist and a misogynist, but she has power and she isn’t afraid to use it. And yet, I felt her power was underutilized. Most of her power relied on the fact that she could be anywhere at anytime pulling the strings, and yet, whenever she did pull the strings, it never felt dramatic enough to me. (Not to mention, a lot of this book just felt outlandish and unrealistic in the most bizarre ways. And I am good at suspending my disbelief!!) I kept waiting for there to be some level of true magic, that Meph was immortal or that HIVE had special powers, and yes there was some level of “magic” in Meph’s chemistry (invisibility and greek fire are cool, don’t get me wrong), but it all felt so safe and boring. Frankly, I was most interested in Meph during her final scene. (AND WHAT A SCENE. But what a waste of a character.)
There's also something to be said about gender as a whole in this book. I get that it's a feminist retelling, and I get that so much of this book is centered on women vs men, how men abuse women, how women are never believed when men rape them, but the more I read these types of stories the more exhausting they become when they do not explore the intersectionality of gender, specifically how transness plays into these ideas. What I wouldn't give to have seen Meph as a trans/non-binary person. But I get it, this is about WOMEN.
Unfortunately, this is one of the most frustrating types of books. It’s one with good bones, really great writing, an interesting concept and premise, but it just falls a little flat in the execution…so I can spend days and days expounding on the nuances of where it could have been improved. The other problem is that I did already read a Faustus retelling this year, Knausgård’s The School of Night, and while I can respect that each of these have very different theses, I think it’s difficult not to compare them. While I preferred a lot of Loch’s world-building and her version of Meph and the contract, I do think that Knausgård’s Faustus is more interesting and even more bone-chilling. There’s a realism in Knausgård’s story that makes the whole thing so spooky because it could plausibly happen in the real world. FAVSTVS is full of characters who do exist in our real world, but they are pushed to the satirical brink in Loch’s world and that makes them more laughable in consequence.
I really feel bad about lighting up this review, but I just found myself getting more and more frustrated that a writer who clearly knows what she’s doing could fumble the bag this hard after 700 pages.
Anyway, fuck rapists and rape culture and let’s write more books about women getting hysterectomies and stabbing incels in the neck.
September 23, 2026
This novel started unbelievably strong for me. FAVSTVS bursts out the gate as an acerbic, sardonic tome ripe with biting irony regarding academic pretension, reminiscent of a darker Secret History. It devolves into a cat-and-mouse tailspin, a race to rock bottom chock-full of depravity and corruption.
While initially a delicious atmospheric tale wrapped in the conceit of a Doctor Faustus retelling, I found it growing stale throughout the whopping near 800 pages. It's funny to actually try and articulate, but much like my experience with American Psycho, I found myself growing bored of the mundanity of evil. So much heinous activity unfolds here, yet the framing of it hurtling past, almost skipped through in fast-motion, reads somehow both shocking and tiresome. I appreciate what I assume the intent here is, our experience as reader mirroring Faustus glutting himself on wealth while growing tired of it, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to pull me through with excitement. To make the comparison once more, Jack Faustus is, in my reading experience, a bit of an academic's Patrick Bateman.
The beginning of this book had me thoroughly convinced I'd found my new favorite of the genre. It is incredibly well-written, and compulsively readable--I was fantasizing about owning a physical copy by chapter two. The momentum, unfortunately, really didn't carry through the book. The novel itself remains an impressive feat, and the storytelling prowess and writing ability are staggering. I regret to only give this three stars (though, a strong three stars they are!), as my expectations were exceeded to such a degree for the first third. The ending wrapped things up well, though I do wish we'd gotten to see a little bit more of the operation of the mysterious organization at hand. While my disappointments with the novel stand, I expect it will grow on me with time, and I'm certainly willing to (and plan on) return to it eventually. I can absolutely see this title haunting my thoughts in the weeks and months to come; I'm grateful to have been given the opportunity to read this pre-publication with an ARC graciously supplied by L.N. Loch and NetGalley!
While initially a delicious atmospheric tale wrapped in the conceit of a Doctor Faustus retelling, I found it growing stale throughout the whopping near 800 pages. It's funny to actually try and articulate, but much like my experience with American Psycho, I found myself growing bored of the mundanity of evil. So much heinous activity unfolds here, yet the framing of it hurtling past, almost skipped through in fast-motion, reads somehow both shocking and tiresome. I appreciate what I assume the intent here is, our experience as reader mirroring Faustus glutting himself on wealth while growing tired of it, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to pull me through with excitement. To make the comparison once more, Jack Faustus is, in my reading experience, a bit of an academic's Patrick Bateman.
The beginning of this book had me thoroughly convinced I'd found my new favorite of the genre. It is incredibly well-written, and compulsively readable--I was fantasizing about owning a physical copy by chapter two. The momentum, unfortunately, really didn't carry through the book. The novel itself remains an impressive feat, and the storytelling prowess and writing ability are staggering. I regret to only give this three stars (though, a strong three stars they are!), as my expectations were exceeded to such a degree for the first third. The ending wrapped things up well, though I do wish we'd gotten to see a little bit more of the operation of the mysterious organization at hand. While my disappointments with the novel stand, I expect it will grow on me with time, and I'm certainly willing to (and plan on) return to it eventually. I can absolutely see this title haunting my thoughts in the weeks and months to come; I'm grateful to have been given the opportunity to read this pre-publication with an ARC graciously supplied by L.N. Loch and NetGalley!
Review of advance copy received from Author
FAVSTVS is a refreshingly mean, unapologetically vicious novel that kept my skin crawling during my entire time reading it, and I couldn't stop until I was done. This is not your grandma's dark academia recipe. Yes, there's murder, a mysterious university, drug use, and all the other expected ingredients, but there is also high-profile international crime, a terrible dissertation that everyone loves, [REDACTED], and a bear. It's a bloody interpretation of an already cursed play.
I adore it.
Reading Loch's generous prose was like biting into a juicy cut of beef: This is a carefully crafted novel that delivers so much flavor when bitten into, and you are not going to go hungry. There was no point during my read-through where I was bored or thinking about when it was going to be done.
Loch presents us a man we unfortunately see too often in real life: He who believes he stands above it all and looks down at the world with disdain and contempt. One with an endless hunger and would absolutely destroy everything and everyone because he just can't get over himself. And of course, he's an embarrassing, self-important incel.
There are no heroes, only villains you will love or want to see destroyed. I went from "There's no way he's getting away with that" to:
If you're looking for a cozy and fun dark academia read, this isn't it. If you want a novel that's cruel, extremely funny, grotesque, and committed to displaying the worst of its awful protagonist to the bitter end, FAVSTVS delivers spectacularly.
I adore it.
Reading Loch's generous prose was like biting into a juicy cut of beef: This is a carefully crafted novel that delivers so much flavor when bitten into, and you are not going to go hungry. There was no point during my read-through where I was bored or thinking about when it was going to be done.
Loch presents us a man we unfortunately see too often in real life: He who believes he stands above it all and looks down at the world with disdain and contempt. One with an endless hunger and would absolutely destroy everything and everyone because he just can't get over himself. And of course, he's an embarrassing, self-important incel.
There are no heroes, only villains you will love or want to see destroyed. I went from "There's no way he's getting away with that" to:
If you're looking for a cozy and fun dark academia read, this isn't it. If you want a novel that's cruel, extremely funny, grotesque, and committed to displaying the worst of its awful protagonist to the bitter end, FAVSTVS delivers spectacularly.
August 31, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and Victory Editing for access to this e-book in exchange for an honest review!
This review will have light spoilers and cover some issues I had with the text, both big and small and then end with what I liked.
To preface, I did not know much about the original play of Faustus by Christopher Marlowe outside of the very general deal with the devil and angel/devil on the shoulders. I educated myself just a bit to confirm this retelling did follow a good amount of the big plot points that were in the play, so if you are familiar with that, you will be aware of how the plot of this goes. Even as someone very unfamiliar with the story, it was often that a plot point came up where it felt the characters were acting out of what I understood they might act so they can allow for the story to move along. At times, it felt out right jarring and out of sorts for what kind of world and technology this world might have. The setting is our world in 2020 with the addition of HIVE - an all women crime cabal that allows for the existence of demons to grant characters money and power. It is all encompassing but extremely hush hush. The way the organization is set up, it seems that everything is theoretically feasible with our logic (power, influence, money), but then they introduce the invisibility potion. Literally only introduced because it happened in the play. The original play had magic, so it could get away with having forever fire and invisibility, but not this retelling.
Of the characters, the author decided to try threading the tricky needle of creating unlikeable characters and also creating a reading experience where we enjoy the ride of following these characters. I did not finding myself reading about this incel Faustus who SA's a woman early on in the narrative before he even starts on his rise to power and fame. REALLY hard to ask us to stay in this man's head for 650-500 more pages after that, even if he does get his comeuppance at the end.
The gender politics of this world feel so bleak, and it can't just be attributed to the incel mindset. EVERY POV character is so bitter about their life and are so focused in on their gender or how their gender is treated or how the (only two) genders of the world treat each other. There is no hope for anyone in this world when it comes to division, the narrative provides no alternative to the depravity and hate other than conformity to social norms. The story becomes a long drawn out exercise of misery that (from my research) the original play balanced out with some episodes of farce. I wish there could be reworking out this novel because adding more is out of the question. This could and SHOULD have been a shorter novel, because there is a good amount of bloat. I don't need pages and pages of every single POV character wallowing in their ambitions and miseries repeatedly.
I also despised the drawn out sexual tension and flirting added between Mephistophiles (terrorist bad ass) and Faustus. They have a whole dynamic about attraction of intelligence, like attracts like that is good, but being so casual about being in this weird situationship with a rapist was WILD. Also hate that the narrative lampshades a bad decision when it came to Meph when Faustus realizes she is NOT a lesbian like he assumed and he pouts over her not sleeping with him. She should have been a lesbian. Their reason for separation at the end would have still hit fine.
I'll move on to what I liked: the dissecting and condemning of male entitlement, the affect of boredom driving intelligent people to just do crazy awful things, and some of the modern interpretations of how the magical plot of the OG play were done well. I think the strongest part of the novel was the richness of the settings and the descriptions of how the characters physically felt. Both were incredibly provocative.
Overall, I would give this a 3.25-3.5.
This review will have light spoilers and cover some issues I had with the text, both big and small and then end with what I liked.
To preface, I did not know much about the original play of Faustus by Christopher Marlowe outside of the very general deal with the devil and angel/devil on the shoulders. I educated myself just a bit to confirm this retelling did follow a good amount of the big plot points that were in the play, so if you are familiar with that, you will be aware of how the plot of this goes. Even as someone very unfamiliar with the story, it was often that a plot point came up where it felt the characters were acting out of what I understood they might act so they can allow for the story to move along. At times, it felt out right jarring and out of sorts for what kind of world and technology this world might have. The setting is our world in 2020 with the addition of HIVE - an all women crime cabal that allows for the existence of demons to grant characters money and power. It is all encompassing but extremely hush hush. The way the organization is set up, it seems that everything is theoretically feasible with our logic (power, influence, money), but then they introduce the invisibility potion. Literally only introduced because it happened in the play. The original play had magic, so it could get away with having forever fire and invisibility, but not this retelling.
Of the characters, the author decided to try threading the tricky needle of creating unlikeable characters and also creating a reading experience where we enjoy the ride of following these characters. I did not finding myself reading about this incel Faustus who SA's a woman early on in the narrative before he even starts on his rise to power and fame. REALLY hard to ask us to stay in this man's head for 650-500 more pages after that, even if he does get his comeuppance at the end.
The gender politics of this world feel so bleak, and it can't just be attributed to the incel mindset. EVERY POV character is so bitter about their life and are so focused in on their gender or how their gender is treated or how the (only two) genders of the world treat each other. There is no hope for anyone in this world when it comes to division, the narrative provides no alternative to the depravity and hate other than conformity to social norms. The story becomes a long drawn out exercise of misery that (from my research) the original play balanced out with some episodes of farce. I wish there could be reworking out this novel because adding more is out of the question. This could and SHOULD have been a shorter novel, because there is a good amount of bloat. I don't need pages and pages of every single POV character wallowing in their ambitions and miseries repeatedly.
I also despised the drawn out sexual tension and flirting added between Mephistophiles (terrorist bad ass) and Faustus. They have a whole dynamic about attraction of intelligence, like attracts like that is good, but being so casual about being in this weird situationship with a rapist was WILD. Also hate that the narrative lampshades a bad decision when it came to Meph when Faustus realizes she is NOT a lesbian like he assumed and he pouts over her not sleeping with him. She should have been a lesbian. Their reason for separation at the end would have still hit fine.
I'll move on to what I liked: the dissecting and condemning of male entitlement, the affect of boredom driving intelligent people to just do crazy awful things, and some of the modern interpretations of how the magical plot of the OG play were done well. I think the strongest part of the novel was the richness of the settings and the descriptions of how the characters physically felt. Both were incredibly provocative.
Overall, I would give this a 3.25-3.5.
Review of advance copy received from Author
FAVSTVS is a refreshingly mean, unapologetically vicious novel that kept my skin crawling during my entire time reading it, and I couldn't stop until I was done. This is not your grandma's dark academia recipe. Yes, there's murder, a mysterious university, drug use, and all the other expected ingredients, but there is also high-profile international crime, a terrible dissertation that everyone loves, [REDACTED], and a bear. It's a bloody interpretation of an already cursed play.
I adore it.
Reading Loch's generous prose was like biting into a juicy cut of beef: This is a carefully crafted novel that delivers so much flavor when bitten into, and you are not going to go hungry. There was no point during my read-through where I was bored or thinking about when it was going to be done.
Loch presents us a man we unfortunately see too often in real life: He who believes he stands above it all and looks down at the world with disdain and contempt. One with an endless hunger and would absolutely destroy everything and everyone because he just can't get over himself. And of course, he's an embarrassing, self-important incel.
There are no heroes, only villains you will love or want to see destroyed. I went from "There's no way he's getting away with that" to:
If you're looking for a cozy and fun dark academia read, this isn't it. If you want a novel that's cruel, extremely funny, grotesque, and committed to displaying the worst of its awful protagonist to the bitter end, FAVSTVS delivers spectacularly.
I adore it.
Reading Loch's generous prose was like biting into a juicy cut of beef: This is a carefully crafted novel that delivers so much flavor when bitten into, and you are not going to go hungry. There was no point during my read-through where I was bored or thinking about when it was going to be done.
Loch presents us a man we unfortunately see too often in real life: He who believes he stands above it all and looks down at the world with disdain and contempt. One with an endless hunger and would absolutely destroy everything and everyone because he just can't get over himself. And of course, he's an embarrassing, self-important incel.
There are no heroes, only villains you will love or want to see destroyed. I went from "There's no way he's getting away with that" to:
If you're looking for a cozy and fun dark academia read, this isn't it. If you want a novel that's cruel, extremely funny, grotesque, and committed to displaying the worst of its awful protagonist to the bitter end, FAVSTVS delivers spectacularly.
Read
August 31, 2026prepare to lock in for an insanely wild ride with this book. action packed, adventurous, dark & fantastical.
i wish we got more of HIVE and the broader implications of their dealings, i felt at some points a craving for a greater understanding of meph's crew. i also struggled to understand some of the characters motivations -> actions as it felt like there were many contradictions. a testament to the most unhinged characters i've maybe ever read.
having already read SCUM manifesto and more recently reading dr. faustus by christopher marlowe was helpful (though not necessary) to understand the scope of the book.
i wish we got more of HIVE and the broader implications of their dealings, i felt at some points a craving for a greater understanding of meph's crew. i also struggled to understand some of the characters motivations -> actions as it felt like there were many contradictions. a testament to the most unhinged characters i've maybe ever read.
having already read SCUM manifesto and more recently reading dr. faustus by christopher marlowe was helpful (though not necessary) to understand the scope of the book.
Read
September 21, 2026The second best dark academia novel.
"Dark academia" as a genre is usually a big disappointment to me. I love the idea of it: the settings, the tweed, the dead languages. All that is up my alley, but most books in this genre (leaving aside The Secret History, which rules) are just wearing wacky professor costumes while re-hashing Heathers or something. This is not that.
Is it an insane update of Marlowe? yes. Will you hate the protagonist almost from the first page? Yes. Will you keep reading and hate him even more? also yes. Is it a little longer than it needs to be? yes. Is it worthwhile? Definitely.
"Dark academia" as a genre is usually a big disappointment to me. I love the idea of it: the settings, the tweed, the dead languages. All that is up my alley, but most books in this genre (leaving aside The Secret History, which rules) are just wearing wacky professor costumes while re-hashing Heathers or something. This is not that.
Is it an insane update of Marlowe? yes. Will you hate the protagonist almost from the first page? Yes. Will you keep reading and hate him even more? also yes. Is it a little longer than it needs to be? yes. Is it worthwhile? Definitely.
Review of advance copy received from Author
I've read this so. many. times. I should get extra credit on this and last year's GR challenge.
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