7 Patients สโนว์ไวท์กับคนไข้ทั้งเจ็ด

by Freaky

'She was a princess, caught in a snow storm
Waiting for the love to appear'
'หล่อนคือเจ้าหญิงผู้ติดอยู่ท่ามกลางพายุหิมะ
เฝ้ารอเพียงจังหวะที่ความรักจะปรากฏตัว'

---

"ลูม ช่วยเราด้วย"

ลูมิลีน เพิร์ล ไม่เคยคิดว่าคนรักเก่าจะกลับมาอีกครั้งในสภาพเหมือนโดนทำร้าย
หล่อนจำไม่ได้ว่าตลอดเวลาที่หายไปนั้นมีอะไรเกิดขึ้นบ้าง
มิหนำซ้ำเมื่อกลับมาใช้เวลาอยู่ด้วยกันหล่อนยิ่งกลายเป็น 'คนอื่น' ที่เธอไม่เคยรู้จัก

วินนีย์ ลูเธอร์ส เป็นแฟนเก่าคนเดิมของเธอในวันจันทร์
เป็นหญิงใบ้ไม่พูดไม่จากับใครในวันอังคาร
เป็นเด็กน้อยแปดขวบในวันพุธ
และเป็นอีกหลายตัวตนที่ลูมิลีนยังไม่รู้วิธีรับมือ

"มีเลือดอยู่บนเสื้อเรา" วินนีย์ตัวสั่น "แต่เราไม่รู้ว่ามันเป็นเลือดของใคร"

300 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2022

Reviews

[rin · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
It’s been a while since I truly enjoyed the writing of a novel that had depths and complexities. I was also craving for a psychological genre since I haven’t read it for a while, so this novel did it for me.

[Nattharat J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5

This book brought out the urge to write a book review again after a while, which is undeniably a good thing, so I'm giving this my best try.

First of all, the writing is great, expressive and refreshing for a story that's been influenced by Snow White. I like how Freaky design the other personalities of Winnie to be contrast to Winnie, so contrast that made Lumiline and me yearning for Winnie to come back, yearning for Winnie's warmth, and when that finally happened, it left me a satisfying taste just like the sweetness after the bitterness. Other than that, I also think it's an interesting take on how Freaky progressed Lumiline's character development about her feeling of home being home when there's Winnie in it; and the definition of love, without love, or maybe even without knowing what love is, but aren't the feeling of having a favorite thing—Winnie being Lumiline's favorite gold necklace just like the stuff other personalities hold dear—and the feeling of wanting to be with Winnie more than anyone in the world, already enough though?

To be honest, I'm really impressed by how Freaky defined the key elements in Snow White in their own way, and how they wrote this interpretation beautifully.
Key elements from Snow White:
- A prince and their white horse is seemingly Marcus, because of all the explicit narration of him early on, which, ironically, later turned out that he couldn't lift the curse; instead, it was Winnie who could. Still, it's uncertain to me here, whether Winnie was the real prince, or Lumiline did not need a prince but rather the dwarfs who took good care of her.
- Evil stepmother, her magic mirror and her obsession (or stigma?) with beauty that's been told by someone else.
- A poisoned apple is not simply Lumiline's allergy, but also a curse put on her that pushed her to constantly trying to be able to love someone.
- 7 dwarfs is clearly the 7 personalities of Winnie.. (or not only that?)

Interesting points that I'm not sure if it's intentional from the writer:
- 7 personalities of Winnie: at one later point in the story when describing Rachel, it strangely also reminded me of the 7 deadly sins.
Take it with a grain of salt, but here's the theory I put together: Lust is Rachel, no doubt; Gluttony is Ivy from her habits of eating snacks; Envy is Rosanne for wanting to appear more useful than Winnie; Wrath is Lilith for her liking of violence; Pride is ลูซ for her looking down on Lumiline; Greed is Winnie for wanting the love from Lumiline; and Alan is Sloth for being idle most of the times.
- Winnie.. the Pooh: an analysis from cairowestmag(.)com says, "The Winnie the Pooh books teach children about love, forgiveness, patience, trust, and acceptance. Even if they are subtly full of mental health undiagnosed issues, they normalize them and remove the stigmas that today's society has enforced around them.", strangely fitting to the story here. :)


Downsides:
- Some words were overly used.
- It felt rushed and unclear at some points (or could be that I missed them myself..)

[p. · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars, round up