i rebelled

✡️ white australian • communist anti-zionist

current main interest: supernatural

constant rotating interests: my chemical romance, hannibal, dan and phil, supernatural, the elder scrolls, final fantasy 7, fall out boy, stranger things, junji ito, merlin, cats, lord of the rings, horror literature

• been dying to read this book for a while now but had to special order it at my bookstore, premise sounded so interesting and reminded me of coraline

• almost DNFd straight away because the main character is a little girl that calls her dad 'daddo' and it just made me cringe so bad but honestly i'm kinda used to it now

• hooked me almost immediately with the perfect amount of mystery and creepiness without overdoing it, imagery is few and far between but very effective (hair on other mommys arms, other mommy in the corner of the ceiling, other mommy in the darkness at the playground)

• surprisingly believable POV of a little girl like honestly i don't know how he's pulling it off this well, it really actually reads like the thoughts of a little girl

• doing that annoying ass thing that cormac mccarthy did where there's no quotation marks so you just have to guess when people are talking or something is being commented on in narrative

• side eyeing mommy being an evil cheater and daddo being a perfect loveable goofball romcom husband big time like. ok MAN. i see you

• in the beginning it was VERY clear it was written by a man i didn't need so much gross description of the young girl and what all of the male characters wanted to do to her. right at the beginning too it was very uncomfortable

• once they got to the first village things picked up and it became awesome and interesting and unputdownable for a while

• super unique and scary and unforgettable monsters/body horror in this book, the severed head jellyfish will stay in my mind for a long time i think

• one of the most disturbing scenes for me was FOR SOME REASON the feast with the monkey brains ??? like the way greed and opulence was written as so sinful and disgusting was effective as hell and tha scene in particular stuck with me for the rest of the book

• middle part of the book was kind of hard to get through and I don't really know why because it's not like it wasn't interesting but i think something about the really repetitive structure just grated on my nerves a bit and i almost DNFd after pere matthieus death scene

• didn't care that much for thomas's redemption arc tbh like you're gonna tell me we spend the beginning of the book reading about how this dude looks the other way when his friends rape women and i'm supposed to suddenly believe he's a good person because he bonds with this saintly little girl like whatever man

• had to keep reading because the vibes were so immaculate, the black death was a horror show in and of itself and in this it's just the backdrop for a war between heaven and hell like the premise is just so badass and scary I needed more of it even though it is very malemanipulator author literature

• delphine is not well written as a believable little girl at all but i wasn't surprised by that at all, she IS kinda well written as the second coming of christ tho

• wish we got to see more of the angels, i'm a slut for angel lore

• the demons in this book were some of the scariest demons i've ever read, every time they spoke to a character it was something disgusting and disturbing and really made you believe that they were nothing but pure evil

• fight scene near the end where thomas and delphine both die is so gnarly, expertly written action scene, both brutal deaths, unceremonious and undignified like you would expect at the hands of demons, love the quiet little confirmation of delphine being jesus reincarnate

• would like a whole book written just about this universe's layers of hell because the short little chapter of thomas's experience in hell was brutal but so interesting

• ending was a little confusing but written really beautifully and made me cry a bit on my train ride, i was so glad delphine and thomas found each other and stuck together after everything BUT. like what the fuck happens with matthieu. why didn't he get to come... they never give gays anything