Black Iris

....wtf

(me, burning in hell but enjoying every second of it)

19-year-old Laney is on the hunt. And her girlfriend is her closest ally. Laney's life mission is getting revenge on all the men who have hurt her. It's fucked up, but also so sickly satisfying. What makes this work is that the characters are self-aware of their viciousness and revel in it, rather than attempt to deny it. They're completely unapologetic. Wolf girls, unafraid to use their teeth.

At times I was conflicted about the portrayal of mental illness (the main character is diagnosed borderline and her mother and girlfriend both have BPD); it can be dangerous to play into the stereotypes that already exist about the mentally ill: unstable, violent, dangerous. But I think overall the author walked on the right side of the line, showing that the ruthlessness of these women is not necessarily a symptom of their illness, but rather a reaction to their experiences and a world that hates them. But they bite back.

TW: suicide, heavy drug use, violence, homophobia/slurs. There is also explicit (consensual) m/f and f/f sex in this book.

leah stílusa egész egyszerűen elvarázsol, gyönyörűen fogalmazza meg a leghétköznapibb eseményeket és írja körül a legegyszerűbb lámpaoszlopot is, de ez a történet nem igazán jött át.

nagyon akartam szeretni, de egyrészt borzasztó lassú volt, másrészt túl keszekusza, harmadrészt pedig a főszereplő egy aljas geci. és nem is az a baj vele, hogy féreg, hanem hogy minek.
tökre megértem ezt a megkeseredett bosszúvágyat, és még azt sem mondom, hogy nincs létjogosultsága, mert igenis rohadjon meg az összes homofób tetű, de nemhogy az ő szintjükre alacsonyodik le ez az ostoba tyúk, hanem teljesen elmebeteg módon viselkedik.
az is lehet, hogy én nem vagyok elég nyitott, de szerintem ezt a könyvet nem bátor dolog volt megírni és kiadni, hanem szimplán hülyeség.

egy idő után már határozott hányingerem lett a sok versidézgetéstől. förtelmesen modoros.

(eredetileg három csillagot akartam adni rá a gyönyörű írás miatt, de hát szóval nem.)

4.5 stars

I read this in one sitting. The writing is beautiful and the plot is interesting and twisted, and I really related to a lot of it. It was also awesome to see such accurate representation of being a bisexual female–both in how the characters are treated by others and in how they view their own sexuality.
Unfortunately, the layout was extremely confusing. More than once I went back to read the last chapter or so because I was positive I had missed something important, only to discover every time that I had not. Eventually I started to get the hang of it, but pretty much I spent the first few pages of each chapter trying to figure out where exactly it fit in the timeline.
Lots of triggering material, most of which is easily found on the back cover summary. If you're sensitive to graphic sex descriptions or violent scenes, or alcohol or drugs, skip this one.

Um. Wow. Not really sure how I'm going to review this yet but...yeah, wow.

Review:

So first and foremost, BLACK IRIS is a New Adult novel, but holy guacamole it is so very different from 99% of NA novels out there right now. BLACK IRIS is not a contemporary romance—it's a dark, unsettling Thriller with deeply twisted characters and tons of twists. It's the kind of book I feel like I'll need to re-read to fully absorb, because it isn't until all the pieces fall together that it really all begins to make sense.

Like UNTEACHABLE, Raeder expertly weaves a raw, realistic voice with moments of beauty and clarity. The characters are flawed and make few attempts to be likable—and there were some moments where I almost felt like Laney, the protagonist, was getting a little heavy-handed on deliberately portraying herself as unlikable (not so much through actions, but through things she would say about being an unlikable heroine). That said, I liked that many of the characters weren't trying to be likable—they made ugly decisions, and had terrible thoughts, and they owned them completely.

The only other thing that occasionally threw me off was the timeline. The story is told non-chronologically with chapters jumping back and forth between the present and past, which occasionally got a little confusing (one of the reasons, I suspect, I felt like I would benefit from a second read).

Despite that, I really loved this book. From the gripping plot, to the out-there-for-you-to-see ugly emotions, to a protagonist who wasn't completely sure about her sexual identity (and wasn't trying to be sure or put a label on it), to a cast of characters who were twisted, and layered, and all-around fascinating, BLACK IRIS is on my list of favorites.

If you're looking for a gripping, beautifully-written, dark, and complicated New Adult Thriller, I couldn't recommend this one more. 4.5/5 stars to this seriously awesome book.

Diversity note: The protagonist doesn't label herself, but is attracted to (and has on-the-page explicit relationships with) both men and women, and she also has borderline personality disorder. Other major characters are bipolar and have antisocial personality disorder, and two major characters are Persian (including one love interest).