Penance

Penance is the rare book that's compulsively readable while also being delicate and insightful about its subject– at least for me. Everyone has different standards about what is and isn't impossible to put down, but for me, after reading the first chapter, every moment spent not reading this felt wasted.

It's deftly written while always having incredibly clear prose that is neither ‘invisible' or bland– every word is chosen thoughtfully, even if the vocabulary and sentence structure is often simplistic. It reminds me of my favorite Palahniuks and Pat Barkers: a book that never talks down to its readers, trusting them to understand the complexity of thought found in its straight forward (and occasionally blunt) packaging.

And the messages this book sends are very complex and well thought out: is it possible to cover true crime in a moral way? What type of people bully and what type people are bullied? What's the cost of not ‘fitting in' as a child? How does the internet warp young minds? What kind of person is a ‘good' victim? Are ‘good' victims real, or an invention of narrative convenience? Can children's play and imagination build up to murder? What kind of child is capable of murder, and is that capability innate, or does it grow over time? When does bullying become criminal? What amount of bullying is acceptable or ‘normal'? And, perhaps most importantly, the question the book tackles in its final section with one of the most richly layered and consequential plot twists I've ever seen: Is there really any difference between true crime journalism and true crime fanfiction? Is everyone engaging in true crime discussion just writing a different kind of fanfiction? Even if they're not doing it in prose, everyone is forming a narrative in their heads. No one in these forums and blogs and chatrooms and social media accounts was an actual witness to the events they're compelled to discuss. Is all of that just a different kind of fanfiction? And if it is, who has the moral high ground? Who is engaging in these topics in a respectful way? Is anyone?

Is the only way to answer these questions in a way that's respectful to the victim, this book seems to say, is to just write fiction. So Eliza Clark did, and I think it's one of the most engaging, creative, layered and thoughtful books I've ever read.

...At least, I think so. I don't know much about true crime, but Eliza Clark clearly does.

Disturbing. Really accurately captures the extremely unhinged energy of tumblr dot com in the 2010s. If you were ever a teen on tumblr, and/or if you have ever had even a passing interest in true crime, highly recommend this book.

Not perfect and I wish the critique of true crime was more interesting/robust, and the final chapter felt kind of unnecessary or over done (you already know not to trust the embedded story's narrator without it being hammered in in the final chapter...or the reminder could have been done in a more clever way) but overall I enjoyed it. The embedded narration was constantly a reminder to question, and worked well. Also having a female author writing a male narrator who is in turn writing from the pov of teenage girls was really interesting. The critique of how men write about/talk about teenage girls was never stated but thoroughly embedded in the writing.

3.5 rounded up.

It's going to sound way meaner than I intend it to but here goes, I enjoyed most of the book but by the end I felt like it had overstayed its welcome and was ready for it to be over.

I found this book soooooo boring. 

Really enjoyed! It was so hard to tell what was real and what wasn't, I had to double-check I was reading fiction! Macabre and scary, I feel like I was probably Tumblr mutuals with Violet

4.25 ⭐️

This book feels like a love child between The Secret History and Gillian Flynn, so I thought I'd like it, even though Storygraph's AI said I probably wouldn't because it's of the “Crime” genre. The AI was right. Even though this is a bit of a satire on the True Crime genre as a whole, it's still true crime and I'm just not a True Crime murder girly.

Penance is a novel about the brutal murder of a teenage girl by her classmates, and the town where they all live. Very much like The Virgin Suicides, Penance is more interested in creating a robust picture of the characters involved—the murderers, the victim, their families, their neighbors—and is less concerned in recounting the events of the murder. My favorite aspect was how characters' actions and words—fueled by their own insecurities and traumas—rippled into each other's lives. No one was solely guilty, no one was fully innocent.

It's tricky, because as ART, Penance is 10/10. The narration style is ingenious, the character development is perfect, but I was gripped until I wasn't...then it started to slog for me and I considered DNFing. I am glad I didn't, though.

Incredible novel that just isn't for me. Objectively 5 stars, but subjectively I'd give it 3.5.

2.5 stars

I was so hyped for this book but it ended up not really working for me.

Whilst I liked what the book was looking at (obsession with true crime, toxic friendships, teenage bullying, online fandoms, etc), and the mixed formats which I always enjoy, I didn't like the way it was structured.

The book is written as if its a non-fiction book written by another author, this part didn't bother me until the very last few pages when he is interviewed and basically admits to fabricating a lot of what was in his book, making the whole thing pointless. I really dislike an ending like this.

The book is also split into 4 main parts, relating to the 4 girls involved in the case, each part exhaustively covers their upbringing, lifestyle, friendship groups then gets to the actual night of the murder. This could work in an actual documentary but by part 3 it felt repetitive and made the book feel so slow and long.

Perhaps this is my own fault, I much prefer listening to nonfiction and whilst this is a fiction book, it's written in a nonfiction style so would have worked better for me on audio.

This book was fine, it captured the voices of the teens and (most of) the internet culture of the era really well, but I do think it fell into its own trap a bit in over focusing on the perpetrators without a lot of self awareness, and a few things about the internet culture of the time are inaccurate in a way that annoyed me (especially the assertion about ao3 because I think the truth actually adds to the book's point). The twist is so obvious from pretty much the beginning that the epilogue feels like a joke.

i generally really like metafiction as a technique and this is a great example of it. it feels like a fantastic book to teach young people about unreliable narration, ethics in journalism and critical reading. what is okay to write about? what is okay to read about? because of its fiction-framed-as-non-fiction identity, the book allows for a relatively easier engagement with heavy and complicated subject matter, which in turn gives easy entrance to questions related to those subjects. it doesn???t spell out too much or gives the reader any easy answers

my main (and possibly only) gripe with the book as a whole then also comes from the last couple of pages, because it felt like they (unnecessarily) took away some of the ambiguity that the novel plays with (and to be completely honest i felt that the interview it describes was some poor and unrealistic writing in an overall strong book).

very interested to read eliza clark???s debut now!

so bizarre in its messiness—where was the editor for this one—and the final chapter (‘aftermath') just reads like an excuse as to why the entire book was written in the same, unpleasant tone. as of yet, i am not convinced eliza clark can write in any voice except her own (and as someone the same age that was also deeply on tumblr from 2010-2014, i'm not actually sure that voice is unique)