A Tragic, Hopeful Tale of Haunting

CW: Animal Harm & Death (Cat, Violence Described), Parental Neglect, Abuse & Death of a Mentally Ill Person (Referenced)

The story follows a young girl with a head full of Wonder Woman and a heart full of parental neglect and grief who moves to a strange, old mansion after the death of her mother, which it is alluded to was mentally ill, beofe suffering and dying at the hands of horrific treatment. She meets a strange, unsettling friend in another girl who lives in her mirror. Time jumps to the complications of teenage Queer romance and different perspectives on life and conformity. Leading her back to her reflective friend...

I agree with some other reviews that this has the potential to really be something special, but the quality of the prose, a sad Queer girl, and hope free from sugarcoating just tipped this to a four for me. This is the first work of Harrow's I've read and it has certainly served as a good teaser to make me want more, even if there is a niggling feeling that this particular story just needed a tiny bit more to make it really sing. I think perhaps being extended into a novella or even novel with more interactions with the girl in the mirror, showing, discussing, and exploring more of the MC's Queerness and relationships, and having space for the haunting gulf of her father's neglect and the spectre of her mother's death and horrific treatment. The ingredients and quality of prose here are so very good!

Ultimately, it's a wonderful short story and definitely one of the better ones in the Audible Included library. I definitely need to read more of Harrow's work! ( )

Fall 2020 (October);

In my aim to read everything by Alix E. Harrow in October, I delved back into her next cheap, novella read, on Audible, since it was on sale. This was definitely rustier than her later novels or even her Hugo winning shorty, but it was nice to see where she'd come from. I did like seeing how her alternate edge endings started very early on in her writing career, as well. ( )

Patience Not-Forsaken Gravely's mother died in an asylum, suffering from what sounds like bipolar disorder. Patience herself has been diagnosed as having "a nervous disposition." When her father inherits Gravely doctor who treated her mother and is treating her recommends that a quiet, rural location will be good for Patience.

It's the 1950s, and Patience is "difficult." She loves superhero comics in general, and Wonder Woman in particular, to the grim disapproval of her father. In Gravely House, she meets a girl in the mirror. The girl has no name, and Patience gives her one of her own, Not-Forsaken. But who is Not-Forsaken, and why is she in the mirrheror?

Patience adopts a stray cat who doesn't like Not-Forsaken. When Patience has friends in school, Not-Forsaken shows signs of jealousy. This is most clear when Patience falls in love with Lori, her classmate. But this is a love that, in the 1950s, there is no safe space for, and first loves do end.

Patience is ready to abandon the real world and go into the mirror world that Not-Forsaken promises her is perfect.

There's a truly unexpected twist coming, and the cat is a heroic character.

Recommended.

I bought this audio novella. ( )