The Good Daughter

by Alexandra Burt

[layawaydragon]

WOW. 
>>TRIGGER WARNING: Brutal, gruesome torture and group rape episode that’s discuss in great detail and just when you think you’ve heard it all and couldn’t get worse, it does. This is going stick with me forever *shudder*
>>>>However, the rape and the survivor are well written and portrayed. It’s not a gimmick, it’s not for titulation.
>>Trigger Warning & Problematic: an “exotic”, “foreign” “simpleminded girl” that’s raped by men “taking care of her.” 
>>Problematic Ablism. There’s lots of “she’s crazy” and a therapist and...stuff along those lines. At one point Dahlia rants about how she’s not schizo because she’s not yelling about conspiracies on a street corner. 🙄
>>Felt like magical realism with a woods witch and the atmosphere, and they “you don’t really know” turn out but more June by Beverly Miranda-Whittemore than When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-marie McLemore. 
>>I am concerned with Tain’s portrayal. She’s described as looking “She seemed foreign in some fashion--yet her skin was white and pale--and something about her was exotic.” by Quinn. All the POV characters are connected to her in some way. She’s a victim that gets rescued, used, and sent away, again and again. It’s highly disturbing, to put it mildly. 
>>There’s 4 POVs that switch, a woods witch, and Quinn talking about the past, and Dahlia and her mom Memphis dealing with the present. 
>>Between each chapter is a quote from Achilles. 
>>I highlighted a lot of quotes that I liked. 
>>In the end, it’s a happy ending. But I can’t help think how much harder this would’ve been if they were POC and Tain...she’s just a plot vehicle. 
>>Great atmosphere. 
>>I could not stop reading it. I stayed up all night and read it in one sitting. 
>>Kept me guessing the whole way through. 
>>It’s really too bad it wasn’t more careful about being problematic. It would have been 5 stars, but....I felt uncomfortable and not okay with how these things were written and handled. Hell, TBH I still feel bad for giving it 4 stars, but gods, I did enjoy it -- in a soap opera thriller way. I’m not sure what that says about me, but there ya go. 
 

Quotes: 

 

“Q. Was a strong woman; strong but damaged. Those are the dangerous ones.”

“I want to cry. Soon is like saying never. “

“Like a bundle of yarn, my mind loops around itself, repeating things to me, no matter how hard I try not to think at all. “