A Lesson in Vengeance

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Boring. Boring. Boring. Felt like a Sapphic and dark "Harry Potter" retelling. But a disappointing one. The writing made it harder for me to read. Absolutely nothing was happening, the writing was poor, the characters were weird....can't deal with all these. Dark Academia (obviously!), Unresolved Sexual Tension, Catskill Mountains, Mental Health Issues, Dubiously Accurate Witchcraft, Ellis Haley Logic, Slow Burn, Bad Relationship Exemplars, Poetry Lesbians, Ill-Advised Decisions Involving Ouija Boards and Skulls, Ghosts, Let’s Pathologize Female Anger

The average person" would find that the material, on the whole, "appeals to prurient interest in sex" [15] There was one big exception to the transparent bit, though. Something I definitely didn't see coming. And I loved it? I don't think many will. Infact, I think the ending in general will be polarizing. You've been warned!

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A smart, layered, thought-provoking thriller about female desire and the intimacy of violence.” — Ava Reid, author of The Wolf and the Woodsman There are people in this world who are Nobody. No one sees them. No one notices them. They live their lives under the radar, forgotten as soon as you turn away. Victoria, you have a well documented love for The Secret History and the Dark Academia genre. What were the most important elements of dark academia that you wanted to carry into your own work? I feel like all of Goodreads was screaming "sapphic dark academia with murder and witches" at me to read this, which I very happily obliged, but even with keywords as magnificent as those I still found so many other things to fall in love with about this story. Who would've thought that a YA dark academia about pretentious rich white girls that drink, smoke and pretend to be in a gothic novel would be so tedious to get through?

deadhedge on The Secret of the Sul’Dam: Subtle Changes to the Way the One Power Works in The Wheel of Time TV Series 1 second ago Ironically, both Merlin and Morgana used their aging spells to disguise themselves as Dragoon and Hilda. Finally, I feel like dark academia has a unique way of playing with implausibility. The scenario set up in The Secret History, for example, is delightfully implausible, but dark academia loves to take the absurd and make it seem possible—not just possible, but real. Since A Lesson in Vengeance is at its heart still a work of speculative fiction, despite the trappings of a psychological thriller, the structure that dark academia provides for blurring those lines between reality and fiction was perfect. Especially since I wanted to use the story to talk about female grief and mental illness, with a main character who is constantly questioning her reality, I needed a genre that would let me set the reader, too, at a disadvantage. In dark academia, everything is melodramatic to the point of absurdia. It’s ideal for messing with readers’ certainty over what’s real and what isn’t.

I still feel ghosts around me: the ghosts of the five Dalloway girls who defied the boxes and coffins the world tried to put them in. The ghosts of other women who attended or worked at this school, but whose legacies were forgotten instead of deified. The ghosts of every girl who came here and felt history beneath her feet. But I'm not haunted anymore. Maybe I never was.” Update 3: So NetGalley decided to be very homophobic and not approve (or even deny) me for this book. AKA the book of my dreams, but it’s fine I guess because since it’s been published I now have a copy. I am scared to read this because I don’t want to be disappointed, as this is my most anticipated read ever, but we won’t talk about that. While it is uncertain whether or not Ellis can be trusted, Felicity can’t help being drawn in by her and her unique charisma. The Dalloway Five and the magic of Godwin used to be her obsession, but it seems like Ellis now has her whole attention and that the feeling is reciprocated. We thus follow them as they entangle themselves in darkness and magic, and slowly lose sense of what is real or not. In this novel, Victoria Lee blurs the lines of witchcraft and explores its role in history and literature in relation to the demonization of women. Were the Dalloway Five truly dabbling in the dark arts or were they simply victims of their time, seeking too much independence and showcasing too much intelligence in a patriarchal society hellbent on keeping them meek and quiet. This question also weaves itself in the present timeline, challenging Felicity’s claims of being cursed and haunted.

So of course I had to transfer here, to Dalloway. There’s nowhere else to write this kind of story, is there?”

The book touches on issues such as gendered depictions of mental illness in fiction and problems with elite boarding school society, such as classism and racism. [4] The book has been described by several commentators as fitting into the dark academia aesthetic. [5] [6] [7] Reception [ edit ]

A smart, layered, thought-provoking thriller about female desire and the intimacy of violence.”—Ava Reid, author of The Wolf and the Woodsman It's hard to say what the plot of this is, because nothing that anyone does makes sense. This becomes a problem because eventually you are supposed to think some things are confusing, but everything already is.But bitch felt like a harsh word to apply to a girl who was fighting so hard to make space for herself in a world that didn’t want her.”