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A review by jade_courtney
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes
5.0
(Much like when I finished The Children of Jocasta, I'm not sure how I feel. So I'm bouncing between a 4 and 5 stars but I'll put 5 for now because I'm a Haynes stan.)
There was a lot about this book that was really clever. The symbolism and the creative use of PoVs and the beautiful words. I was thinking about how I felt about the switching of stories and perspectives because I was struggling with the chronology and the somewhat chaotic feeling it gives the book. But then I thought 'hang on a minute, when did I read something that had a very similar narrative style? Oh yeah, Ovid's Metamorphosis. Huh.'
The lack of Medusa sections in comparison to the rest would be by biggest critique. But it's a different style of feminist retelling and reclaiming than a lot of the others that I've heard of/read, in that, while we do hear from Medusa, it's not necessarily about reclaiming her voice. To me, it felt much more about clearing up the story as a whole (including how a huge amount of little puzzle pieces can actually fit neatly together) and questioning our perspectives on all parties involved.
So while I have made me piece with how the book is structured and maybe even the differing in time between different narratives, I still wanted more Medusa just going about her daily life, partly because she's the crux of the story and partly because she was without a doubt my favourite character and she was so well formed and it really felt like we didn't get very much of her.
I'm not sure how I feel about the last two chapters to be honest. Even as I'm writing this and coming to realise I respect it a lot more than I initially thought (again, very similarly to how I did with The Children of Jocasta), that's one of the parts that I'm still uncertain of.
I guess the last thing to note would be that it was an enjoyable read. It read really quickly and I was fully immersed. There were also characters full of personality and that could be very sarcastic. I'm wondering if I wanted it to be a little longer, to accommodate for more time with our characters and so that it would feel a little less like a chaotic whirlpool and more of a grand weaving of stories (at least to me). But, like I said, chaotic whirlpool was very much the vibe I got from Metamorphosis so also maybe it needs to be this way?
There was a lot about this book that was really clever. The symbolism and the creative use of PoVs and the beautiful words. I was thinking about how I felt about the switching of stories and perspectives because I was struggling with the chronology and the somewhat chaotic feeling it gives the book. But then I thought 'hang on a minute, when did I read something that had a very similar narrative style? Oh yeah, Ovid's Metamorphosis. Huh.'
The lack of Medusa sections in comparison to the rest would be by biggest critique. But it's a different style of feminist retelling and reclaiming than a lot of the others that I've heard of/read, in that, while we do hear from Medusa, it's not necessarily about reclaiming her voice. To me, it felt much more about clearing up the story as a whole (including how a huge amount of little puzzle pieces can actually fit neatly together) and questioning our perspectives on all parties involved.
So while I have made me piece with how the book is structured and maybe even the differing in time between different narratives, I still wanted more Medusa just going about her daily life, partly because she's the crux of the story and partly because she was without a doubt my favourite character and she was so well formed and it really felt like we didn't get very much of her.
I'm not sure how I feel about the last two chapters to be honest. Even as I'm writing this and coming to realise I respect it a lot more than I initially thought (again, very similarly to how I did with The Children of Jocasta), that's one of the parts that I'm still uncertain of.
I guess the last thing to note would be that it was an enjoyable read. It read really quickly and I was fully immersed. There were also characters full of personality and that could be very sarcastic. I'm wondering if I wanted it to be a little longer, to accommodate for more time with our characters and so that it would feel a little less like a chaotic whirlpool and more of a grand weaving of stories (at least to me). But, like I said, chaotic whirlpool was very much the vibe I got from Metamorphosis so also maybe it needs to be this way?