Three sisters arrived in Sparrow, Oregon, in 1822 aboard a fur trading ship named the Lady Astor, which sank later that year in the harbor just beyond the cape.
They were among the first to settle in the newly founded coastal town, and they strode onto the new land like thin-legged birds with wavy caramel hair and pastel skin. They were beautiful―too beautiful, the townspeople would later say. Marguerite, Aurora, and Hazel fell in love often and typically with the wrong men―those whose hearts already belonged to someone else. They were coquettes, temptresses, and men found them impossible to resist.
But the townspeople of Sparrow found the sisters to be much more: They believed them to be witches, casting spell on the men to make them unfaithful.
And so at the end of June, when the moon was nothing but a thin shard in the overcast sky, stones were tied to the sisters' ankles, and they were dropped into the ocean just beyond the cape, where they sank to the bottom and drowned. Just like the ship they arrived on.
I'm blaming the inevitably of my review veering into laconic as fuck territory on the fact that my head is full of mucus, my throat is made of razor blades, and my chest's death rattling like it's seen Valhalla and wants a fucking drink, so I should just get the fuck on with keeling over already.
Three years without a cold and that pesky virus finally got me.
And my brain is fucked.
Total soup. Marshmallow soup, in fact.
So, if I was being particularly lazy, I'd sum The Wicked Deep up like this:
If you're looking for a fine, YA brew of Practical Magic's curse repeating, Hocus Pocus's thirst for blood, with a piquant of Seirenes androcide, and a perspective altering twist, then this is the book for you.
Actually that sums it quite nicely.
Can I leave it there?
Is the glug in my brain strong enough to muzzle my need to be as verbose as humanly fucking possible?
...
I mean, maybe? But I already used the words laconic and piquant ← ffs, who do I think I am? so... yeah, that's not a great sign.
Let's see how this goes...?
To begin with... atmosphere.
If there were any element of this story I could wholeheartedly congratulate Shea Ernshaw on, it would be the suffocating presence the town of Swallow settles over the unfolding of events.
Set in a fictional fishing town in Oregon, it bears all the markers of a community stranded in time, with the familiarity of all those wretchedly damp, windswept ports I've imbibed over the years through movies and tv.
It's dark, constantly stormy, and with a population that can trace its lineage back to when it was first settled.
No one leaves, no one stays, and everyone remembers the town's occult past.
It's the kind of story you can feel the dew of on your temples, your fingertips, scent the rain gusting capriciously in from beyond the shoreline, taste its atavism on your tongue.
Hear the siren call of the sisters Swan as a murmur just behind the ear, at the base of the throat; a threat and a promise unmistakably one in the same.
A kindred, untamed threat of violence that surrounded the infamous Witch Trials, and it now dogs the steps of the inhabitants of Sparrow, with the same twitching urgency of women on the edge of accusation with every breath, a look wrongly taken, a birthmark the devil's brand.
But now in reverse, now it's the victims of those senseless acts tracking their footsteps, now it's the men who have to feel hunted for simply existing.
Hunted by three sisters looking for a little revenge for their own and many more lives cut short the world over.
The wind is constant.
It howls and tears at siding and rips shingles from roofs. It brings rain and salt air, and in the winter sometimes it brings snow. But for a time each spring, it carries the lurid and seductive voices of three sisters held captive by the sea, aching to draw out the girls of Sparrow.
From the black waters of the harbor, their song sinks into dreams, permeates the brittle grass that grows along steep cliffs and rotting homes. It settles into the stones that hold up the lighthouse; it floats and swirls in the air until it's all you can taste and breathes.
This is what cajoles the weak-hearted from sleep, pulls them out of bed and beckons them down to the shore. Like fingers wrapped around their throats, it drags them into the deepest part of the bay among the wreckage of ships long abandoned, pulling them under until the air spills from their lungs and new thing can slip inside.
This is how they do it―how the sisters are freed from their brackish grave. They steal three bodies and make them their own. And this season, they do it swiftly.
It only feels right for this vengeance to take place in a lighthouse-lit town drowning in its own repentance, for the sisters Swan to return in the midst of a storm and rob the town of their boys, their men, the descendants of those who plunged them into the town's pelagic depths all those many years ago.
The town of Swallow feels more than merely a place people live in; because of its history, of its shame, it takes on a presence of its own, leoninely observing as this year's sacrifice plays out.
Not interfering, simply inspecting with unchecked hunger.
I'm incredibly fond of inanimate places taking on sentience, and my experience thus far has been with single buildings: a home, a school, etc, but rarely does an entire town snatch life from [insert deity of your choice]'s grip and make itself known.
It's unnerving and watchful.
You may be seeing the story through the protagonist's eyes but at the back of that perspective, just out of sight, there's a weight on your spine, an urgent demand to glance back and see who, what's, watching.
The town of Swallow sees all, it remembers, and the way Ernshaw writes its presence with just enough awareness to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up is commanding and hypnotic.
Each time I opened the book, my predominant feeling wasn't actually what's going to happen next?, but instead, what tempest state will I find the town in this chapter?
Looking for the weather report within a story is a new experience for me but one I really enjoyed and started to crave.
If only I'd harboured the same feeling for the story itself.
I should precede any "negative" thing I say next by stating that this is not a bad story, it's a really good story, in fact. The quality of writing is fantastic, the world building draws you in and makes a place for you, and the characters are a little bleak, understandably, but you do find yourself trying to see beneath them, uncover their layers.
The Wicked Deep is a lamenting tale of the patriarchy at its worst, the consequences of their actions being met with supernatural, matriarchal revenge, and an impossible love story.
There's nothing not to love.
It's just, for me, it felt like a story that was perhaps more interested in its inspiration (the Owens sisters radiate from the page the moment you open the book) rather than plumbing the true depths of its depravity.
...
In essence, I wanted less atmosphere and more darkness.
Bloodiness.
Meanness.
Which, to be fair to the story and the author, they were most likely avoiding those depths because this was written for a teenage audience.
It's personal to each author where the line between YA and NA occurs, some acknowledge that age doesn't limit your ability to process trauma, violence, "immoral acts", and that they shouldn't shield adolescents from it, while others peer out from behind the line and swaddle their audience in poetic niceties.
Ernshaw is neither of these, but her story did air on the side of safe.
This may be a story with yearly, ritual murder but its violence is limited, practically unseen.
When a Swan sister strikes and robs the town of yet another of their boys, it isn't witnessed, the act itself is kept private as something sacred between killer and victim.
And when the bodies are discovered, there are no parental cries of anguish, no outrage from the town, no promises of revenge, it's near silent with acceptance, which is one of my main problems with the story.
This town knows it's cursed, right? It knows that ever year they'll lose men to the water, people they've known since they were born.
They know it's coming, and yet there's something careless and unfeeling about the way they behave. Their men are being murdered and they let it happen, they almost seem to welcome it because it's their due punishment for the crimes of their forefathers.
They don't try and stop it, they don't lock away their loved ones, they don't stand guard, they just let it happen, and perversely, celebrate it.
Tomorrow is June first. And although most high schools don't start their summer session so early, the town of Sparrow began the countdown months ago. Signs announcing festivals in honor of the Swan sisters have already been hung and draped across the town square and over storefront windows.
Tourist season starts tomorrow. And with it comes an influx of outsiders and the beginning of an eerie and deadly tradition that has plagued Sparrow since 1823―ever since the three Swan sisters were drowned in our harbor. Tonight's party is the start of a season that will bring more than just tourist dollars―it will bring folklore and speculation and doubt about the town's history. But always, every year without fail or falter, it also brings death.
...
Where's the outrage? The schemes hatched to stay alive? Where's the fucking emotion?!
If I knew some righteously pissed off "witches" were coming to drown somebody I loved, I'd strap their asses to a bed and sit on them until it was over.
I wouldn't go about my business, tempt fate by goading the sisters down at the waters edge, tempting the devil in.
I wouldn't do nothing.
Their apathy is bizarre.
And the only way I could justify it to myself while reading was that they're hopeless, that they've lost too much, it's been too many years, too many boys, and giving in is easier than fighting back.
Understandable, I practically have a degree in rolling over and letting life kick the shit out of me, but within the story it just felt heartless and unbelievable.
They may as well have picked out a dozen boys and handed them over like some gruesome tithe, escorted them into the ocean and turned their backs.
...
Who does that?!
It's not hard for me to suspend disbelief, Fantasy is my favourite genre, but this felt wrong, and a mistake on Ernshaw's part.
There should've been at least one adult in this town who showed a modicum of concern for their offspring, who didn't send them out and cross their fingers for a safe return.
But there wasn't and it felt kind of shocking?
Maybe because my own parents would do everything in their power and then some to prevent my senseless demise, that lethargically giving up is a foreign concept to me. I can't conceive of a world where parents would collectively send their offspring off to be either ensorcelled or extinguished.
Or perhaps it's that our perspective was coming from a teenager.
...
Don't yell at me, I love YA and with YA comes adolescent nonsense, but there are levels to that nonsense.
Similarly, my tolerance also comes with levels and it's set pretty damn low for Shakespearean, teenage dramatics.
Love the Bard, who doesn't, but fucking hell, if you apply an ounce of logic: Hamlet's an emo drama-brat, Ophelia should've just kneed him in the balls and had a bloody drink, and the suicide twins?
You can't see it but my eyes are rolled so far back in my head I can see the door where I store all my weird thoughts.
(We don't open this door until Google is open in our browser and we're ready to ask if we can sneeze in our sleep. ... We can't, fyi)
These idiots.
Why you gotta be so fucking dramatic?
I know that with narrative you have to concede to the inevitable miscommunication or yet another non-final girl running up the same set of stairs the last non-final girl ran up to meet her bloody demise. I know that writing with complete logic ends up being inexplicably dull, but a modicum of sense, please?
Especially when you reside in a town with yearly murder?
Preventable murder if you, I dunno, barred your windows, rounded up the men for a week and guarded them, collectively went on holiday?!
Okay, I know, that last one's pushing it but come on? They're living an actual nightmare and they do nothing? Not even grieve?
Nope, I don't buy it.
I call total bullshit on that nonsense and its consequential taint on my overall enjoyment of the story.
Which again, is good!
But would perhaps have been better as an adult story?
I don't necessarily mean full horror, with whole passages dedicated to the Swan sisters robbing men of their last breath, but something that instead played on the idea of a town terrorised.
These women are ruthless and righteous in their vengeance, they want this town to suffer for murdering them simply because they enjoyed life and didn't cow tow to the menfolk.
Swallow should be a fucking battlefield during the Swan season, stalked by its women and sheltering its men.
He reached the metal gangway that led to the marina, rows of boats lined up like sardines in a tin can, and he spotted a girl walking down one of the docks, ebony brown hair loose and sweeping across her back. She looked over her shoulder at him, settled her deep, ocean-blue eyes on his, and then he found himself stumbling after her.
She was the most stunning thing he had every seen―graceful and enticing. A rare species of girl. And when he reached for her, she stroked a hand through his dark hair and pulled him to close into a kiss. She wanted him, desired him. And he couldn't resist. So he let her spool her fingers between his and pull him out into the sea. Their bodies entwined, languid and insatiable. He didn't even feel the water when it entered his lungs. All he could think about her: warm fingers against his skin, lips so soft they melted his flesh, eyes seeing into his thoughts, unraveling his mind.
And then the ocean drew him under and never let go.
But in its stead I was presented an excuse for an ill-fated romance that genuinely could've been redacted from the story and it wouldn't have made a blind bit of difference.
And I wouldn't have to read about how ethereal the hero's beauty was.
Unless you're one of the Fae, I don't want to fucking hear it.
And I'm not romance bashing.
I love romance, read it all the time in all genres, and I'm endlessly amused by those bothered byits presence in the arts when it's literally in everything.
Game of Thrones? Romance. Mostly unfulfilled but still. So much fucking romance.
Hannibal? The definition of romance. If you watch that and see two straight guys playing a game of murder-tag, then I'm sorry, but you're repressing some stuff, go eat a biscuit and search hannigram on tumblr.
Romance is everywhere and I love it.
But not when it's needless.
Bo's entire existence was needless.
It could be argued his existence was a catalyst for character development and the ultimate breaking of the curse, but... was it?
Could the protagonist have done everything she did without him?
Short answer? Yes.
Frustrated answer? FUCK YES.
But there is a chance I'm being overly pernickety, I am prone to that on occasion.
Different strokes for different folks and all.
And apparently while reading The Wicked Deep I was a little more bloodthirsty than the story allowed - I was rewatching Jennifer's Body at the time, so that sapphic kill-fest may have been influencing my expectations.
Fair enough, but it does make me wonder what Shea Ernshaw's writing would be like in a more adult setting.
Luckily enough she's written one, and I'm very intrigued, but... the Sally Skellington story is calling my name and I cannot ignore that siren song.
Love is an enchantress―devious and wild.
It sneaks up behind you, soft and gently and quiet, just before it slits your throat.
I am a weak fishwife, please drown me in spooky goodness.
Ps. This review really got away from me at the end there, and there's way more I had to say but the mucus was too strong.
A nap is needed, I hope you enjoyed my half-arsed verbiage.
(I really fucking love this and attribute it all to milady Apple. That voice... it's been fucking me up since When the pawn...)
...
My sad girl ethereal queen.
Truly, though?
I don't know why everyone's so upset.
Peter Jackson set the tone for all and every Tolkien adaptation from now and until the end of frickin' time, and it's an obnoxiously stupid tone that brazenly disrespects Tolkien's work, but it's inescapable at this point.
And honestly? This take didn't make me mad.
Not the way The Hobbit does, or any time I catch painful minutes of the LOTR trilogy on tv.
The only things I can ever congratulate those dumpster fires on is casting Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn and Ian McKellen as Gandalf.
Aside from that?
Hokey disasters.
And Rings of Power continues the hokey disaster aesthetic I've come to expect.
(Big fan of Arondir. If they kill him, I'll be pissed)
Which is probably why I enjoyed myself: I wasn't anticipating more.
Plusssss, I got to watch my LOTR-nerd of a mother (she's read all the books, and at one point read at least LOTR once a year ... I love having a nerd mum) get increasingly frustrated and annoyed every time I asked her a question about wtf was going on - I swear, you'd have to read TheSilmarillionto have any clue what's happening.
It was entertaining.
...
Mum, your rage brings me joy, thus why I'll never stop tormenting you and you can't stop me.
If an Instagram existed soley for scene redraws from classic movies and beloved tv shows, I'd be all over that platform like a hangry, people-eating plant from outer space.
But for now I'll satisfy my craving with an Insta-folder and a little sing-a-long?
The depths of my meh-ness for this story knows no bounds, and in all honesty, I'm pretty sad about it.
Not because the story's bad or did anything to offend me, but for the simple reason that it didn't make me feel the way everyone else seemed to.
There are endless reviews genuflecting at its undead feet, boastfully losing their collective crap over Silvia Moreno-Garcia's new take on vampire lore (which is totally fair, the axolotl biology comparison was fucking cool, but the bestiary at the back of the book held more interest for me than the vampires in the story), sighing blissfully as they deeply sink into the story's neo-noir aesthetic.
It's okay that SM-G's words didn't transport me to another world, that I didn't experience the sensory invasion that occurs whenever I lose myself in a story.
It's okay that I didn't feel very much at all for the Atl or Domingo, that their bond felt tentative and shaky at best.
It's okay that the ending pissed me off, causing this face to occur and a lot of flipping the bird at the page.
It's still okay, because this isn't a bad story, it's just not a story for me.
It really did take me until the final episode to realise how good this is.
At first the anger pulsing from the story, the actors, and the speed at which everything was going was too much for me.
I don't take a lot of pleasure from watching stories with this amount of rage and exhaustion, mostly because I, for some reason, equally feel that rage and exhaustion.
If you can deliver, essentially a soliloquy, with the same believability and rawness you'd expect from real life, then to me that's the mark of someone who's really fucking good at their job.
Unless you're the sociopath protagonist of The Pisces, then proceed to drink and fuck a merman in it.
...
I'm... not going to review this, for the simple reason that if I do, I'm going to savage it.
Brutalise it with lexicon.
Rip it to fucking pieces.
And not because of the merman-fucking, we're pro monster-banging in this brain-house, but because it's everythingI hate about literary fiction.
(A genre I used to love, has provided me many of my favourite stories, but shit like this is why I find it exhausting to wade through to uncover the good stuff)
So, instead, I'm going to tell you a little story for comparison about a student at the art school I attended:
They peed on a canvas and received First Degree Honours.
It's when I watch things like this that I'm endlessly grateful I wasn't raised under religion.
Or even adjacent to it.
I didn't realise at first this was based on true events - I should've because the show's adapted from the novel of the same name by Jon Krakauer, the man who ripped my soul to fucking shreds with Into the Wild, a non-fiction novel also based on true events.
It's what Jon Krakauer does, and for some reason my brain didn't put two and two together.
I'm not normally a True Crime kinda girl, simply knowing these people are out there is bad enough, I don't want to spend time with them, live inside their heads.
(No judgement on those who do, it's just not my thing)
So, in retrospect, I might not have watched this.
But I may have, simply because of Krakauer's gift for storytelling, and Andrew Garfield's general being.
Garfield's been a favourite since his hopelessly nerdy debut in Sugar Rush, I instantly liked him, but it was two years after in a Film4 production called Boy Awhere I thought, holy fuck, he's amazing, he's breaking my heart and it looks effortless.
And he continued to do so with Red Riding, Never Let Me Go, and most recently tick, tick... BOOM!, a truly fucking astounding biopic of Jonathan Larson's struggle and triumph into Broadway just before his death - it's amazing, please watch it.
Basically I think he's fantastic and I'll follow his work around like a devoted puppy.
Which is how I found myself watching Under the Banner of Heaven, an inescapably despicable example of the corruption and damage organised religion can do to the human psyche.
We've been trained by tv and movies to believe Mormons are soft souls who reject progress and maintain their stalwart belief in God's green earth and the gifts it provides.
What I didn't realise was how subservient woman are in their religion, that their only purpose is to have children, serve their husbands, and not make a fuss, and if they do they're severely disciplined.
My skin is crawling.
My skin is crawling because of everything in this.
The senseless murder, the messianism, the misogyny, the consistent terror from every corner.
All of it.
Under the Banner of Heaven is a brilliant adaptation of something unspeakably vile, and everyone is fucking outstanding in it, but I don't think I could watch this again.
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