Small Impressions: 'Every Vow You Break', by Peter Swanson (2021)

 

This was a quick read.  The strong characterisation of the heroine kept it going.  A very satisfying mix of a horror film of a folk horrorish kind (a bit Wicker Man, a bit Ben Wheatley), and a last girl survival slasher.  

SPOILERS

Tiny Summary: A woman is honeypotted on her bachelorette weekend and is later taken to a remote island on her honeymoon, where it becomes clear she's going to be punished, somehow.

Lots of people have mentioned the way the novel 'tries to be feminist but comes off as misogynist', and I totally see how they could think that.  I've been raised on horrors, mostly made by men, glorifying in the beauty, fear of and hatred for women, all mushed up together.  The psychology of all that is scary and fascinating.  This book didn't have 'horror', no gratuitous blood, only clear descriptions of events.  In that sense it wasn't horror, it was a psychological thriller.  I didn't feel it was hostile to women.  I did feel it captured the sort of feelings toward women some men have; at the end it tried to contextualise them a bit (mentioning seminars, mens rights movements etc), but it wasn't forensic, just indicatory.

I give it 5 stars because after a slightly slow beginning, it held me totally and I put off meals, family time and sleep to finish it.  It was very clear and coherent, I didn't lose suspension of disbelief at any time...except right near the end when she escapes and the rich men don't manage to cover her up, buy off ...whoever.  

Maybe it's just the world we are in, or the world the news shows us, but I feel she wouldn't have made it; money would have bought her silence by someone coming for her, her disappearence or her discrediting as a witness.  I don't beleive justice will have occurred, were this a real situation.  But maybe that's simply the triumph of the news...it makes us give up, give in. Not believe anything can change.

Maybe the end is Swanson giving us hope? Maybe it's a false hope, a lulling into a false sense of security...that a lone woman could survive a set up like that?  I don't know.  But it was a good thriller. I liked the last line:

Beasts had come for her.  And she was still alive.

(Smaller version of this, on my GoodReads page.)