Stephen
by Amy Cross
Blurb:
Fresh from the convent, Beryl Seaton accepts a position as governess for the Brooks family. When she arrives at the family's remote house, however, she discovers that a terrible secret is waiting for her in the nursery. From the author of Asylum and The Farm, Stephen is a horror novel about a young woman who finds herself torn between two worlds. Desperate to help her employers in their hour of need, she nevertheless struggles to look after their son. What happened to Stephen, to leave him the way he is? What happened to the previous governess at Grangehurst? And what causes the sobbing sound that seem to drift through an empty room? By the time she uncovers the awful truth about the family, and about little Stephen, it might be too late for Beryl to ever leave.
My Reaction:
If I can recall which "booktuber" suggested this book, I'll be ignoring any of her other recommendations.
There will be spoilers in this review, so read at your own risk (or better yet, spare yourself and just don't bother with the book at all).
This was bad. There's just no other way to put it. The writing is stilted and in serious need of an editor. I guess there's no point in going through a long list of supporting evidence for my opinion of the writing quality, but here's one thing that grated on my nerves throughout the novel: The protagonist is repeatedly referred to as a governess, yet the child she's there to care for is an infant. Babies need a nanny (someone who takes care of basic needs like feeding, hygiene, safety, and comfort), not a governess (essentially a live-in private educator). There's a big difference between the two, and seeing that told me this book was going to have many other similar issues—which it did.
There are problems with tense and spelling, but the bigger problems are just finesse, logic, and pacing. I'm honestly shocked that this book has such a high rating on Goodreads, though by this point, I suppose I should be used to it.
At one point a character says, "Out with it! ... What are you trying to say, woman?" I felt complete sympathy and agreement with this sentiment. For most of the book, this is one of the most repetitive, mealy-mouthed protagonists I've come across. Far too much of the "oh, I tremble to tell you this" and "ah, I was so naive in those days" type thing. Just frustrating and boring to read.
Then we get things like this: "Obviously a man has the right to control his wife and to punish her for transgressions..." Such subtlety! Bear in mind that this is the protagonist's observation while writing an account of her past. She is a 60-year-old woman in the late 1930s at the time of writing, which makes it all the more ridiculous.
Ugh, and I'd completely forgotten this next bit until I came across it in my notes! When the young protagonist ventures into the nearest town, she is very nearly raped. Keep in mind that she was raised in a convent and is a complete innocent. Her immediate reaction after being rescued from this terrifying situation is to say, "I don't want to cause trouble. The man was probably just drunk." ...UGH. Seriously?
There's no real concept of space in this book, either, in my opinion. One day, they're walking with a baby carriage to the nearest town. The next time she goes to town, it takes her a couple of hours to walk back home again! The layout of the house makes no logical sense, either. It's supposed to be this grand estate, from what I can recall, yet the well-to-do owners maintain it all themselves and you can hear things from the kitchen that I don't think you'd actually be able to hear in such a large home, which would probably have been designed for more of an "upstairs/downstairs" set-up. Am I nit-picking? Sorry, but this type of thing bothers me as a reader.
"Beyond the pail". It should be "pale". (Fingernails on the chalkboard moment.)
"The man looked utterly exhausted, his large frame barely hanging from his bones." The bones are the frame of a body, unless I am mistaken. This makes no sense.
The paranormal aspect of the book is very thin. Aside from a couple of characters saying the house is evil (or whatever) and the last-minute appearance of a ghost, it's just a sick (yet boring) story about some psychos.
To jump ahead to the end, the little epilogue is utterly ridiculous. Are we honestly meant to believe that nobody investigated this big, empty house for all those years? Not even a teenager or druggie or homeless person looking for a private hideout in a conveniently abandoned home? It's silly enough to expect us to accept that no-one had found the bodies by the late 30s, but all the way into the 2010s?! Nope. No way.
The (1930s version of the) protagonist is dying. She tells someone, "I would rather not go into the details. It is one of those dull, petty illnesses that claim many lives." I mean, I'm all for authors leaving out the details about their characters' maladies, to tell the truth. That would be great! (However, she later tells us exactly what she is dying of... so much for omitting the details, I guess!) But what in the heck kind of "dull, petty illness" is also fatal? I suppose you could say a cold or an ingrown toenail might be "petty", though even then it's an odd word choice, in my opinion, but a disease that will be terminal in very short order? How can that possibly be described as "petty"? The book abounds with... petty... annoyances like this.
Chapter 28. Ah, Chapter 28... This is the main reason I decided to read the novel. The person recommending the book referred to the fact that the protagonist/narrator spends the entire previous chapter warning and practically begging the reader not to read the dreaded Chapter 28, because it's just so, so terrible. It will shake the very foundations of your soul, or something. I mean, yeah, obviously I'm going to read it. That's the whole point of the book. However. Can I just say that by the time I started The Chapter, I had already guessed what she was going to find? I mean... There were only two real possibilities, because it had to be something disgusting and abhorrent, and there were only a couple of things that would fit the bill. So, yes, I guessed it would probably be this, because with the proliferation of zombie fiction in the past couple of decades, cannibalism is très passé. (Does it mean I'm twisted or something that I immediately guessed the Shocking Events of Chapter 28? Because I actually think I'm not all that imaginative, to tell the truth—just pretty good at reading context clues as a savvy content consumer.) Was it disgusting? Is the concept disturbing (and probably physically impossible)? Yes, definitely. I was honestly only skimming over any nastiness, by that point of the book, anyway. I wanted to know the plot points (what happened to wrap up the story), but had given up on it actually being scary or entertaining in any way. I don't like body horror, so there was no point in reading it. It's gross, and I don't get the appeal. Not my thing, at all. The cover of the book is the scariest thing about it (if you get the version with the really creepy-looking woman in the cover art).
Actually, that's my concise reaction to the novel as a whole. It was not my thing. At all. I will not be reading more by this author, and I will lower my expectations with future novels recommended by random people on YouTube.
