Not one, but two people read it and mentioned it to me and I couldn’t get over my FOMO slash piqued interest. A female serial killer and some weird egg shit? Okay!
I cracked the book open and immediately was like, oh. I like her. Plus she works at Disney as princess Elsa, which is hilarious to me. I suppose that this was the intended effect.
Maeve walks the line between insufferable and fascinating. She has a pretentiousness that only people like her, with a self-awareness combined with an enormous ego, can sustain. She views herself as simultaneously above humans and one who is fascinated by the filth she revels in.
When I say things like, “I want to study them under a microscope”, Maeve is the person I am talking about. I imagine just watching her. She believes she sees the world for what it is and that no one can see her as she is. Everything revolves around her being nasty in one way or another enveloped in a “not like other girls” charm. She can’t spare a moment to listen and look around her. Anything that isn’t relevant to her interests? Below her.
The book has been praised as a feminist slasher, and I think on some level I get that. It’s a book where the main character is allowed to be a huge asshole on her own terms, and not one of the stereotypes that women typically fit into. You know. Crone. Matron. Princess. Etcetera.
The ending pissed me off. I suppose it’s supposed to. In the end— yes, I liked it, but I hated Maeve. For someone who loves being so self-aware and poignant, she was ignorant, and the book does a great job of putting her in a jar and shaking the shit out of her.
