This book raises an excellent question about what long-term abuse can produce over time. The main character often reflects on the time of innocents when her grandmother was still alive and she needed her Barbie night light. Just at the time she was becoming a woman, her grandmother passed away and the love and patience she would need over the next few years went with it. When the book ends, she has been turned into a manipulative, violent monster who longs to take her vengeance on new prey.

There are a lot of symbols in this book as well. Desert eels devour the boys and men that harm her and her mother over the years. The bus in the desert acts as an alter of sacrifice to take the carcasses of abusive boyfriends to so the eels can “clean them up.” And even the castles themselves are sanctuaries to look forward to in the afterlife since life on earth is so oppressive.

Overall, this is a very good read. You’ll need to realize that domestic abuse is described within the story, though not grotesquely or in ill taste. I recommend this to anyone who likes a book that makes you think.

This book is linked with the post “E-Book Review: Castles by Benjamin X. Wretlind”.