Book Review: This Thing is Starving by Isobel Aislin (2024)
(this review contains minor spoilers.)
Some novels consciously take readers to familiar ground, tapping into the aesthetic pathways carved by other works and trusting that similar notes will engender favor. They summon familiar hallmarks to put readers at ease, draw them in, and hope whatever they ultimately do is just unique enough to ride those waves through to the end. It’s the reason modern writers so frequently revisit archetypal settings popularized by Poe, King, Jackson, etc. and why novels which don’t do this are–when everything else is right–breakouts.
This Thing is Starving opens with a haunted house that looks exactly like the one you’re already picturing: it has a large front porch, wide, stately windows–one of which will be at the attic level–and the entire vision is likely devoid of memorable color. The structure is a touch oversized, a bit ramshackle, and there’s a long, dark history of which perhaps only the most recent chapter is shared with the people who are coming through its front door.
They aren’t unfamiliar either: there’s a mother that we know is on her own from the practiced way she makes split-second assessments of each child before giving a moment to her own thoughts. You can see her gauging reactions of the new home, but letting them each go in short order, as this woman is foremost tired and her next much-needed rest might be just ahead. She is a single mother trying to get away from someone, and that flight has led her to the one place she can afford which can give her family refuge: a haunted house.
At the top of the stairs, someone has carved the words KAY WAS HERE into the hardwood.
And that’s where the notes of familiarity end, because what is inside this particular home is unlike what we’ve seen in the aforementioned settings. It sleeps long when the house is silent, and rouses when the floorboards creak; Kay is here still, as are many others.
It’s through the unseen eyes within the house that we meet those who are moving in: Louise Waite, twin sons Charlie and Sawyer, their younger sister Leslie, and seventeen-year-old Veronica, with whom the spirit immediately takes interest. Veronica reminds her of something that has been lost, and she is the most poised to suffer the breed of hardship that the house is especially sensitive to. The presence feels instinctively protective of her, which is consequential, as it can take action when it wants to: there’s dried blood between the floorboards to prove it.
Generational Trauma
The entity that haunts the house is a collectivized spirit, patrolling the house as a temperamental, protective, voyeuristic presence which awakens anytime there are people inside its walls. It’s not a single will, but rather a body of the spirits of those who have died under duress in the house: a speakeasy hostess in the 1920s; a teenager murdered in the 1950s for insisting they were not as they were regarded; a woman in the 1970s who found no place for her natural inclinations; a girl named Kay, whom the house sought to protect when three teenage boys lured her there years before. These spirits are here, and others, watching the new family as they struggle for safety and security in a world that promises them neither.
When evil engages the family from within and without, the house decides it will do more than watch, that perhaps the bloodshed it has seen is not over, and what follows is a tremendously effective and affecting exploration of gender-based suffering across generations, and the stark ways in which it can be confronted.
These Walls Can Talk
It’s pretty much a given these days that horror novels will include a substantial sociopolitical commentary element, and while these often enhance narratives and make them more resonant, it can also come across as ham-fisted and performative, even insincere. Hell, I’m on record on this very website as criticizing some of these elements for serving as a substitute for interesting plots and developed narratives. Perhaps this is an outdated mindset, but I believe that genre fiction’s first purpose should be to entertain and provide escape or edification to the imagination, and if it fails to do those, it ultimately fails at everything else.
The feminist themes and engagements presented in This Thing is Starving not only support the horror narrative, but enhance it. The fictional and nonfictional elements have a symbiotic relationship where we get something important, heartfelt, and meaningful which is also wonderfully entertaining. The emotion of the story really comes through the pages effectively, but this doesn’t overshadow or mute the plot elements.
I’ve read a lot of overly feminist and feminism-focused novels, and this is honestly one of the most effective explorative narratives I’ve encountered. The commentaria is frequently angry, occasionally clumsy, but always and foremost affecting, incisive, and inclined to inspire genuine empathy or outrage on behalf of the sufferer. I really admired author Isobel Aislin’s approach, and her ability to express feminine rage without making it indulgent, pithy, or rote. She did an incredible job illustrating moments of trauma while making them feel genuine, and that’s a rare talent. The experiences in this novel feel like real incidents, and are tinged with just enough human experience that cut a bit deeper than most works do.
It’s Just the House (Not) Settling
Overall, the writing and narrative construction in the novel were pretty strong, especially coming from an author in her early twenties. While there were a few indie-rough patches that troubled my editor’s brain more than my reader’s, I found the bulk of the novel to be pretty well-written and by the second act I was fully engaged and genuinely impressed with the construction elements.
Negatives are very minor, with the foremost among them being Aislin’s occasional, but repeated use of modern language or terms in scenes set decades in the past. The cadence of conversation in these flashback chapters also struck me as a touch too contemporary, but this is a skill writers develop when they spend a bit more time in this space, and when they put a bit more focus on making these scenes subtly more immersive. It’s a forgivable but not inconsequential element to making a novel like this work, and it did take me out of the narrative, albeit briefly.
As a counterbalance, there’s a point late in the novel where I thought Aislin made a distinct mistake in the direction she took her plot, perhaps dead-ending and glomming onto the first potential fix she could find. I turned against the book a bit at this point, souring a bit on what had been an excellent read. I’m happy to say that her choices were better than initially perceived, and she eventually won me over with the creative decision, bringing me back around to acknowledge that I should just trust the author to know how to write their own damn story. All in all, I think the novel is a tremendous accomplishment, and the author behind it could be big if she keeps honing her craft and hustling.
Final Thoughts
This Thing is Starving is a deeply impressive debut, and a remarkably powerful and well-constructed narrative about the hardships visited upon women. Told through the eyes of a house full of ghosts and a threadbare family, Aislin does an excellent job of connecting the reader with the characters, and a major strength of the novel is how real it makes their pain and discomfort visible without being indulgent or exploitative. I felt my own sense of revulsion stirred when reading certain scenes, and had to consider that tens of thousands of women find themselves in comparable situations every day, trite as it may feel to say such. Beyond that, it’s a really solid haunted house story that works on both thematic and mechanical levels. Aislin is one to watch.
Score: 8.4
Strengths
Powerful, effective writing with rich characters that do exactly what they need to do
Blends social commentaria effectively with an entertaining story
Satisfying throughout, with no real weak setpieces or arcs
Emotionally affecting…though the primary sentiment is revulsion
Weaknesses
Prose is of uneven quality sometimes, and a few passages could be sharpened
Historic scenes lose their façade from time to time
Categorically gets Elder Millennials, like myself, wrong. This is totally a valid complaint
You can purchase This Thing is Starving on November 4th, 2024.
You may also like: Linghun, Sundial, We Have Always Lived in the Castle
