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A review by lilyrooke
The Hell You Say by Josh Lanyon
1.0
As Adrien gets entangled with a Satanic cult, his fractured relationship with deeply closeted Jake reaches breaking point. I personally didn't enjoy this instalment for a few reasons. First, I thought there was some poorly researched/stereotypical conflations of Satanism, Wicca, witchcraft, and paganism. These things aren't interchangeable, and to my knowledge Yule has no associations with ritual human sacrifice so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Published in 2006, this is an example of a book has aged badly with regards to the cultural references. Mostly though, my issue was with Jake's arc. We know he's always been mired in self-hatred; we know he's queerphobic and despises himself for being gay (I swear he's bi? He says he likes women and men, so ... bi people exist, little reminder. I guess the bi erasure rubbed me up the wrong way too.)
But the great thing about Jake is that despite his internal conflict, he's good to Adrien - protective, kind, caring, gentle, even when he's sarcastic and grouchy. Where did that Jake go in this book? I can understand how the pressure of feeling like his secret is about to be discovered would get to him, but I hated how Adrien recognised he was frightened of Jake's violence and that he genuinely thought Jake might kill him, even accidentally. I get the impression these two are endgame but... there seems to be a lot of romanticisation of abusive dynamics that I didn't enjoy reading.
While it's important to demonstrate abusive relationships or even how loving relationships fall apart and into abusive dynamics, I prefer when the narrative perspective doesn't try to act like this is excusable, attractive, or just what you have to put up with in life. Adrien seems so depressed and basically like a battered partner in this book, and I'm wondering whether the next instalment will engage with his experience as a survivor of domestic violence or with his views on the kind of treatment he accepted from Jake. What I'm missing right now is the psychological experience of Jake and Adrien. I don't know how either of them really feel, because their internal landscapes aren't explored, so I have to fill in the blanks with my own projection, which in this case means I can't rate the book very high. I'm really hoping for a significant redemption arc from Jake in the final two books but...
cw: dubcon; domestic violence; murder; ritualistic killings; (constant) Harry Potter references
But the great thing about Jake is that despite his internal conflict, he's good to Adrien - protective, kind, caring, gentle, even when he's sarcastic and grouchy. Where did that Jake go in this book? I can understand how the pressure of feeling like his secret is about to be discovered would get to him, but I hated how Adrien recognised he was frightened of Jake's violence and that he genuinely thought Jake might kill him, even accidentally. I get the impression these two are endgame but... there seems to be a lot of romanticisation of abusive dynamics that I didn't enjoy reading.
While it's important to demonstrate abusive relationships or even how loving relationships fall apart and into abusive dynamics, I prefer when the narrative perspective doesn't try to act like this is excusable, attractive, or just what you have to put up with in life. Adrien seems so depressed and basically like a battered partner in this book, and I'm wondering whether the next instalment will engage with his experience as a survivor of domestic violence or with his views on the kind of treatment he accepted from Jake. What I'm missing right now is the psychological experience of Jake and Adrien. I don't know how either of them really feel, because their internal landscapes aren't explored, so I have to fill in the blanks with my own projection, which in this case means I can't rate the book very high. I'm really hoping for a significant redemption arc from Jake in the final two books but...
cw: dubcon; domestic violence; murder; ritualistic killings; (constant) Harry Potter references