The Book of Living Secrets
by Madeleine Roux
Publication Date: March 8, 2022
★★★☆☆
"The world is full of outright evil now. Which makes choosing kindness all the harder, and all the more crucial."
What would you give to jump into your favourite book to meet your favourite characters and live in the fictional world that you've grown to love?
Adelle and Connie, in attempt to avoid a dismal homecoming dance without dates, visit an occult shop and partake in a playful and magical game - where they find out that living in a book is not all as it seems.
I had the opportunity to get a glimpse of this book during my HCC Winter Preview session and immediately requested a copy to read and review.
Let's start with the visual and talk about this cover. It is absolutely gorgeous and screams seaside witchcraft with a touch of gothic drama - right up my alley! I had thoughts of spooky occurrences on a Victorian coastal estate mixed with seances, ouija board parlor games and hauntings that lead to a death... or two. I was hoping to dive into the morbid obsessions of the Victorian era.
When first starting the book, the reader is introduced to a snippet of a story that seems gothic in nature; however, a few pages in it's revealed that the book is set in present-time amid high school angst and the escape from reality by reading historical love-triangle romances. Not that this is a bad thing, but it definitely didn't match the picture in my head that the cover made me think of.
The setting of the book is split between two places: present day Boston and book-focused Victorian Boston. At the start, the girls are ensconced in normal high school rituals of homecoming, finding a date, hiding their true selves and remaining friends despite their stark differences. The one thing that unites them is the love of Moira, a novel that features lavish balls, attractive men, and the customs and secrets of a bygone era; however, when they are pulled into the book in a ritual that they didn't believe would work, they are confronted with a much different rendition of their beloved characters and stories.
The author does a good job at writing about the typical secrets of teenagers, as well as highlighting the largely patriarchal society of Boston at the turn of the century. There is LGBT representation through Connie, as she struggles to come out in her attractions to other girls and eventually learns where she stands in her affections. Despite the majority of the novel being based in a male-dominated society, there is strength in how the girls battle their conflicts and become the more prepared characters amid the men involved in the story.
I particularly liked the Lovecraftian overtone throughout the then-Boston narrative. I have always been a fan of gothic horror, where creatures from an unknown dimension or creation wreck havoc on the story. It was also interesting to see the development between the Moira the girls know and love and how their experiences in the book are so drastically different.
One thing that struck me as odd was that this book was targeted for Young Adults - there were a lot of times that if felt more of a Middle Grade novel. I do note that the two main characters are in high school, which would cater to a YA focus, but much of the romance and action are kept at a level which would make it suitable for younger readers, provided they are okay with some of the creepier vibes.
There are a lot of mentions to pop-culture throughout the novel, as the girls work to navigate their present-day experiences while stuck in a Victorian setting. There were some references that were made incorrectly, such as the misspelling of names of integral sci-fi characters they refer to in their discussions.
There were also small moments where punctuation and grammatical errors were spotted throughout that caused slight distraction for me. Some of the dialogue between same-time characters felt stilted (ie Victorian to Victorian characters). I do recognize the modern vs historical speech between the girls and the Moira subjects would be odd anyways, due to the bridge of experiences between them.
Overall, it's a decent read. There were some questions of character motivations that seemed strange for me, but without going into detail as to not spoil the book for others, I'll leave that up to other readers to determine for themselves.
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