The Cane family looks perfect from the outside: 5 perfect sisters (Juliet, Taylor, Anya, Mona, and Rose) with a military dad and and a stay at home mom. In reality, they are barely holding it together. Their mother has more bad days than good, opting to stay in bed for days on end with a steady supply of booze and on better days seems to purposefully ruin the girls' lives. Their de facto mom, the eldest daughter Juliet, is abusive in her own way, flying into rages and physically abusing her sisters when they don't blindly follow her. On Rose's birthday, Juliet and their mom clash as they have never before. The tragic result is Rose's fall down the stairs where she breaks her neck. Their mom claims to know how to bring her back and returns with the same Rose with a bruised neck. Unfortunately the ritual wasn't complete and Rose hungers for something more than food.
The Ravenous tells a realistic story amidst the supernatural and horror elements. Mona is the main character and the second youngest of the five girls. She feels rather alone because Taylor idolizes Juliet and sticks by her always, Anya throws herself into weed and her relationship, and Rose is the baby of the family that everyone tries to protect. Because of the constant moving around and the different types of abuse in the family, they are insular, opting to completely shun other people and cultivate that perfect facade to escape suspicious. Underneath it all, Mona is not ok and falls into many of the same coping mechanisms as her mom, like drinking to dumb the pain. Mona is kind of the odd one out due to trying to expose the abuse as a kid and the others always treat her badly as a result. I felt for her so much and many of her coping mechanisms and behavior range true to me.
The mother and Juliet are battling matriarchs of the family who are both abusive in their own ways. The mother has depression that causes her to stay in bed for days at a time. Because she wants to keep the facade of being perfect to the father, who is only there a few weeks out the year, she doesn't seek treatment. Instead, she drowns herself with alcohol and generally ruins the girls' lives with broken promises, passive aggressive remarks, emotional abuse, and gaslighting. Nothing is ever her fault and nothing is every good enough for her. Juliet, on the other hand, is incredibly bitter and angry due to passing up a full scholarship at Julliard to take care of her sisters. She expects to be followed without question and doesn't hesitate to physically abuse her sisters or guilt them in any way possible into following her. The mother and Juliet hate each other because Juliet has taken over and the mother has basically abandoned her children. Honestly both people have understandable emotions that turn into ugly, harmful actions. This was my favorite part of the novel.
Once the tragic accident has happened, the mother whisks Rose's corpse away and hours later brings her back magically alive once again. Unfortunately, she's not quite the same. The bruising around her neck from where it broke looks deep and permanent and dark veins all over her skin. She can't keep down normal food and craves only an odd type of meat that their mother brought home only for her. Rose seems fine for while, but then starts to become hungry again, ravenously so, with rot spreading over her body and the impulse to eat getting harder and harder to control. Rose's transformation from one of the sweetest human beings on the planet to a flesh eating zombie was chilling and memorable. In terms of the family drama, this symbolizes what abuse does to the most vulnerable and innocent of their family.
The Ravenous is a hard read because the abuse portrayed feels so realistic. The urge to appear perfect, the silence even though everyone knows what's going on, the unspoken agreement to keep secrets, and the variety of ways each of the girls copes with it all feel very real. One aspect didn't feel so real, having to do with Juliet. It was the lone thing that didn't fit in this well written novel. I've read other of Lukavics' books, but none of them landed with me as much as this one did. The zombie elements are well done alongside the family drama and it all fits together so perfectly.
My rating: 4.5/5 fishmuffins
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