Remember the promising book that wound up, uh, not so great?

I was promised ghosts, but merely got people possessed—post temporarily and with the risk of permanently—instead. I don’t think possession falls into ghosts, even if it’s someone’s spirit. It was a total letdown in that respect.

The Possessions by Sara Flannery Murphy
Published by Harper on 7 February, 2017
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery, Paranormal, Psychological thriller, Romance
# pages: 368
Source: Book of the Month
Goodreads
Rating: ★★

In an unnamed city, the Elysian Society allows paying clients to reconnect with their lost loved ones. The workers, known as bodies, spend their days in a numb routine, wearing the discarded belongings of the dead and swallowing pills to summon spirits.

Edie has been a body for five years, an unusual record. Her success depends on her carefulness. When she channels the wife of Patrick Braddock, an enigmatic widower, she becomes obsessed with the glamorous couple. Despite the strange circumstances surrounding Sylvia Braddock's death, Edie pursues Patrick outside the Elysian Society walls, moving deeper into his life.

After years of hiding, Edie can't tell whether she's falling in love or whether she's being possessed by Sylvia. She takes increasing risks to keep Patrick within her grasp. But as a disturbing murder case brings attention to the Elysian Society, Edie feels her quiet life unraveling. She grapples with both Sylvia's growing influence and with her own long-buried secrets.

I really did not like this book at first.

The first 100 pages was a game of cat-and-mouse: I loved it, then I got annoyed.

Murphy’s writing falls into that “trendy” sort of writing, wherein people write how they talk and create sentences that don’t make any sense—the ones beginning with -ing words, the last clause also beginning with -ing words.

Example of actual paragraphs:

My past self hanging back in the corner of the room, watching me and summing me up. Gauging which parts of me have grown. Which have stayed the same.

Then we have lists. Instead of colons, then commas and/or semicolons, we get periods:

Opening the door, I assess Room 12 with a practiced gaze. The suites at the Elysian Society hint at familiarity without fully resembling anyone’s home. Dark hardwood floors; a framed painting of water lilies floating on gem-bright water. Two low-slung armless chairs face each other in the center of the room.

Whilst I’m currently in a love/hate relationship with him and his writing, this book made me understand Henry James’ use of sometimes over-30-word sentences. I mean, I even used one myself recently, even though it was a list.

The sex scenes were really awkward.

Perhaps it’s due to my asexuality, or my general inability to read serious sex scenes without laughing, but I felt like a voyeur in this woman’s sex life. Since the character development is seemingly nothing (see below, re: metaphor), I know nothing about Eurydice (Edie)—why this client is who she breaks the rules with, why he intrigues her, her sudden attraction to him, her lust to be closer to him. Thus, I feel more like I’m there, forcing myself to try to sleep with some stranger just because he was a client.

(I’d have preferred fading to black.)

The entire novel is a metaphor for Sleeping Beauty.

I’m so glad I watched the 2011 rendition of Sleeping Beauty before reading this book, for if I’d not, I never would have considered fairy tales in such subtle, yet humanistic forms.

The first 100 pages is like, “Oh, okay…” It’s a constant battle of seeing potential, but debating whether such is a possibility with what you’re given right now: based on the text you’re reading, can you adequately determine whether the book should be abandoned or continued? I almost abandoned it—repeatedly. That minuscule curiosity of possibility reeled me right back in, though—the much-hoped-for doubt that all of this would be worth it.

Two hundred pages strike, and things grow interesting: I’m transfixed, betwixt—I still want to put it down, but something stronger is holding me against the book.

Until the last hundred pages, nothing makes sense. There is few character development on anyone’s parts, all the plots—major and minor—slow-moving and tasteless.

Who I thought was “bad” wasn’t; who I thought was good wasn’t; who I expected to be innocent wasn’t.

Her prince isn’t a prince at all.

Edie’s saved from herself. To die would be awfully easy, but it’s not until this client that she aches to survive and live life to the fullest—that she wants to want without guilt.

I couldn’t relate to Edie at all until the end.

Few people understand the depths to which I do, but I relate to the major underlying themes: multiple personality disorder, psychosis/out of body experiences; major underlying themes to which I relate without secrecy: no longer being my given name, estrangement from my mother, suicidal thoughts and tendencies, a guarded/reserved personality.

Like Edie, when people accuse me of things or attempt to call me out on my faults, ignorant of whatever secrets—dark or light—I may hold, I hold them in. Like Edie, I decide to hold it what I was going to share when people think they’re giving me the go-around—what would it change, after all?

So: Did I like this book?

I really don’t know.

The genre categorisation is all off; it’s more of a psychological thriller than anything else.

If Sara Flannery Murphy writes anymore psychological mindfucks, count me in.