The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

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Sensitive readers will want to skip this debut novel. The Panopticon isn't a horror or suspense story but the there is a constant low-level feeling of anxiety that something awful will happen and then it does. Repeatedly in various ways. Also avoid this book if drug use, mental illness, violence of all types, and profanity bother you since every page is rife with just about all of the above.

I didn't dislike this book even though it is distressing, a little unstructured, and a whole lot darker than I was expecting. That aside, it also has a brilliant emotional build-up that mirrors Anais's mindset. Her narration begins much as she is: defiant, hard, and resistant. As she adjusts to her latest group home, the titular Panopticon, full of battered unexpected angels, her scarred spirit uncurls and her voice warms. This is how the book began to engage me. When I started the book each chapter felt like reviewer purgatory and I was waiting to hit my 75-100-page "giving up" limit, but as Anais started to care, incrementally, so did I, until I was reading compulsively as long as I could. How Fagan executes this is pure virtuoso.

Anais's upbringing is a nightmare of institutional incompetence, but governments were never meant to be parents or raise sentient beings. Given the what she is a product of...or a lack thereof, her beauty as a person is a construct of her own design, much like her fashion sense. She is as feral a child can be in a modern society, but has a real, honestly developed code of honor and values, something admirable over those that are followed merely by doctrine or habit, and whose believers would no doubt judge Anais as an amoral degenerate thug.

Of course the danger of caring is vulnerability and we and Anais are not exempt from this cosmic law. Her past is tragic but what is it about what doesn't kill you making you stronger? Since she has survived, we get to experience the latest with her. In some instances that aforementioned tense vibe prepared me for something worse than what happened, or I predicted an outcome that disappointed by obliging. Still there are plenty of surprises, both pleasant and not, in the chorus of residents and staff at the Panopticon, and they are the author's greatest strength.

Jenni Fagan is a poet and the language of The Panopticon has a peculiar musicality that confounds then soothes you, a profane lullaby. The lexicon of this grim social stratus takes some interpreting, literally, and at least an American audience would benefit from a glossary.

Caged Warrior by Lindsey Piper

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I read this concurrently with Avery. Given the similarities in violence and depravity and my general unlikelihood of reading such themes, it is a strange coincidence. While it might have been tempting or even involuntary to contrast them, each book stood quite independent and enjoyable in its own right.

While the gladiator-like violence and harsh slave culture won't be for every reader, Lindsey Piper creates something beautiful in the midst of darkness. She renders relationships and characters organically - the changes are slow, real, understandable. While the action propels the characters toward a goal, it's really about Nynn and Leto.

Dance of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin

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Dance of the Red Death is the conclusion to Masque of the Red Death, which re-imagined Edgar Allan Poe's story of the same name. At the end of Dance, I looked up when to expect the next book and was surprised to see that this is it. The story does reach an endpoint of a kind, but I was definitely left wondering how at least three important characters' fates were going to be resolved. 

This is not one of those books that can be read without reading the first one. Dance picks up immediately after Masque. Do not even check out excerpts. I started Dance without reading Masque as it was an ARC and I wanted to review close to its publication date. The first line totally reels you in, but there is too much backstory and entanglements in Masque to try to proceed without it. This turned out to be no chore at all and is an excellent investment of your time if gothic angst and adventurous comings-of-age are your thing.

Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin

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Edgar Allan Poe would be pleased by Bethany Griffin's wonderfully gothic riff on his classic tale of madness and immortality. Griffin sets Masque of the Red Death in a vaguely Victorian age. A plague called the Weeping Sickness has ravaged the population with the poorer lower city hit hardest. The ruler, Prince Prospero, has fled with other aristocrats to a nearby fortress where they party while unrest festers in the city. Araby Worth lives with her parents in a luxury high-rise in the relatively safer upper city. Araby's father is the scientist who created the face masks that filter the plague for the uninfected. His status has made him a saint in the eyes of the people. Araby's life would seem blessed but for the death of her twin brother, Finn. Araby's survivor guilt has crippled her life and her relationship with her mother, who wasn't living with the family when Finn died. Araby's coping mechanism is to shun her parents and get high at the exclusive Debauchery Club with her best friend and neighbor, April.