Charley is heavily pregnant and ready to give birth any
day now to Beep, the prophesised daughter who will save the world. Until then she
has to hide in their new home on hallowed ground so the 12 Hellhounds don’t
find her and kill her
Confining Charley is… an interesting experience for
everyone. Especially since Reyes is definitely up to something in the name of
her protection
Not that she’s bored in her hideout. She has weddings to
arrange, a case to solve, an evil stepmother who keeps visiting and a whole lot
of prophecies to make sense of
Take a deep breath for this book – because this is when
it all happens
This is when we finally delve into truly what Charley is –
as we’ve been threatening and nearly achieved in the last book. Here Charley is
finally approaching her full power, she’s mighty, she’s strong, she’s
terrifying. She’s also pregnant and finally giving birth to the much anticipated
Beep, revealing the truth to many of the prophecies they’ve been agonising over
for so long. We even have an appearance of the ultra-big-bad, Reyes’s dad,
Satan himself. We even, finally, get an explanation for Mr. Wong.
In short, a lot of the storylines which have been brewing
pretty much since the first book all come to fruition. On top of that we have
ongoing stories of Charley and her much hated step-mother kind of had some kind
of rapprochement and her murdered dad’s ghost drops in to be cryptic about something
involving the Vatican. Oh and Cookie got married. There’s also
Then we have an actual case from Special Agent Kit and
her friend who want to recruit Charley despite her inability to leave her new
monastery home because of the 12 hellhounds. On top of that there’s also a
ghostly nun with a story to tell as well.
Or, to put it another way –ye gods there’s a lot
happening in this book! Honestly, there’s perhaps a bit too much happening in
this book. So many plot lines, some of the could really have waited to the next
book while we digest the vastness of the prophecy and what Charley is and the
amazing new directions and revelations of this book (though, honestly, I think
the whole revelation about the twelve is… contrived and unlikely and smells a
lot like a retcon).
Despite the vast fullness of this book, I can’t say it
was difficult to follow – just that many elements would be better of developing
rather than having so many tangents – just a little more digesting of the
vastness rather than piling on more and more and more and more. It’s a problem
the books have always had – trying to do far too much in each book and this
time it took it to eleven.
But I could follow it all, it was fun – and finally we’re
moving forwards with so many revelations and epicness which I really have been
looking forward to for so long. Sure the ending means I think I’m going to be
immensely frustrated by the next book, but still I read this book with utter
glee that we’re finally getting some revelations
Ending aside, I also like how they worked in Charley’s
new super powers while still making it clear she has vulnerabilities and isn’t
completely unassailable. There was a nice moment in the book that made it clear
that even a god like Charley has her limits – which can always be a major problem
with a super-powerful character. But what I didn’t like was that this
vulnerability required Reyes to save Charley. Yet Again. It doesn’t help that
he still tries to keep things from her in the name of protecting her (but, equally,
she does the same which is some parity – except he actually has the gall to be
put out by her secret keeping) and while he isn’t overpowering her and
threatening her as is a constant thread throughout the series (because she’s
far too powerful for that), I’m not sure if this is him finally learning some respect
for her or her simply being too powerful for him to abuse that way any more. I
don’t think I will ever like this character and it’s certainly not a sign of
improvement if he only stops controlling her because she becomes too powerful
to control.
What I do like is how angry she was repeatedly about how
much Reyes is taking control and generally having so little faith in her. It’s
true Charley is a very very very very silly person (hilariously so half the
time) but his “protectiveness” so often comes with a complete lack of respect
for her skills, abilities or basic competence that it’s nice to see her object
so fiercely to the disrespect of it.
Happily the other thing that I really really like about
this series continues – the fun, the humour, the sheer hilarity of this cast
working together, interacting together and bouncing off each other is a joy to
read. Cookie and Charley in particular are just such amazing fun to read.
Honestly I could read a whole book of them going about their daily lives doing
their silly silly things.
The book has a number of excellent female characters – Charley
and Cookie and Agent Kit and Amber, Charley’s daughter are all extremely
awesome. We also have nice visits from Charley’s sister as well – they’re all
excellent (and immensely fun) characters and all put up with Charley in very
different ways.
What I don’t like is how her sister, the therapist,
continually tries to push Charley to forgive her stepmother (who is
increasingly revealed to be abusive). She continually talks about how it would
be good for their stepmother which is probably understandable given the family
relationship but there’s not a lot of challenge to it, especially as she’s a therapist.
We have a culture that places a toxic duty of forgiveness on abuse victims
which is victimising and unhealthy. Charley isn’t suffering because of her lack
of forgiveness for her stepmother, nor is she tortured or having problems – she
is quite happy to live a life without her stepmother in it, something she’s
very able to do now her dad is dead. Charley, the abuse victim, does not
benefit even slightly from forgiving her stepmother – but she has this huge
pressure all the time to listen to her, understand her forgive her and generally
make nice. This cult of forgiveness has gone unchallenged for far too long.
We have Quentin hanging around, he isn’t a major
character but he does recur quite often and is clearly part of the gang now. He
is Deaf and considered sexual and attractive (it is common for disabled people
to be de-sexed, it’s nice to see Quentin be an attractive teenaged boy whose
lack of hearing doesn’t make him anything but that) and he has woo-woo – but it
is not connected to his disability (how many blind people who see visions etc
do we see in fiction?). I also like how Charley, and her supernatural ability
to understand all languages, extends to ASL.
We have some POC – Reyes is, of course, Latino as are his
birth parents. Even having spent time in prison he is lacking the usual gang
stereotypes that go with it (he’s awful for very different reasons). Angel,
Charley’s ghostly assistant is also Latino who did have those stereotypes in a
previous book which have been nicely challenged with his surprising back story.
Garrett is Black, he’s a relatively minor presence in this book and he’s
circling a voudou storyline that I’m watching with wariness to see how it
develops
We have a number of minor POC as well – a Native American
neighbour, a Middle Eastern doctor, Reyes’s friends – and Agent Kit’s fellow
FBI Agent Waters is also a POC – though problematically described as “exotic”.
There are a number of POC here but I think, with the
exception of Reyes, they don’t have super prominent roles compared to, say,
Cookie, Osh, Amber and Uncle Bob. Garrett is probably the closest after Reyes,
though Reyes is the second most prominent character
There are, again, no LGBT characters – but we do have a
pretty unpleasant moment with Charley fetishising a man kissing another man
(for soul eating purposes) which is always gross (don’t fetishise marginalised
people, it’s reductive and creepy) and doubly so in a series that has had so
little LGBT inclusion
I loved this book but I’m almost not looking forward to
the next one. We’re all set up for a whole new chapter in Charley’s life – a really
dramatic one with a completely new path…. But it ended in a way that suggests
the next book is going to take some very quick, abrupt steps back from all of
that which I think will frustrate me a lot.
