He thought it would make me happy. You look happy, I reminded myself. Especially from far away.

-Ashley Winstead, “The Last Housewife”

I have a lot of complicated feelings about this book, which would be difficult to sum up in a single Instagram post–so here we are!

*spoilers below, so proceed with caution*

In Ashley Winstead’s “The Last Housewife”, Shay Evans/DeRoy is a modern woman with a lot of trauma in her past. This trauma (if you’ve heard anything about the Sarah Lawrence dad, it will seem very familiar) isn’t as removed as she would like it to be, thanks to a recent true crime podcast episode that also happens to be run by her childhood best friend who is coincidentally really emotionally supportive and good-looking, Jamie. The discovery Jamie shares–that her college best friend died in a supposed suicide similarly to a different college best friend–pushes her to return to the college they went to so that she can right the wrongs of their past, while also ignoring phone calls from her awful husband Cal.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

What starts out as a true crime fan fiction eventually escalates into a full-out “Get Out” retelling, but based on gender rather than race. However, unlike “Get Out” and other similar narratives, the main character wasn’t someone I really felt a connection with–which is wild, as she is literally fighting against a cult of evil men who hate women. But Shay never felt like a fully formed character to me; it’s not a problem that she married for security and values her appearance, or that she compulsively trauma dumps on Jamie without any regards for how her story might affect someone else, but that she never feels grounded in any of these traits/actions for it to define her beyond an initial shock factor. Most of the characters, honestly, felt too much like caricatures or stereotypes to feel believable. My favorite was Clementine, but she was already dead long before the book even began.

And, with regards to the shock factor that accompanies this book: there is a gratuitous amount of violence toward women. I read this book in one sitting not because I was so engrossed in it, but because I knew I wouldn’t be able to stomach coming back to it again (and I’m trying to reduce my number of DNF books). The violence was upsetting and unsettling, and even now, I don’t want to think about it too much. There is a trigger warning at the very beginning of the book, but these don’t really specify the intensity toward the topics covered (which is more a criticism of the idea of trigger warnings, rather than of the author).

But this is where the need for a longer-form review comes in: why is this book so upsetting to me? I’ve read the “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series, and watched the Thai TV series “Girl From Nowhere.” Both of these show excessive violence, and directed toward women–so why don’t I feel as strongly about their portrayals as I do with this book? Is it because they come from male perspectives (though I had trouble confirming this with “Girl From Nowhere” so don’t quote me on that part!). But regardless–where is this discomfort rooted? And how much should it affect my overall feelings toward the book?

I’m still reflecting on these questions, and I doubt they’ll have easy answers. But I do appreciate that the book opens up this degree of contemplation and reflection, and I think that’s the best thing I’ll take away from it. My professors said, on the first day of grad school, that we should feel uncomfortable throughout the process–and if we don’t feel this way at some point, then we’re not growing as much as we should be. I think this can apply to books, too…but it doesn’t mean that it needs to happen.

What I’m reading next: “The Ex Hex”