The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling
Mar. 18th, 2020 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iariaI liked it.
+ I enjoyed the journey through the cave. The book was very atmospheric and I liked the claustrophobic tension of it. The survival aspect worked well.
+ I liked how the relationship between Gyre and Em played out with all its ups and many downs, and the potential for a happy ending for them.
+ I liked that so much of Gyre and Em’s journeys were about their mothers and the need for them to let go and move on from them and their choices.
+ I do wish that we had learned what happened to Isolde and Eli but I also get why we didn’t. Actually I think the implication was that when Gyre cut the rope in the Long Drop tunnel she killed Eli, right? His was the face she saw? Deeply sad (he was so close to rescue!) but I can accept that. But I wish there had been some hint about Isolde’s fate and where her journey might have ended and how.
+ I was surprised that there wasn’t anything supernatural happening because I kept expecting it; but the sense I was left with, was that the people Gyre saw, her paranoia of being watched/followed and the call to go further into the cave were all aspects of her mind deteriorating. I guess it was left open enough that you could choose what the truth actually is but I found that aspect disappointing. I wanted there to be something more (sentient cave, actual ghosts, new alien species following her, etc.)
+ My least favourite scene was Gyre’s half-crazed confrontation with the Tunneler. It was an animal reacting to stimulus (human voices) that it didn’t like and that was it. So there was no satisfaction on my part when it died/Gyre was triumphant.
+ I enjoyed the journey through the cave. The book was very atmospheric and I liked the claustrophobic tension of it. The survival aspect worked well.
+ I liked how the relationship between Gyre and Em played out with all its ups and many downs, and the potential for a happy ending for them.
+ I liked that so much of Gyre and Em’s journeys were about their mothers and the need for them to let go and move on from them and their choices.
+ I do wish that we had learned what happened to Isolde and Eli but I also get why we didn’t. Actually I think the implication was that when Gyre cut the rope in the Long Drop tunnel she killed Eli, right? His was the face she saw? Deeply sad (he was so close to rescue!) but I can accept that. But I wish there had been some hint about Isolde’s fate and where her journey might have ended and how.
+ I was surprised that there wasn’t anything supernatural happening because I kept expecting it; but the sense I was left with, was that the people Gyre saw, her paranoia of being watched/followed and the call to go further into the cave were all aspects of her mind deteriorating. I guess it was left open enough that you could choose what the truth actually is but I found that aspect disappointing. I wanted there to be something more (sentient cave, actual ghosts, new alien species following her, etc.)
+ My least favourite scene was Gyre’s half-crazed confrontation with the Tunneler. It was an animal reacting to stimulus (human voices) that it didn’t like and that was it. So there was no satisfaction on my part when it died/Gyre was triumphant.
