I’m feeling like a broken record at this point, but the thing about Projections by S.E. Porter is that it was just too long.
I know I’m not the only one who feels like so many books these days are longer than they need to be. I’ve seen numerous BookTubers mention it in their reviews of specific books, and Willow Talks Books did an entire video about whether books are too long.
Projections is too long. And the weird thing is, every scene does serve to either reveal something about the characters or advance the story in some way, but it still feels like it drags on. Perhaps scenes could have been shorter. Maybe some of them could have been combined and made to serve double duty.
I feel like Porter was exploring some interesting and important topics with this book. It really digs into toxic masculinity, main character syndrome, the things we do for love (or what we’ve told ourselves is love), abusive relationships, classism, and more. But because some of these themes are unpleasant to dwell on, I did at times feel like I was spending too much time immersed in them and whether the book was wallowing a bit when it could have picked up the pace a bit.
Special attention to be paid to how this book deals with one of my very favorite topics: female rage. This isn’t a “burn it all down” rage, but rather a slow, simmering rage. They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but I feel like this revenge was one of those perpetual soups, kept on the stove and replenished constantly. Catherine’s slow-burn anger was what kept me going.
One reason why the book is so long is that it has three timelines. The first is Catherine’s afterlife, starting with her murder in the Victorian era. This isn’t a spoiler — not only does the book description make it clear, but we literally meet Catherine as she becomes a ghost bound to her murderer, her former friend Gus. Our second timeline is that of Angus, the latest in a series of magical clones of Gus, in the present-day. And the third is Catherine’s life, from childhood until her death. This third timeline was probably the weakest — I don’t feel like I needed so many scenes to establish Catherine and Gus as characters, and the facts of Catherine’s life.
Catherine spends most of her afterlife in the magical city of Nautilus, a sort of pocket dimension outside of time, populated by magic workers and powered by magic. The thing is, she specifically didn’t want to have anything to do with magic, that was Gus’s thing, and now she’s stuck in a magic world, tied to her abusive murderer, and unable to communicate (she just screams. all the time). This leaves her a lot of time to plot her revenge, especially as Gus’s behavior just gets worse and worse.
This is the point where I admit that I’m not really sure where I’m going with this review. March was a weird reading month for me, where so many books just didn’t quite hit the mark, to the point where I had to question whether it was a problem with me, not the books. Projections is the sort of book that I probably wouldn’t review at all, if not for the fact that I’ve committed myself to this darned Book Bingo 2024 project.
Ultimately, I’m not sure if I’d recommend this book. If, like me, you enjoy books about angry and morally grey women, you might enjoy this. But you might also find, like me, that there was perhaps too much moral greyness and too much time spent in the company of unpleasant men.
By the way, it’s interesting to note that this book, which I’d say is exploring a lot of feminist ideas, was comped to Jeff VanderMeer and China Mieville. There’s definitely some New Weird vibes from the setting and the side character magicians who populate it, and the magical clones, but I’d say people who are looking for something like Annihilation or Perdido Street Station are going to be disappointed. And I’m personally disappointed that whoever chose the comp titles couldn’t come up with at least one written by a woman.
CWs and TWs: Murder. Verbal abuse. Sexism and classism. Elder abuse. Mention of child death. Chronic illness. Some horrific imagery.
Format and Source: I read this as an ebook from Sno-Isle Libraries.
Book Bingo Prompts
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): Something Wicked. Right after I wrote this down on my card, I realized I probably should have used it for Hello From The Other Side (Card 2), since Catherine is literally a ghost writing to us from beyond the grave. Or Let’s Get Spiritual (Card 2), because not only is she a spirit, there’s also some Spiritualist action during the Living-Catherine timeline. But honestly there’s a lot of wicked stuff in this book too, so it fits.
Book Bingo Progress
Nook & Cranny (Card 1): 10 out of 25 prompts complete. 1 bingo.
Nook & Cranny (Card 2): 5 out of 25 prompts complete. 0 bingos.
Brick & Mortar: 23 out of 25 prompts complete. 8 bingos.