Book Review: "Orpheus Builds a Girl" by Heather Parry

I am a big fan of the gothic genre and will read pretty much anything that is meant to give me the chills if it's well written. Orpheus Builds a Girl is most obviously named for the myth of Orpheus who travels to the underworld to try to rescue his love, Eurydice. The fact that the novel is stated to be creepy and enthralling made me love it even more than simply liking the title. However, I have got to say that after this read - I have mixed feelings about the book. Not everything was good, but more than often it did make me uncomfortable even if it was for all the wrong reasons and not for its Frankenstein-esque storyline.

The opening chapter, I have to say, is fantastic. It sets up the story so well as it introduces the main character of Wilhelm, his complicated relationship with his mother and his overwhelming adoration for his grandmother. The novel start by establishing important plot points about his character that return later on such as: his inability to let go, his ego and narcissism, his appreciation for the sight of the cities and more. If I were to judge the entire book just by its opening, it would get the most marks possible. However, in the coming chapters, Wilhelm's story falls flat a little and it becomes more and more laborious to read his weird and wordy entanglement in discourse. As Wilhelm's character becomes more and more familiar to the reader, the author more than often becomes too wordy as in there are too many words to say maybe one or two things. The voice gets a little muddled and the breaks in the narrative to switch perspective do not do it any favours whatsoever.

Here's what I did not enjoy about the novel: the Cuban chapters. Written by a woman who is both very clearly not Cuban, has no experience of being Cuban and has probably never actually been to or lived in Cuba (even if she has, I cannot imagine that she would have the correct experience to write as a Cuban immigrant to Florida). Unfortunately, the experience of the Cuban chapters was marred by stereotypes and tragedy fetishes which is more than common of white women who have done little research into the actual lives of these people who have suffered greatly. Another thing I did not enjoy was the way in which living Germany is described. An almost romanticised piece of writing about a country that at the time was knee-deep in death and tragedy, tyranny and political trauma and yet, it just did not get dark enough. Not as bad as the writing about Cuban immigrants to Florida, but somewhere in the ballpark.

The story was not too bad and had its moments of actually being pretty deep and meaningful. I would say that a lot of the book seems like its meant to be gothic, but falls very very short of actually being so. Many chapters in the book are so heavily focused on the characterisation of people like Gabriela that by the end of the book, Luci is kind of like a supplementary character even though the book is supposed to be about her. The book itself, I feel, would have been much better if Gabriela's narrative altogether was cut from the novel. It adds nothing and just presents minor hints at attempted diversity which the author shoehorns in to break up Wilhelm's whining. Instead of Gabriela's perspective, a good thing to add to the novel would have been maybe the perspectives of people who knew Wilhelm like his mother and others. Gabriela's narrative makes the book very choppy and because the chapters aren't written well - it really drags.

All in all, I have mixed feelings about this book. I feel like it could have been a lot better than it actually was, but I also feel like there were better authors who could have covered this story. Unfortunately, Heather Parry had the right idea but the execution is only average. The Cuban immigrant chapters left a really bad taste of poor research, stereotyping and outdated tropes which really made the book a big let-down for me.