The Unsuitable – Molly Pohlig

i may not remember you, but i cannot forget you. i poke my finger a little further underneath the scab…

Iseult Wince is a young(ish) Victorian woman (aka still young by our standards and a painfully unmarriageable age by Victorian standards).

And so her father decides enough is enough, she will get married…or else.

The lace collar crawled to the top of her throat…

And there’s a lovely(ish) man who has a peculiar skin condition who is willing to look past Iseult’s age and other oddities.

But there is one desperate secret Iseult’s father is hiding from the future groom – the mother.

You poor poor lamb, poor dear poor darling. Poor motherless nobody, poor changling with no one to look after you.

For ever since Iseult could remember, her mother lived inside her. Like physically located inside her.

Iseult hears her mother most often whispering from the scar on her shoulder – sometimes motherly advice, sometimes horrifyingly cruel words.

is that all i am to you? pain?

Iseult has a way to control her mother – through self-mutilation.

Every time she does it, her mother comes back stronger, and Iseult needs to use more force the next round.

Hiding her mother’s voice was never an option…but there must be a way to silence her forever…

I really, truly thought I would LOVE this book. The creepy, Victorian atmosphere was fabulous.

The initial whispers of the mother really intrigued me to the plot.

However…there was so much emphasis on graphic self-mutilation and so little care to the plot that I really had a hard time pushing myself through this book.

I have literally NEVER physically cringed away from a book so hard and so often.

I don’t think I have too weak of a stomach – I love watching vet surgeries on YouTube and gory movies – but when she slips the needle into her heel and swishes it around? (and that was the tip of the iceberg) – it was too much.

It was so graphic and also it felt like unnecessary gore and cringe. Every few pages she was stabbing herself, sticking her finger under her skin and so much more.

Again, I think underneath all the mutilation, there was a really good story…it was just so present that it really threw me off and affected my enjoyment of the book.

Interested in this one from Molly Pohlig? Buy it here:  Amazon