Maeve Fly (2023) -CJ Leede
This book was a lesson in managing your expectations, cause it was a let down
Content Warnings: Murder, torture, sexual violence, drug use, cannibalism, rape
Representation: none
Favorite Quote: “There are many definitions of insanity in this world. One could argue that spooning a man’s eyeball out of the socket and performing carnal acts of religious desecration with it is insanity—we will revisit that later—perhaps you’d be right, but I argue that true insanity is driving in Los Angeles.”
Generally, I only review books that have some form of representation of an underrepresented group, whether or not I actually enjoyed the book, this gives readers of my review an opportunity to engage with this representation and decide for themselves if it is something they want to engage with further. Maeve Fly is my expection, in part because I have no other horror books that I’ve read to review for Halloween, of which I am late to anyway, but also to give my two cents on a seemingly popular book that I did not particularly enjoy.
Maeve Fly is a dark satire that (presumably) subverts feminist arguments about the entitlement of men that is excused by the public and the domination of men in the horror genre. This in itself had a lot of potential. The book is self-aware of its forced edginess and the main character is so on the nose the satire hits you in the face, but the self-awareness doesn’t quite excuse just how in your face this book is.
The protagonist, Maeve Fly, is the granddaughter of an old Hollywood star, with whom she shares a mutual understanding with of how they each stand apart from the rest of society. Maeve’s sentiment is that the horror genre has excused lazy portrayals of psychotic men with no reasoning behind their violence while women antagonists are expected to be justified in their heathenism. So of course, it is an act of feminism for Maeve herself to partake in the occasional murder, and it is by nature that she herself is a wolf in a sea of sheep.
Maeve cannot, however, be open about her wolfish nature, but instead passes her days as a genericized Disney Princess at the unnamed-but-clearly-Disneyland amusement park. She loves this job. She loves to see the theatric fakeness of it all in the same way she so appropriately loves Halloween, for it is the only night of the year, according to Maeve that people wear their masks openly.
It is this job, her grandmother, and her best friend whom she works with, that are the only things Maeve cares deeply about, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t intrigued and reluctantly attracted to her best friend’s hockey player brother when he shows up in her life. The question is, can new found love make her find the humanity deep inside her, or will is merely enable her devilish impulses.