Maeve Fly by C.J. Leede
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
**3.5-stars**
Maeve Fly is an Extreme Horror novel by debut author C.J. Leede. In addition to the fascinating cover, I was drawn to this book because the synopsis mentions the main character was inspired by the pages of American Psycho.
Even though I was bored to tears by American Psycho, I still wanted to see what this was all about. It had my attention.
Luckily for me, I enjoyed this much more than AP. I definitely felt the same tone throughout, but I really enjoyed the Feminist twist that Leede brought here.
This story follows Maeve, who is the Patrick Bateman of our story. Instead of NYC, we’re in L.A. for this one, where Maeve lives with her ailing grandmother, a former movie starlet. Their secluded mansion is Maeve’s safe haven.
By day, Maeve works at a theme park, it’s unnamed, but think Disneyland, where she plays a super popular ice princess. Let’s call her, Elsa.
Maeve works alongside her best friend, Kate, the only person, besides her grandmother, she feels a real connection with. That is until Kate’s brother, Gideon, arrives in town.
Gideon makes Maeve feel things she doesn’t necessarily want to be feeling. She tries to avoid him, but the attraction can’t be helped. Once they start chumming around, all bets are off. It’s no holds bar, gripping, pulse-pounding, exhausting, exploring their darkest and deepest desires.
We’re talking dark. Real, genuine debauchery. Maeve has a fetish with eggs. You’ll never be able to unsee that. I will never look at an egg the same again.
The narrative style is biting and shocking, as you would expect Extreme Horror to be. It’s stream of consciousness from Maeve’s perspective and being in her brain is not a comfortable place to be.
I did enjoy some of the ideas that Leede explored in this. For example, Maeve talks about how we have a need to understand why people do horrific acts, but when men perform such acts, it’s sort of like, men are aggressive, men can snap, men can be harmful. It’s not super shocking, but when the same acts are performed by a woman, it’s almost unbelievable to us.
Maeve’s thing is, what if this is just me? There’s no reason behind it, no justifications or excuses. It’s her true being, point blank.
I also liked the dichotomy displayed in Maeve’s life. She loves her job, she’s interacting with children all day, the epitome of a pretty, pretty princess, but as soon as the park closes and she’s free in the world, she’s a monster, a predator, an evil being.
That back-and-forth was really well done and I appreciated how Leede set that up. I also loved the ending of this. The final two scenes were my favorite of the whole novel.
Overall, I feel like this is a good book. I think it is smart and visceral. For me, though, I felt a little disconnected with it at times. It was sort of a mixed bag.
I enjoyed a lot of the themes and the ideas behind the creation of the story, but didn’t vibe as much with Maeve’s narrative voice.
Also, I feel like I am just not enjoying Extreme Horror as much as I used to. That is my own reading journey though, and yours may be completely different, so please keep that in mind when reading this review.
Fair warning: don’t be fooled by the subtle-sounding synopsis. This is intense, torture, body horror, fetish acts, sexually explicit content for days, it’s all here. If you’re looking for a good shock, you’ll definitely find it somewhere in this story. I dare you not to be shocked by at least a few scenes. You can’t do it. You can’t.
Thank you to the publisher, Tor Nightfire and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with a copy to read and review.
I would definitely be interested in picking up more from this author in the future, especially if she continues with the feminist themes that were so well done here.