Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 25, 2022 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.
The Scratch Daughters is the second book in H.A. Clarke's "Scapegracers" trilogy. The series is a queer feminist (or well, anti-patriarchy) young adult urban fantasy series featuring as its protagonist Sideways Pike, a lesbian queer teen witch who was always an outcast growing up in school...until a trio of more popular girls ask her to pull a prank with magic and wind up becoming her friends and coven, the Scapegracers, who are not the group of het girls Sideway first thought they were. But in gaining a coven, Sideways gained enemies as well, such as the witch hunting Chantry Boys (led by their sheriff father) and a girl named Madeline...who wants revenge on the boys so bad she'll leave Sideways in a bad place to do it. Book 1 was a really great start to the series even as it ended on a brutal cliffhanger, so I've been super lucky to get advance copies of Book 2 and Book 3 - even if I've been way slow in actually reading them (I'm a year late on this review, sorry!)
The Scratch Daughters follows book 1's cliffhanger and presents a book that remains incredibly queer and against the patriarchy, even as it throws Sideways for even more of a loop than book 1. In book 1, Sideways was largely dealing with suddenly gaining a bunch of friends who wanted to be with her and learn magic with her, even as her greater magic attracted more deadly trouble (I'm VASTLY oversimplifying). This time around Sideways has to deal with conflicts between those friends' wants, their wants and cares for Sideways, Sideways' own depressed state due to what happened at the end of Book 1, and Sideways' relationship with a new major character. It also magnifies the threat of the witchfinders immensely. It's a book that now can become pretty hard to read because of all the struggles it puts its protagonist through, but it's worth it in the end and I can't wait to follow this up with the trilogy's conclusion.
Spoilers for book 1 are present below, be warned if you haven't read The Scapegracers yet.
Plot Summary:
Last year Sideways Pike was the school's resident weirdo, the out butch lesbian who was known to play at witchcraft who didn't really have any friends. Now things are very different - Sideways is part of a coven, the Scapegracers, with 3 very popular girls - Daisy, Jing, and Yates - all of whom turn out to be queer in ways of their own, and with whom her magic had blossomed in ways she never dreamed. Or well did, until she first ran afoul of the witch hunting Chantry boys and then into the very attractive girl Madeline, who tricked her and ripped out her Specter, the very force that gave Sideways the ability to use magic. Sideways has only been able to hold together by accepting the possession of the book demon Mr. Scratch, but even that possession hasn't stopped her from feeling not all there.The Scratch Daughters continues the story of The Scapegracers just a few months down the line. I mentioned in my review of the first book that Clarke took things in a different way than others might've taken a similar plotline - where others might have had the three popular girls who try to use magic with Sideways turn on her, and cause her heartbreak, there it had their friendship turn out to be genuine as the three popular girls - Daisy, Jing and Yates - turned out to be queer themselves, even if none of them were out about it like Sideways and even if they were each sometimes still trying to figure out who they were and who they might be interested in. The Scratch Daughters meanwhile does sort of take that road not travelled in book 1 - due to Sideways' reckless actions without them, for a good part of the book Sideways is cast out from her circle of friends and has to wonder whether that friendship was real or whether it was merely the girls using her...and how Daisy, Jing and Yates handle that breakup while still needing to do magic doesn't help those feelings. But the book doesn't end in that fashion, and really it all comes down to all the characters - whether that be Daisy, Jing, Yates, new character Shiloh, or Sideways themselves going through changes that make them confused and unsure who they are and what they want.
Desperate to get back her Specter, Sideways and the Scapegracers search for any lead on finding Madeline, who has vanished...other than the glimpses into her mind Sideways gets from Madeline having her Specter. But when the hunt for Madeline leads Sideways back to the house of the Chantry Boys, she becomes desperate to undertake a dangerous mission back into the house she was once held captive in...and suddenly Sideways finds herself in conflict with the other girls over how far she is willing to go.
Suddenly desperate and outcast once again, Sideways finds that herself in pain not just from the loss of her Specter and the threat of death from the witchfinders, but also from the loss of those she was beginning to call friends, and a chance encounter with another of the Chantry Boys may put both of those problems right at her doorstep....
Really that theme underlines this entire novel. For Sideways, those changes come from the loss of their Specter, which makes them feel disassociated from the world at times and just feel like they're not actually there, with only Mr. Scratch's voice in Sideways' head able to help them keep it just a little bit together. For Mr. Scratch similarly there's the struggle to keep his new charges alive when the witch finders hunted down his last coven. For Daisy, Jing, and Yates, well the trio is all struggling with their own newly discovered queerness in various forms, something they've been more willing to admit to themselves after hanging around Sideways, but those revelations make them each vulnerable to the point where a minor change in the equilibrium, caused by Sideways doing things without them like heading to check out the Chantry house without them against their advice, cause them - especially Daisy - to freak out and temporarily break Sideways away from the group. And for Shiloh, the discovery of the extent of their queerness by their father resulted in them being cast out from their family and in them having to truly recognize how horrible their prior actions were. The only thing that can help them all keep it together is the friendship and caring of others - like Sideways' gay parents, who help Shiloh drastically, or Mr. Scratch, who keeps Sideways together both literally and figuratively.
Because well, as the book makes clear, the world is a brutal one out there for those who don't fit in the patriarchy, whether they be witches or just people who aren't cis-het males. The threats of the Witchfinders only become more horrifying here, and how their actions affect others and result in cycles of trauma like what afflicts Madeline is made all the more apparent through this plot. But through Queers sticking together and realizing how much they each care about and can help each other, well, the Scapegracers and others can find a way to grow into the people they truly want to be. And what they turn out to be isn't some set path, nor is it something determined by who their parents are, as Sideways has to realize at one point.
I've said very little in this review about the actual plot, because well it works and really the characters and themes are the big stuff here, and they work very well. My one problem is that the book ends on a brutal cliffhanger for one of the characters again, one whom I really was hoping would be able to get a happy ending, and well now I need to not wait so long to read the trilogy's conclusion.
No comments:
Post a Comment