Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison Published by Penguin Group on August 20, 2024
Genres: Fiction / Horror, Fiction / Occult & Supernatural, Fiction / Thrillers / Supernatural
Pages: 304
Format: eBook
ISBN: 9780593545867Nobody has a “normal” family, but Vesper Wright’s is truly...something else. Vesper left home at eighteen and never looked back—mostly because she was told that leaving the staunchly religious community she grew up in meant she couldn’t return. But then an envelope arrives on her doorstep.
Inside is an invitation to the wedding of Vesper’s beloved cousin Rosie. It’s to be hosted at the family farm. Have they made an exception to the rule? It wouldn’t be the first time Vesper’s been given special treatment. Is the invite a sweet gesture? An olive branch? A trap? Doesn’t matter. Something inside her insists she go to the wedding. Even if it means returning to the toxic environment she escaped. Even if it means reuniting with her mother, Constance, a former horror film star and forever ice queen.
When Vesper’s homecoming exhumes a terrifying secret, she’s forced to reckon with her family’s beliefs and her own crisis of faith in this deliciously sinister novel that explores the way family ties can bind us as we struggle to find our place in the world.
So after reading Rachel Harrison’s Such Sharp Teeth, I had to read her other books. Black Sheep was such a fascinating look into family dynamics and if we can ever escape the past.
To start off, I was absolutely floored when I found out what kind of cult Vesper grew up in, which I loved! I assumed it was going to go one way because I just never really thought her family’s cult would be in that area of religion. I’m trying to be as vague as possible because other’s should be just as surprised as I was when I read it.
The characters and storyline was all so fascinating. While Vesper was the most obvious choice of narrator, I would’ve loved to have something from Constance’s point of view. I was more sad and angry for her than Vesper. “I never wanted you,” she said. “And, ironically, I could never act like I did.” I’m not advocating for her treatment of Vesper, but if there’s ever an argument for pro-choice, this is it. Forcing women to bear children they do not want creates a relationship like Constance’s and Vesper’s, with a young woman who was emotionally and psychologically abused her entire life. Again, none of this advocates for abuse, and of course, at a certain point, you do have to take responsibility for your own actions. Constance was a product of her upbringing just like Vesper, but the difference is is that Vesper decided to change it. She realizes this by the end, and so does Constance. The last moment Constance has she spends giving her daughter the means to end this. It’s not a perfect redemption story but it’s a satisfying one.
One thing that I find issue with in this book (and I had the same problem with Such Sharp Teeth) is that the main character can be a little slow on the uptake. The amount of time it takes for Vesper to figure out who her father is and what’s going on with the rest of the members of the cult took way too long. In general, the fact that she didn’t figure out who her father was is a little funny in how dumb she was being.
Besides that one issue, it was still a relevant, uplifting novel on how family may be a part of us, a part that we can’t change, but we can decide what to keep going forward.
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