| Title | : | The God of Endings |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1250856760 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781250856760 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 480 |
| Publication | : | First published March 7, 2023 |
| Awards | : | Audie Award Fantasy (2024) |
The God of Endings Reviews
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A debut novel about vampires, The God of Endings is well-crafted and compellingly written. It pairs nicely with Interview with the Vampire, in that it is a character-based, introspective exploration of the psyche more than a plot-driven adventure about the supernatural. We follow our main character Collette (though she has many names) from her girlhood in the 1830s into the 1980s, alternating chapters from her past and present, slowly coming to understand how she became the vampire she is today. Her history is a series of poignant and colorful vignettes, memorable character sketches all laced with tragedy. We feel the curse of her immortality, but also her hard-won efforts to find beauty and peace in a life that she never chose. Throughout, we have the looming specter of Czernobog, the Slavic god of endings, who may be stalking Collette, waiting for her immortal life to end -- or possibly augurs some entirely different fate. I found the novel haunting and beautiful, painterly in style, which matches the main character's love of visual art. As with all the best books about vampires, the real focus here is on human nature. Definitely worth a read!
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My complete review of The God of Endings is published in
Grimdark Magazine.
The God of Endings is the masterful debut novel by Jacqueline Holland, a literary dark fantasy that explores the purpose of life through the eyes of a reluctant immortal.
The novel opens in the 1830s with four-year-old Anna growing up in rural Stratton, New York. Her mother passed away during childbirth, leaving Anna behind with her father and newborn baby brother. Anna idolizes her artisan father, who carves tombstones for a living. Anna finds grim solace in the cemetery, despite rumors of the restless dead who may be brought back to life and bring affliction to the living. Anna is soon left alone after her father and brother succumb to illness. She experiences the same fate but then is unwillingly raised from the dead by her step-grandfather, endowed with the immortality of her newfound vampiric state.
The God of Endings jumps ahead to 1984, when Anna works as a teacher at an elite French-language preschool in upstate New York. Despite her reluctance to build any lasting connections, Anna gets involved with the family of one of her gifted but criminally neglected young pupils, whose parents are consumed by infidelity and addiction. Jacqueline Holland is a master at capturing the Northern Gothic aesthetic of rural upstate New York in both the 1830s and 1984 time periods.
The God of Endings skips across time and space, covering Anna’s early days as she crosses the Atlantic to build a new life in eastern Europe, where she learns the practical aspects of vampirism. The European scenes all have a fever dream-like quality to them, as if Anna is immersed in one of Grimms’ fairy tales. Indeed, Holland’s novel is steeped in Slavic folklore, especially the titular god of endings, Czernobog, who haunts Anna from the shadows. Czernobog casts a devil-like figure and also functions as the god of darkness, evil, chaos, death, and night.
As an adult during World War II, Anna becomes a teacher in a small French village and assumes an alternate persona known as the Nachte Bestie (night beast), an inhuman phantom who hunts Nazis under the shroud of night. While a passive character in much of The God of Endings, these scenes convey Anna at her most outwardly assertive, while she simultaneously wages an inner war to control her thirst for blood.
The basic premise of The God of Endings, i.e., following the lonesome life of a protagonist who defies human mortality, parallels the classic 1820 Gothic fantasy, Melmoth the Wanderer, by Irish novelist Charles Maturin. The idea was explored more recently by V.E. Schwab in her popular romantic fantasy, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Although their initial setups are similar, The God of Endings explores much darker territory than Addie LaRue. Jacqueline Holland wisely forgoes romance in The God of Endings, focusing on weightier themes such as the search for meaning and permanence in a life where everything is transient. Whereas Schwab skips over most of Addie’s life between childhood and the present-day, Holland thoroughly explores the possibilities of what her main character encounters across continents and centuries.
Holland’s writing is beautiful and accessible, with the caveat of having an appreciable amount of untranslated dialogue in French and German. The French and German usage is all very elementary, so I didn’t have a problem understanding these sections. But it could be an issue for readers with no prior exposure to either of these languages.
Although at times it felt like the story had too many disparate plot threads, Jacqueline Holland proves herself to be the god of endings as she ties everything together and delivers a multi-layered emotional punch at the end of the novel that both questions and affirms the nature of life and human existence.
Altogether, The God of Endings is a hauntingly beautiful dark fantasy that serves as a meditation on the arrogance and love associated with bringing new life into the world. Let’s hope that The God of Endings is just the beginning for Jacqueline Holland. -
It’s 1984, and Collette is an artist who runs an elite fine arts school in upstate New York for young children. But her real name is Ana and she’s been alive for centuries, enduring the loneliness and constant turmoil she feels. Although she is normally quite private, she finds herself being drawn into the life of one of her students who is from a troubled home. At the same time, she feels her hunger growing more than it ever has before. But the more she becomes involved, the more she wonders if she’s made the right decision.
The story is told through a non-linear timeline; most chapters consist of a large portion of Ana’s history and early life, while also having a small part of her current life (the primary plot). I honestly couldn’t decide if I liked this or not. Having such detailed history of hers incorporated made it much easier to understand why she made the choices she did and how she ended up where she was, as well as providing interesting information about the times she’d lived through. However, it drastically slowed down the primary plot and even made it difficult to keep track of exactly who was doing what. I think this story would have been better told in a linear fashion, or at least to have significantly trimmed down the sections of Ana’s history.
While the characters were fine, I didn’t find myself drawn to any of them. They were written well enough to keep the story enjoyable, but not well enough for me to connect with them or become completely immersed in their stories. This was unfortunately true for Ana as well; this may be related to the fact that we spent so much time in her past. However, I did enjoy the author’s writing style overall as well as how well the settings were described and portrayed.
There were a few other things that detracted from my enjoyment of the work. The main character experienced an unexplained and unwanted change in her feelings of hunger and the amount she needed to eat, which should have created palpable tension and emotion. Instead, it was written about in a way that felt detached from the plot and added no sense of urgency. There were also some cases of plot-induced stupidity: she had the chance to ask about this change from someone much more experienced but “forgot” to; another example was that I thought of several simple ways she could have avoided issues relating to finding steady sources of blood for feeding, but instead she had to resort to illegal/dangerous actions.
I did enjoy this read overall and recommend it to those who like dual timelines with vampirism and historical fiction incorporated. My thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for allowing me to read this work, which will be published 7 March 2023. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. -
A compassionate vampire…who would have thought…..
Book Information
The God of Endings was written by Jacqueline Holland. It was published on March 7, 2023 and is 413 pages. I listened to the audiobook version which is narrated by Saskia Maarleveld and is 16 hours and 53 minutes. This is Holland's 1st book (and if it's any indication of her skill---it will not be her last). Thanks to Macmillan Audio for providing me with an advanced reader copy for review.
Summary
Collette LeSange is a vampire. She has lived for centuries. She has seen and felt pain that others can never imagine. Currently, she leads a quiet, mostly solitary life heading a French art school for children in New York. She has finally found a kind of equilibrium. A way to exist that keeps her happy and in which she is not a threat to anyone around her. But that’s about to change. There is a new student whose home life she can’t seem to ignore. She also finds herself always hungry—very worrisome given her dietary requirements. And, she can’t help but feel as though she is being stalked. She has a dark feeling that things are about to change....and ending is coming but she doesn't know what that means.
My Thoughts
One word: Spectacular.
That is a word I rarely use to describe a book and that I have never used regarding a 1st novel.
This is not the kind of book that I typically read. I do read horror and there is a vampire—but it’s not at all a typical vampire story. I generally read thrillers or mysteries. Books where there is a clear path. A premise is set early on, and the book is a constant progression toward resolution. While I suppose there are aspects of that in this book (Collette’s drive to figure out who is stalking her or why her life seems to be changing), the book is more so an exploration of her and of life itself. The real mystery being delved into is existence.
Holland builds a narrative with expertise rarely seen in a new author. She is able to seamlessly move between timelines, countries, cultures, languages, customs, and settings. She turns typical literary tropes upside down and explores how vampires are terrorized by people—not the other way around. Collette is very much a “humanistic” vampire. She has killed, but never for herself. She spends most of her life either trying to avoid people or defending those who can’t defend themselves. And she can’t die, which is a vehicle to dig into life itself. Is life a blessing or a curse? Are people inherently good or bad?
I REALLY enjoyed this book, and not at all for the reasons I thought I would.
I also have to say that the narration was phenomenal. Saskia Maarleveld is now officially my favorite narrator. She brought the story to life in a way that I have not experienced before. She worked through several characters, dealt with numerous accents, and performed the book so skillfully that I was able to become a part of the story. While I am sure the written book is also excellent---I must imagine that Maarleveld's performance adds an extra touch that shouldn’t be missed.
Recommendation
Read it. This will be a top book of 2023….I have no doubt. Holland will win awards for the book and as a 1st-time novelist. Read the book now. You will enjoy it.
Rating
5 Vampire Teacher Stars -
If you’ve read any of the blurbs for this book, you know that we are following Collette, an immortal preschool teacher living in the upstate New York of the 1980s. It’s the height of the Satanic Panic and we have a Supernatural Creature teaching rich people’s toddlers, I’d call that a solid recipe for drama. Could this be a fresh and exciting take on the Lonely Immortal?
Alas, it’s just a vampire story.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good vampire story! But I have to be expecting it, and it has to be, well, good. This was like taking a sip from your cup and, instead of the exhilarating burn of McDonald’s Sprite that you expected, you have a mouthful of lukewarm tap water.
Don’t believe me? What if I told you the main character is turned prior to the Revolutionary War and, rather than following her through the changes in the western world, we just chill in the woods painting for two centuries? No industrial revolution for this lady, she’d rather hang out at an isolated cabin in Eastern Europe. The “present day” scenes aren’t any better, they’re spent at the preschool following the mundane tasks of teaching four-year-olds.
Not only is this book bland af, but everything interesting turns out to be a damaging trope of some sort. For instance, there was some asexual representation, superb! As you read, only female vampires are confirmed to be asexual, guess we just needed our heroine’s virginity intact.
Honestly, the book seems to think female purity and gender roles are really important. The main character mainly experiences happiness when she is being a good girl by following the instructions of male characters. While there are a few femme characters the MC develops relationships with, they always end in tragedy, and it is heavily implied the fault for that tragedy lies in their immoral behaviors. There’s also some weird implications about motherhood and living a fulfilling life.
“Ok,” you say, “So it’s a bit misogynistic. The patriarchy influences most media, that doesn’t make it a bad book.”
*side eye*
Did I mention it’s also racist? Because of course it is! Holland seems to have been attempting some sort of racist royal flush. We’ve got the Magical Romani and Dangerous Brown Guy, (they’re twins), a Negro Caretaker, the Magical Negress, and an Ambiguous Brown Orphan. None of these characters have personalities beyond advancing the plot or teaching Collette a life lesson. Most of them die.
Look, I hated this book. It was nothing like what was described, an interesting setup was completely wasted, and the suspense ends at about ⅔ of the way through. Shout out to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy though, the narrator was superb! -
Oooohhh a vampire story?!
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For not being a "strange" novel, and I'm using strange in the same vein as Lydia Deetz, this is one strange vampire novel. Classic horror it is not, and I'm glad I didn't save it for my October spooky reads.
That's not to say I didn't enjoy myself. An avid Francophile, I enjoyed Collette's dual timeline journey between past and present. As most dual timeline stories go, I did end up enjoying the present more than the past.
Is it smart for a hungry vampire to run a daycare? What happens when past meets present? In the midst of all this, we have bad parents. This feels like several genres rolled into one, and while it wasn't done badly, I wanted a little more from this.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher. -
The Vampire Nanny Diaries 😬
Jacqueline Holland's debut unfortunately wasn't for me. My brain has been too rotted by reads and rereads of Anne Rice's works and those of her derivatives; perhaps if this book had come out just two or three years earlier, I might've had more patience for it. But, as it is, I just find lofty, world-weary vampiric literary fiction tiresome now.
I don't need to read about another European-descended vampire, immortality forever preserving her state of being young, beautiful, white, and able-bodied. Not after so many - most, even - of Rice's vampires were exactly, explicitly this. It's 2023, yet this book makes no comment on how these privileges aid main character Anya/Anna/Collette's navigation of the changing world.
And, regardless of these privileges, our focal vampire indulges in the same navel-gazing as Rice's vampires, as Rice established the standard that all immortals must experience ennui.
But you know who had a harder time between the 1830s-1984 than a vampire?
People of color. Enslaved people. Queer people. Disabled people. People experiencing homelessness and poverty. All the same groups society stacked the cards against from its earliest formation. The same groups still oppressed by our societal systems to this day.
So please forgive me if I'm tired of gorgeous, healthy, youthful, white vampires lamenting ~*the curse of eternal life*~; for me, it's played out.
Also, by virtue of being a vampire's biography, it is inherently a historical fiction novel. Following Anya/Anna/Collette's life from her vampiric rebirth in the 1830s to the year 1984, it has nothing to say about any particular time period, nor is any new perspective gleaned from viewing certain historical events through the lens of a vampire. History just happens...and Anya/Anna/Collette just happens to live through it.
And the 1984 timeline is just Anya/Anna/Collette looking after a particularly talented little boy - because, like many of Rice's vampires, she is both an artist and a patron of the arts. As I said, it's The Vampire Nanny Diaries, with her trying to determine how much to intervene in the little boy's troubled home life as their bond grows.
But I will say this: At least Anya/Anna/Collette wasn’t thirsting after the little kid...which is more than I can say for some of Rice's vampires...👀 -
Well, it's a book. It's well written and yet it's overly long and a bit boring. Mind you, I am the most boring person you could ever meet. I am the opposite of fun. Like I collect old cookbooks for fun, fun. Yet I was still bored. BUT I didn't quit so it could not have been that bad. Was I really that bored? I was. But I think it was the narrator that made me stay. She's good.
Collette did not make the best choices. Why didn't she ask a certain person IMPORTANT questions when she had the chance? Why cats? Why not rabbits? They would multiply quickly. What was the reason for the intense hunger? Why keep such a lonely existence? Why kids and not older adults? Why no friends? All questions I don't know the answer to. I liked the idea of her preschool (even if it was a super weird place. I would not leave my kid there).
I liked it better than
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. HOWEVER, I'm about sick of these depressed immortal girl stories. Girl, you have the time! Get your life together!!! Learn more, travel, invent, go to therapy, build, help the homeless, get rich, go to therapy!, teach poor people art, help a struggling museum... BE! Just be! Probably have no friends because of her 200 years of woe is me.
Stop whining about food. How's about you get a farm, raise some goats? Boom, I just solved your food problem! You are welcome.
I'd love to read a book about an immortal that's just full of fun, globetrotting, volunteering, and personal wins. Why do they decide to live in such depressing places?? What's that you say? War is-a-coming? Time to go to New Zealand (beautiful this time of year) or Switzerland (I guess??)! Is it France that does all these vampires in? Why do they keep going to France?! Warning, if you find yourself to be a vampire, stay away from France! Why not live on the beach? What's that story about the depressed and starving immortal vampire living on the British Virgin Islands? Oh, wait, there isn't one! But you better believe that that depressed immortal has been to France!
I think I am on to something. Immortal with a goat farm on the beach??! Endless food, endless sun. Guys?? I think I just solved starving immortal vampire depression. I totally just did.
(I know depression is serious and can't be cured by just changing location. Vampires aren't real either. But the beach is nice, you have to admit that). -
Another vampire book - but it’s more accurate to say that it is one particular vampire’s story.
Vampire rules and canon weren’t always followed but that didn’t bother me too much. Vampires are fictional as is Collette’s story (AKA Anna).
Her life both ended and began in the 1830’s. The reader will travel back and forth in time from the 1830’s through the 1940’s and back to the modern time (mid 1980’s).
Collette suffers from the same heartbreaking dilemma that all immortals endure and each loss that she experiences builds on the previous losses.
She unsuccessfully tries again and again to not become attached to people in order to avoid the god of endings and the immense sadness, guilt and despair that follows.
One particularly beautiful section about love is worth sharing to me.
“You still love her,” I said once when he was writing. “Of course I still love her,” he said. “If I did
not still love her, it would mean that I have never loved her.
Love - real love - cannot stop.
It is one of the few things in this world that has no end.
“If I did not love her still, it would mean that it was possible for me to
someday no longer love you.” -
I cannot recommend THE GOD OF ENDINGS enough. It’s a unique and interesting story about a vampire named Collette LeSange. Over many many years, she has finally created a life for herself. She feels at peace, until one day her ties to one of her students brings back her cravings. We move around between timelines to get a glimpse into Collette’s past and I ate it up. At 480 pages, I could not put this book down. It’s dark, contemplative, deals in life and death, and good vs evil. Holland wrote a stellar debut. Do not miss this! Hello…It’s VAMPIRES!
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DNF @65%
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So bland. So boring. So long. So, so long. 466 pages of bland and boring. That’s all.
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The God of Endings is a tragic and beautiful story following one immortal woman's life. Alternating between her past and present to tell her story. I love a good Vampire book and this one has a very "sad girl" vampire that I can only describe as Miss Honey from Matilda and her struggle with the loneliness of her solitary life and her sadness about all the loved ones she has lost over the centuries. This book really blew me away. A depressed vampire to rival Anne Rice's Louis.
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I thought that this was a well written book but it seemed to lag about the half way mark for me, I thought that it started strong because I was initially engrossed with it, but I had a hard time staying with it the rest of the way and quite honestly what happened with her beloved cats just horrified me and maybe it already turned me off after that.
I am giving it 3 stars because as I mentioned it is well written, I tend to rate higher sometimes because I try to see the depth of what the author is conveying and maybe it's just me. -
I received an advance copy of this novel from the publisher, Flatiron Books, in exchange for an honest review.
The God of Endings is a fascinating take on classic vampires. The tone and writing brought to mind Interview with a Vampire, while the main character’s mental state harkened more to Jack Torrence from Stephen King’s The Shining. The vampires in this novel are very traditional in makeup; there are no innovations in vampirism here. Instead, we have a slow, introspective, deeply philosophical story as our central character struggles with the weight of her immortality. This debut is both contemporary and historical, literary and quietly horrific.
The story begins with Anna, the daughter of a gravestone carver in the 1830s. From there we meet Anna’s modern identity, Collette LeSange, as the proprietor of a prestigious private preschool. This is her current life, and we spend half of our time following her story in the present. The other half is spent following her life as Anna and Anya, from her childhood to her vampiric inception to her trudge through human history. In the present we witness Collette’s appetites suddenly and inexplicably change. As she becomes consumed by hunger and the fear of losing her mind or, far worse, her control, we journey alongside her as she contrasts existence with truly living. She is running from the nebulous God of Endings, who may or may not be a product of her frightened mind, and she must decide if running is still worth the effort and pain and heartbreaking loneliness.
This is a treatise on the pros and cons of immortality. It’s an exploration of the value of art and relationships. It contrasts a safe existence with a full life, and questions whether that safety is worth the loneliness it carries. The God of Endings is a thought-provoking, beautifully written novel. I found it a bit too long, and I predicted the resolution from very early on in the story, but this is absolutely a tale worth reading. I look forward to reading whatever else Holland publishes in the future. -
Oh yeah. This melancholic sprawl of a book is just how I take my tea.
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This is probably the most realistic portrayal of what being a vampire would actually be like. The years stretching endlessly full of loss and confusion and wonder.
I especially loved her younger years and how myths and religions were incredibly important in the early days of mankind.
I had somewhat predicted how this book would end, but it didn't take away from my enjoyment at all.
I would tag this with: slow-paced, character-driven, emotional, dark
Trigger warnings: -
This was a Goodreads giveaway. I got about 65% through this but just lost interest. It seemed kind of repetitive going back and forth in the main characters life and you know it's headed somewhere but I just wasn't interested in getting there. I ended up reading the last few pages which told me that the story was going where I thought it was going but again I wasn't interested in how it got to that point.
Too many books on my list to spend more time on this one. -
REREAD REVIEW: December 2023
So many moral questions that I didn't get to process on my first reading of this book. I love how morally gray the entire plot is and how much we watch the main character struggle with trying to do the right thing when there are no right choices.
It's crazy because the book is long but reads so QUICK.
The flipping of perspectives from past to present keeps the story so engaging, I just want to keep reading!!!
It's just that this story is SO affecting!!!!
*Favorite of the year
Original review: 4/05/2023
"The God of Endings" is my new favorite vampire tale. Without a doubt, this book is hefty but I would say it is 100% worth the time.
I was utterly captivated by the gorgeous writing and prose. There are stunning analogies around death (the leaves of fall, the colors before death being so vibrant), destruction, life, youth, nature, time, and art. I need to get a physical copy of this book so I can reread and annotate it.
"The God of Endings" is told through present and past perspectives as we follow one woman's immortal life and journey. I really enjoyed the main character, Collette's perspective and seeing her life play out over such a vast expanse of time. It is this aspect, the past perspective primarily, that makes this book so dense and may turn off readers in my opinion. It did take me a while to settle in to the story but once I did I was hooked.
I found the present perspective especially gripping. It's has a quieter and more subtle tone than the chaotic, war-torn past perspective but it was far more eerie in my opinion. I was reeled in by the focused tone as we follow Collette becoming embroiled in the life of one of her students and the extremely concerning dynamic of his family. I also loved seeing how she dealt with her increasing hunger and what she had to do to survive and go unnoticed as a vampire in modern day.
I also thought that the past perspective, though lengthy at times, was really thought provoking. It made me consider the brutality of Collette's situation. How much devastation she's already lived through and how no one should have to carry themselves through so many lives of pain and war and destruction. We are only dealt so much in our time and it just made me imagine the crushing pain of what immortality would feel like.
I DO want to say however, there was one scene with a black character (who seems to be a prostitute that is on drugs) that made me feel uncomfortable reading it knowing it was being written by a white author. I didn't even think this scene needed to be included in the book and really should have been pointed out and cut by an editor. It was just a very uncomfortable moment that I'm not sure how I feel about.
OVERALL, this story will definitely pull be back in in the future. It is gorgeous, heart-breaking, lyrical, and full. It made me appreciate reading longer books and being really immersed in a world and invested in the characters. This may not be for everyone, but I have to say it was such a happy surprise for me.
(I also read this book for a vlog on my YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/NthKruBkTDs ) -
I very much agree with another reviewer who stated that a book this well-written should have no reason to be given a rating of a mere two stars. But good writing involves more than just...well, good writing.
While Jacqueline Holland has an indisputable talent for painting illustrious backdrops and an enviable way with words, it seems that, just by this book alone, her talent as a writer seemingly stops there. Which is a shame, because a story about a vampire and immortality should be anything but boring. And yet, it is. Painfully so.
A book needs more than just to be fabulously written - especially when it’s a 450+ page book. And yet, there is very little direction. Rather plotless as another reviewer points out. No real tension building, no real heartbreak, nothing really except the main character’s dull existence - which is made all the more insufferable by the fact that she is constantly agonizing about how miserable the world is; how cursed she is to have been given eternal life.
You’d think an existence of nearly 200 years (each chapter alternates between the past and the present, the past being around the time she was born, around the time of the Revolutionary War, and the present being sometime in the 1980s, with each past chapter increasingly catching up to her present day life) would have a bit of excitement and adventure in it. But no, she really does just drone on about how miserable the world and her existence is.
Then the “god of all endings” happens to be a perfectly ordinary, perfectly predictable (perfectly boring) ending, one you’d expect from any vampire tale. Her endless obsession with children and motherhood is honestly a bit strange given all of her special vampire abilities, and it’s even stranger than it takes her nearly two hundred years to make the decision she does (a very obvious one).
Would I read another book from Holland? Possibly. As I must say again, there was no shortage of excellent and detailed writing. But I hope for her next book she will work at exacting an exciting narrative, building suspense, a climax, and an ending that is at the very least satisfying, if it must be utterly predictable. I really wouldn’t advise spending your time on this one though. The best summation I can come up with is that while it’s a lot of beautifully written words, these beautifully written words say little to nothing of real importance.
Edit/additional comment:
I really do hope that Holland writes another book. I think that she is an amazingly gifted writer with enormous potential to write a great book. It just really needs to have SOME excitement, SOME character development...along with relationships between the MC and other characters that move beyond the fleeting or surface level. -
Fatalistic, existential despair wrapped in sparkling words and powerful metaphors.
Plus some vampire stuff happens now and then. -
We rarely think of vampires as reluctant killers, cursed to wander this earth for all eternity and feed off our blood. They’re largely presented as monsters in novels and films.
If you want a different perspective, I encourage you to come meet Collette.
The God of Endings gave me Addie LaRue vibes. They are vastly different stories, but their similarities are apparent. Aside from the obvious immortality angle, there is a focus on art in both books. Interestingly, the last vampire book I read also involved art and, in both, the vampire was an artist. I really like this concept, as it gives the vampire more depth and reminds us that they were once human; that something human lurks in them still.
I found this novel to be a wholly engaging historical fantasy. It never felt as long as it actually is! I felt great empathy for Collette and all she endured or chose to avoid for the sake of her fragile heart. The author did incredibly well painting a sympathetic character who struggled against the hunger that ruled her.
I do have some mixed feelings about how events played out as things concluded. The author happened to address a very delicate topic, but used a manipulative character in this situation. I think it’s realistic, as I’ve known manipulators who have used the issue in a similar way, plus I’d been all for Collette sinking her teeth into this particular character, had she chosen to. So it’s hard for me to explain why the course taken in the story was distressing to me. Despite my uncertainty on the author’s final choices, I do think the last of the line was profoundly haunting and the perfect way to end this immersive tale.
I am immensely grateful to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for my advance listening copy. All opinions are my own. -
Huh. Waffling between a 3 and a 4 on this one. This book was.... not sci-fi/fantasy? It was more like a domestic thriller that happened to have a vampire. I never quite gripped the terror that Collette was supposed to be feeling (except for the cats..... .....) but it was a proper thriller (I guess?) that fell just short of being thrilling. I didn't mind the flashbacks, but they didn't really seem to add much to the current story.
Huh. -
This review can also be found at
https://carolesrandomlife.com/
This was fantastic! I listened to the audiobook, wonderfully performed by Saskia Maarleveld, while following along in a print copy and loved every moment I spent with this epic story. This is a vampire story but it is a different kind of vampire story than what you might be used to. The story is told from Anna/Anya/Collette’s point of view both in the past and in the less distant past of 1984. This immortal woman has seen many things and has done more than a few things she struggles with. I found it easier than expected to empathize with this reluctant immortal.
This story takes us back to Anna’s childhood when her community is plagued by sickness. Anna is saved by her step-grandfather and eventually remade into an immortal. She leads a very lonely life at times but is able to connect with a few key individuals throughout her life. The chapters from Anna’s past are alternated with those from Collette’s more recent years where she runs an exclusive preschool. There is one boy and his family in particular that has captured her attention. She cares deeply even though the things she must do to survive sometimes may harm others. I couldn’t wait to see what she was drawn to and the choices that she would make. The story was beautifully written and at times impossible to put down.
Saskia Maarleveld was the perfect narrator for this story. She captured every aspect of this immortal character throughout the many stages of her long life. I thought that she also did a great job in bringing the secondary characters to life, some of which were children. I liked that she was able to bring out the emotional aspects of the story. I am certain that her performance added to my enjoyment of this wonderful story.
I would definitely recommend this book to others. This is an epic story that took me on a journey that I will not soon forget. The writing pulled me into the story almost immediately. It is hard to believe that this is the author’s debut novel. I cannot wait to read more of her work in the future.
I received a review copy of this book from Flatiron Books and Macmillan Audio. -
The God of Endings is a slow, but definitely not lethargic, and achingly beautiful story of Collette, a tortured soul of a vampire who has survived trauma and toil over the centuries. Due to her "condition", she is reluctant to attach to others, which leaves her lonely and unsettled.
"How presumptuous is the gift of life when arrogance is implicit in the act of love that calls another into existence?"
She has the ability to give the gift of immortality, along with the curse of vampirism, to others, yet she walks the world alone. She sees the desire to have someone join her as selfish and unkind, dooming her to an existence as an immortal outcast.
They are completely different books, but just the same, I believe that if you enjoyed
Life After Life,
The God of Endings is the next book for you. -
You want vampires? WE GOT EM. You want alternating perspectives between the past and present? DONE AND DONE. You want the beautiful prose of a talented writer? SAY LESS.
You want anything remotely interesting or exciting to happen in this 500 page book? OH SHIT we left that out…
I feel like this book was the cusp of so many interesting narratives but couldn’t commit to any of them fully and also it felt like the author forgot about the vampire stuff for like 80 percent of the story. -
Aburrido.
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I find it hard to reconcile the concept of a 140-year-old being with this clueless bumbler of a protagonist. I couldn't even finish it.
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Oh yeah. I'm definitely in Stephanie, Claire, and Mattie's camp on this one.
Collette's reoccurring questioning of life, friendship, and humanity was something I would have read lots more of. I'm not sure which timeline I enjoyed more; either way, they came together SO powerfully in the end. I'm telling you, Jacqueline could not have written the ending any better, that last page reached my soul.
Was the scene with the police at her house pretty laughable? Yeah. Absolutely. The book lost a rating star for me, due to that scene. But like Leo, that star came back. Five stars. All the stars.
