Review: As I Descended by Robin Talley

Title: As I Descended
Author: Robin Talley
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release date: September 6th 2016
Pages: 370
Genre: Young Adult paranormal
Source: Purchased
Add to Goodreads | Puchase from Bookshop

Maria Lyon and Lily Boiten are their school’s ultimate power couple—even if no one knows it but them.

Only one thing stands between them and their perfect future: campus superstar Delilah Dufrey.

Golden child Delilah is a legend at the exclusive Acheron Academy, and the presumptive winner of the distinguished Cawdor Kingsley Prize. She runs the school, and if she chose, she could blow up Maria and Lily’s whole world with a pointed look, or a carefully placed word.

But what Delilah doesn’t know is that Lily and Maria are willing to do anything—absolutely anything—to make their dreams come true. And the first step is unseating Delilah for the Kingsley Prize. The full scholarship, awarded to Maria, will lock in her attendance at Stanford―and four more years in a shared dorm room with Lily.

Maria and Lily will stop at nothing to ensure their victory—including harnessing the dark power long rumored to be present on the former plantation that houses their school.

But when feuds turn to fatalities, and madness begins to blur the distinction between what’s real and what is imagined, the girls must decide where they draw the line.  

This was a super cool premise, but I somehow couldn't get fully into it. In theory, I loved everything about it--a creepy queer YA retelling of Macbeth? A Southern boarding school built on what used to be a slave plantation and is now haunted by the ghosts of the slaves that died there? Not one but two gay couples as the protagonists? Latinx mythology? Yes please.  But for some reason, I kept waiting for things to really take off and for all of these elements to fit together, which unfortunately never happened.

The setting of this boarding school on what used to be a plantation and the creepy atmosphere were really well-done; the one thing that I did get out of this book was some really creepy vibes. The interactions these characters have with ghosts are fascinating and engaging, and I honestly liked them better than I liked the interactions the characters had with each other. However, I wish the history of the plantation was worked into the ghost story better; I was hoping to hear the stories of some of the enslaved people who lived on this plantation, but that unfortunately was not the case, and the story of why this school is haunted fell flat for me.

The characters were okay; they're definitely interesting, but I felt like we didn't get to know them well enough outside of the paranormal activities to actually care about all that much. Especially Maria and Lily were confusing because their motivations just didn't seem realistic. What sets off the events in this book is Maria's desire to win a prize that guarantees a scholarship to any university of her choice... even though she's the daughter of a prominent senator and didn't seem to really need a scholarship to be able to go to a fancy school. Lily pushes Maria towards committing less-than-moral acts because she wants Maria to win a scholarship to Stanford, where she has already been accepted, so that they can stay together. Asides from being very confused about the timeline of these college admissions and this prize and scholarship, I just didn't buy that Maria and Lily would be be willing to cause this much harm to other people just to get Maria, who doesn't need a scholarship, a scholarship to Stanford. And since this is a Macbeth retelling, you can assume the point was to show Maria's and Lily's descent into madness because of their selfish desires, but because the evil spirits were the main focus, that element seemed kind of forced, and I was confused by the overall message.

Even though the story and setting were intriguing, I had to push myself to keep going at times because I got a little bored and I was overall underwhelmed by the story. All around, a good atmospheric, creepy read, but an underwhelming story, characters, and message. I loved Robin Talley's debut but hadn't read anything else by her, so I will have to check out her other ones to see if they're more up my alley.