Member Review
Review by
Elle H, Reviewer
Spitting Gold by Carmella Lowkis is a book about family, chosen and blood and the strength of each. It’s about greed and the way it changes people. It’s about ghosts and fairy tales and the people who tell those stories. It’s about sisters, and love, and all the ways that love can look and feel and be.
The story is told in first person, and while I typically prefer more escapism in my fiction, the insight we get into Sylvie and Florence because of this point of view is integral to the story. The first half of the novel is told from the older sister’s perspective, and the second half from the younger. While there is some overlap, the author does a great job at not making us sit through the same dialogue again - there is a whole second story happening that we get access to when the POV switches.
I found myself more compelled by the queer sister’s story, of the two, but that has less to do with the writing and more with my personal preferences in books. Both sisters were captivating, and by the time I was 60% through the book, it consumed my every thought, and I didn’t want to put it down.
The relationship between the sisters is one of the best I’ve read. The miscommunication and inability to see past their own experiences, a trope so often used to spice up a romance novel, makes Sylvie and Charlotte feel like real people. They are fleshed-out and flawed, they are passionate and angry, they love each other so much and they are so, so hurt by each other. It’s family, and it’s real.
The ending destroyed me, as all good endings do. I loved this book beginning to end, and I hope this review helps other readers to find it and love it, too.
Content warnings: Family death, domestic abuse, suicide, homophobia. Nothing particularly graphic, although the domestic abuse has brief heavy moments.
Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.
The story is told in first person, and while I typically prefer more escapism in my fiction, the insight we get into Sylvie and Florence because of this point of view is integral to the story. The first half of the novel is told from the older sister’s perspective, and the second half from the younger. While there is some overlap, the author does a great job at not making us sit through the same dialogue again - there is a whole second story happening that we get access to when the POV switches.
I found myself more compelled by the queer sister’s story, of the two, but that has less to do with the writing and more with my personal preferences in books. Both sisters were captivating, and by the time I was 60% through the book, it consumed my every thought, and I didn’t want to put it down.
The relationship between the sisters is one of the best I’ve read. The miscommunication and inability to see past their own experiences, a trope so often used to spice up a romance novel, makes Sylvie and Charlotte feel like real people. They are fleshed-out and flawed, they are passionate and angry, they love each other so much and they are so, so hurt by each other. It’s family, and it’s real.
The ending destroyed me, as all good endings do. I loved this book beginning to end, and I hope this review helps other readers to find it and love it, too.
Content warnings: Family death, domestic abuse, suicide, homophobia. Nothing particularly graphic, although the domestic abuse has brief heavy moments.
Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.
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