Book Review for A Madness so Discrete by Mindy McGinnis
A Madness so Discrete, by Mindy McGinnis, is a dark tale about a young woman who finds her place in the shadows, as she struggled to understand the thin line she walks between sanity and pure madness.
The story begins with Grace Mae, whose father impregnated her with his child, and is thus now a resident at a mental asylum. After a violent altercation with a doctor, Grace is sent to the cellar, where she meets the odd but well-intentioned Dr. Thornhollow, a visiting physician who is intrigued by the instability of the human mind. Grace proceeds to strike a bargain with the doctor; in exchange for helping her escape the asylum, she would become his assistant to solving various murder cases. However, not long after her escape the body of a woman is found on the street. As her terrifying past continues to haunt her, Grace slowly starts to lose herself to the monster that had always been lurking in the dark of her mind.
I enjoyed the disturbing qualities of the characters. Grace, a young noble who had her silver spoon taken away from her the moment her father touched her:;Dr. Thornhollow, a man who prides himself in his observation skills and humanity; and even the murderer, a person who seems so self-depreciating that he ends up a victim of his own crimes. Each of their flaws intertwine with one another as they drag one another further and further away from the realm of normalcy. Perhaps the most frightening was Grace’s transformation; her eerie way of dealing with her pain allowed her to give into her demons for a while, and it was an aspect of the book I enjoyed thoroughly.
Which brings me to one of the overarching themes of this book, that society tends to reject those it cannot understand. McGinnis brings to the book a horrific level of realism that is hard to dismiss. Whether it be a jilted spouse, a stain to someone’s reputation, or even a small hindrance in the grand scheme of things, anyone can be declared insane. It doesn’t matter the cruelties the orderlies inflict, or the abuse the doctors put their patients through; innocence is robbed regardless. As McGinnis has shown, there is no telling who the actual monster is, and where your demons are lurking. Time and time again we endeavor to know, but even then, it slips our understanding, as does our flaws, our instincts, our morals. How powerful a hold society has on its prisoners, I cannot say.
While I wish that more details and character flaws could be fleshed out, I loved the book. Its dialogue is hauntingly beautiful, reminding humanity of an irrational edge we tend to walk towards. The obsession is like a drug, one that could drown us in one fell swoop, covering us in the dark until we’ve wasted away, with nothing left for society to burn. I would give this book a rating of a 4.6 out of 5 stars, and would recommend this to those who enjoy reading about nightmares, Stephen King’s Carrie, and the criminally insane.
