The Molly Southbourne trilogy, by Tade Thompson
Molly Southbourne's parents taught her four simple rules:
"If you see yourself, run.
Don't bleed.
Blot, burn, bleach.
Find a hole, find your parents."
For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she’s been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.
Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she’ll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?
This set of three cross-genre novellas has one of the most intriguing premises that I've ever come across. I don't want to give away more than the blurb, because half of what is so fun and compelling about these novellas is learning along with Molly exactly what's going on and why.
I read the first novella in a single gulp, and would have continued if it hadn't been late at night. The next day I immediately bought and read the next two.
The first novella stands on its own and comes to a reasonable conclusion. The second two do not stand alone; they're just as good as the first, but different in tone and themes. The first novella gains a lot of power from the inexplicable mystery of how and why Molly's power exists and works the way it does. The second two provide unexpectedly satisfying solutions to many of the mysteries, but sometimes an unsolved mystery has a haunting quality that the solution lacks.
( Read more... )
Any story about clones and doppelgangers will be about identity, but Molly Southbourne is also about generational trauma and the inflection point where people have to choose to do what's always been done, or commit themselves to doing things better even when they don't know if that's possible.
As far as I know these novellas are a complete trilogy. I really hope Tade writes more of them though, however, because I would love to read more in this world and about these characters.
Content notes: body horror, violence. Tade is a psychiatrist, and his medical knowledge makes a plotline in the second book particularly extra-horrifying.
(I know Tade via the internet, hence the first name. I'd have written the same review if I didn't, though, only I'd have used his surname.)
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"If you see yourself, run.
Don't bleed.
Blot, burn, bleach.
Find a hole, find your parents."
For as long as Molly Southbourne can remember, she’s been watching herself die. Whenever she bleeds, another molly is born, identical to her in every way and intent on her destruction.
Molly knows every way to kill herself, but she also knows that as long as she survives she’ll be hunted. No matter how well she follows the rules, eventually the mollys will find her. Can Molly find a way to stop the tide of blood, or will she meet her end at the hand of a girl who looks just like her?
This set of three cross-genre novellas has one of the most intriguing premises that I've ever come across. I don't want to give away more than the blurb, because half of what is so fun and compelling about these novellas is learning along with Molly exactly what's going on and why.
I read the first novella in a single gulp, and would have continued if it hadn't been late at night. The next day I immediately bought and read the next two.
The first novella stands on its own and comes to a reasonable conclusion. The second two do not stand alone; they're just as good as the first, but different in tone and themes. The first novella gains a lot of power from the inexplicable mystery of how and why Molly's power exists and works the way it does. The second two provide unexpectedly satisfying solutions to many of the mysteries, but sometimes an unsolved mystery has a haunting quality that the solution lacks.
( Read more... )
Any story about clones and doppelgangers will be about identity, but Molly Southbourne is also about generational trauma and the inflection point where people have to choose to do what's always been done, or commit themselves to doing things better even when they don't know if that's possible.
As far as I know these novellas are a complete trilogy. I really hope Tade writes more of them though, however, because I would love to read more in this world and about these characters.
Content notes: body horror, violence. Tade is a psychiatrist, and his medical knowledge makes a plotline in the second book particularly extra-horrifying.
(I know Tade via the internet, hence the first name. I'd have written the same review if I didn't, though, only I'd have used his surname.)
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