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Josie and Jack

Kelly Braffet

Start date: January 1, 2014

Finish date: January 31, 2014

Discussion: DB book club - currently reading

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Jan 03, 2014 Heather V ~The Other Heather~ rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: db-book-club, disturbing-books-reading-list, dark-and-darker, my-actual-physical-library, reviewed

Well. That was a wholly weird reading experience. I devoured the entire book in under 24 hours and feel as though I've actually been to the places where Josie and Jack lived. But...I'm unsatisfied, in the end.

The story of the twisted lives led by the titular Raeburn siblings is told in first person by teenaged Josie, which affords us a fascinating look at her charming sociopath of an older brother. We can see why she adores him and how he brings so many others to their knees. And we are alerted Well. That was a wholly weird reading experience. I devoured the entire book in under 24 hours and feel as though I've actually been to the places where Josie and Jack lived. But...I'm unsatisfied, in the end.

The story of the twisted lives led by the titular Raeburn siblings is told in first person by teenaged Josie, which affords us a fascinating look at her charming sociopath of an older brother. We can see why she adores him and how he brings so many others to their knees. And we are alerted from page one that theirs is not a normal relationship.

Without giving too much away, I feel I must qualify one major thing that I suspect draws a lot of readers to this novel in the first place:

There is, technically, no incest to behold...depending on how stringent your definition of "incest" is.

Now, at the risk of sounding deranged for even bringing that up, I'll add that a bunch of us are reading it as our monthly pick for our Disturbing Books club, so when it was first pitched to us years ago it was said that the incestuous angle was in large part what made the story "disturbing." Add to that the number of Amazon reviews that (interestingly - I'm not judging) speak of disappointment at the lack of brother/sister action and...well. It's not crazy to assume many folks who survived V.C. Andrews in their preteen years - myself included - would arrive at Braffet's book with a hefty dose of morbid curiosity. I'm here to tell you that there's no attic scene on a grungy old mattress for Jack and Josie. (There's even an overt reference to "Flowers in the Attic" by one of the later characters, so at least we know the nods were intentional.)

That's not to say their relationship is healthy. Oh, hells to the no. There's dysfunction on every conceivable level between these siblings, abandoned by their suicidal mother and abused for years by their psychotic drunken physics professor of a father, and left to grow up essentially alone together in the middle of nowhere. They believe that each other is the only person worthy and capable of loving and being loved. They absolutely have a sexualized view of each other and have no concept of appropriate boundaries. By the time we meet them - Josie at 16, Jack at 18 - you can imagine how mentally stable they aren't.

The frustrating thing for me about their story, though, is not that we don't get to rubberneck at any taboo sex scenes between them (although confirmation of such a thing would've served to better justify the ending). Rather, it's that Braffet spends so much time weaving this rich, dark tapestry - one I could smell and taste and hear much of the time, unnerving as it was - only to leave just about every thread dangling in midair, unfinished, unresolved, leaving one to wonder what the point of introducing nearly any character outside of a central few really was. I suppose some of them (like Josie's first "boyfriend") are devices meant to show us Jack's true colours and how much Josie is willing to take. Others, though - their father's hated but kindly colleague, a string of Jack's conquests, various young men who catch Josie's interest - are built up as though they'll play a part in how this sibling hell will surely collapse on itself...but they're dropped without another mention. I'm left wondering why we spent any time with them at all.

Ultimately, by the last couple of chapters, a few too many nasty turns take place, and as we see brace for the inevitable crash and burn of the life Josie and Jack have built (or stolen), when it comes it doesn't feel authentic somehow. Despite knowing for 90% of the book that these two are generally pretty horrible people, the build-up to the grand finale seems too insignificant to result in such a dramatic end for them. It's as though the final couple of twists come out of nowhere, and just about any other outcome would've felt more likely.

(There's also reason, in the final act, to question my opening statement about what *isn't* featured in the book; a few throwaway lines make you wonder if maybe it was actively happening all along and Braffet just chose to keep it offscreen for whatever reason...but I don't know what to think about that, and I am dismayed by how little I care after having watched their story limp across the finish line in such a simultaneously underwhelming and over-the-top manner. How it could be both, I cannot explain. It just was.)

Admittedly I was totally absorbed in their world for the 24 hours it took me to consume this book. It earned its three stars for that alone. I just wish it hadn't made me stop caring about the fates of Jack and his "smaller sister" before it turned me loose from its grip. Because for the first two-thirds of their tale, I cared far more than I ought to have done. I was ready to be shocked or heartbroken or horrified or depressed or all of the above.

I am, instead, wishing I'd stopped reading fifty pages ago, just so I could always have the impressively vivid Raeburn lives whirling about in my head...not beaten into the ground and brought to an anticlimactic halt. ...more

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