Just Another Final Girl Review (Brittany) Levely-Connolly’s Reviews > Honeysuckle > Status Update

Rory obsession with finding a solution for the permanence of daye has prompted him towards more and more extreme measures as solutions to problems
Experimental alterations and methods have caused anxiety and nightmares for years.

Also really love that this is a Canadian horror novel - the author isn’t originally from Canada but she lives in Toronto now and it was written and published here

Honestly don’t like romance style books very much but this one is very interesting and well written
I love the welsh folklore tale being revisited in a more modern time period and the ethical questions it brings to light regarding women’s subjectivity and male agency. At the same time the author creates an entirely new narrative based on the original tale rather than just a simple modernization of the original

Experiment how to make daye last longer and more human like
Ethical questions of Rory being in love with daye and having physical relations with her

Theme: building constructs -Blodeuwedd a difficult construct to build

Questions of autonomy vs subjectivity
Being a person- is a flower girl a person or a thing
Is she a real girl or something else
Creating a friend vs making friends

Who is daye without Rory?
What to do when he isn’t there? - loneliness, boredom

What was she before him? What is she without him?
Who is she independent from him?


Isolation from other humans- interaction with others highlights her differences

Interesting how the gap between Rory and Daye increases as his obsession with discovering a way to increase her physical longevity and the time between transition

His desire to keep her alive is the reason that thy are growing apart

It’s an easy read in terms of diction used and narrative structure.
Linear timeline - but covers a long timespan seasons and years are covered quickly

Entirely unfamiliar with the story of Blodeuwedd.
So of course after the creation of Daye for Rory by his sister I had to google the origin of the creature and the story it came from. Because obviously this story is based on a retelling in a way of the original but also modernized and changed in some ways

Genre: horror
Fairytale retelling/semi-modernization
Folk horror
UK Horror

“He couldn’t linger on the horror of it, he couldn’t allow himself to think: I am taking Daye apart.”
-Blodeuwedd- girl made out of flowers
—welsh folktale