Review: Possessed by Niki Valentine

Ive always had qualms about the if you like X youll like Y! comparison trick that seems to be our Twitter-era shortcut for actually saying anything meaningful about a book. And with good reason, apparently: Ive been burnt so many times now that Im experiencing a sort of Pavlovian response to being told, with a marketers certainty, that Im going to love something. Particularly if that something is compared, by means of a peppy little design element on the front cover, with a recent blockbuster film.'Often, these comparisons are a sort of critical effervescence: fizzy and alluring, but disappointingly empty. Sometimes, theyre so far off base that theyre not even playing baseball any more.

From the outset, Niki Valentines'Possessed is an insecure teen desperate for attention and validation. Theres the if you loved Black Swan youll love this! exhortation on the front cover. Theres the bizarre intro explaining that the Valentine is, under another name, actually an award-winning, best-selling author. But neither of these succeed in their efforts of misdirection. Frankly,'Possessed is a scrappy, mediocre work at best, and Im a bit baffled by its very existence.

Set in a music academy in England, the novel follows musical prodigy Emma, a scholarship student from Manchester whos distinctly out of place amongst the moneyed, upper-class set. Fortunately, Emma immediately meets the charismatic twins Sophie and Matilde, who become her close friends. It doesnt take long, however, for Emma to realise that theres something strangely possessive about the twins attitudes towards each other, with Sophie in particular becoming almost vicious when it seems that someone might intrude upon her relationship with Matilde. The dynamics between the trio are eerie and unbalanced, becoming more so when Matilde begins dating Henry, introducing further change into their already complex network.

Theres also the external pressure of daily life at the academy, and shy Matilde seems to be buckling under the weight of it, with the crux of it occurring when she breaks down during a masterclass. Not long after, shes found dead, apparently having committed suicide. Emma is distraught at the loss of her friend, and between her grief and the demands of her coursework, she finds that her grip on reality seems to be slipping. The line between dream and memory becomes blurred for her, and she seems to be losing time as well. But throughout it all theres one constant: the possessive, immensely charismatic Sophie, who just might be at the root of it all.

Possessed seeks to bring us an unreliable narrator as well as an unreliable narrative, striving to have us wonder whether Emmas experiences are real or imagined, supernatural or explicable. But though the concept is compelling, the execution is lacking enough that if you were lining up for the guillotine you wouldnt need to be too worried about your head coming off.

The prose reads like a sledgehammer to the brain, with every sentence so short and choppy that you have to wonder whether, unbeknownst to the rest of us, there was at some point last year a recent urgent recall of every form of punctuation other than a full-stop. Take, for example:'She knew she might have imagined it but she felt like shed seen a ghost. She didnt believe in that kind of thing but it was how it felt. Or this:'Emma stared at the space where Henry had been. It was for the best. She would have liked a boyfriend like Henry, but how could she with what was going on in her life? Or this (spoiler alertskip on to the next paragraph if youre sensitive to that sort of thing): Emma was mostly happy and she didnt feel that someone else was in control of her now. She no longer believed that she had been possessed.She had been stressed and who wouldnt have been under the circumstances?

The foreshadowing is not shaded so much as it is blocked in with the narrative equivalent of bolding and all-caps, and Im slightly offended that the author thought it necessary to repeatedly, and I mean repeatedly (REPEATEDLY. REPEATEDLY.'Get it? Are you sure? Because I have plenty of text colours and font options at my disposal here)'highlight the behavioural distinction between the twins in order to set up an ambiguity of identity. Had I marked every occasion that Matildes nail biting and Sophies self-assuredness was mentioned my copy would have been more bristly than value pack of toothbrushes.

The hamfistedness of the writing infects the characterisation, too, and theres a sense of these characters being little more than chunks of ectoplasm drifting around on the bookish version of the Hollywood blue screen. Because of the utter lack of depth given to Emma or any of those around her, its impossible to respond to her bizarre actions with anything more than a bewildered what? (thus I exclaimed many times while reading this book.) Its not that theres a narrative ambiguity at play here, its that this book makes absolutely no sense on any level unless one is to assume that the entirety of the narration exists in Emmas head and this is all a retelling of Robert Cormiers'I am the Cheese or something by Philip K Dick. Unfortunately I am quite certain that this is not the case.

Since its still January, its not too late to add another New Years resolution to my current one of never reading comments on the internet. And thats to never,'ever read a book thats compared with a current blockbuster film unless its for schadenfreudian purposes.

Rating:

With thanks to Hachette Australia for the review copy

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