Now on to the review:
I started this book with no particular expectation. I read a few Goodreads reviews, but they didn't really give out much (and I am grateful for that!) Now, how or where do I even start? I would say that White is for Witching belongs to the Young Adult going into New Adult genre, mixed in with Fantasy, Weird, Eerie, Horror, Gothic, Tragedy, and so on and so forth. It's a little bit of anything and everything, packed tightly in a book that's not even 300 pages long. You'd think all these things would be too much for one book; but no! Heck no! This book was perfection; I wouldn't have it any other way whatsoever! That said, I realize that this book is not for everyone. Most people would either love it or hate it. As for me, if you haven't figured it out already, I loved it.
White is for Witching is a weird little story, and at the same time, it strikes a chord that anyone can recognize. Loss. Tragedy. Grief. Most of us have experienced it at one point or another, and if not quite yet, then will experience it. Have you seen the movie that came out towards the end of 2014, called The Babadook? Well, this book reminded me of that movie in some ways. In both, we see a grieving family trying to cope and live with their individual losses. Take The Babadook, add more, much more to it, and you may have a little bit of taste of White is for Witching. It's grimmer, sadder, eerier, weirder, scarier, darker, BETTER.
This book is about Miranda Silver, and her twin brother Eliot, her friend Ore, her father Luc, the housekeeper Sade, and a few others. It's about the house where they all live. It's about Miranda's mother who has passed away. It's about Luc's struggle to find a balance between his grief over losing his wife, and the need to stay strong for his teenage children, one of whom, Miranda, is suffering from a rare mental illness called the Pica. Miranda feels an urge to consume things that are not really edible food. She would rather have a plastic spoon or a ball of chalk any day over the delicious meals Luc prepares for her. And then there's Eliot, her twin brother, who is also grieving, but has no room to show it while stuck between Luc and Miranda, with nowhere else to go.
The absence of Lily Silver, the mother of the twins, is felt throughout the book. Lily was like a buffer; her presence had always smoothed over the real problems in their 4-person family-- the unusual attachment between the twins, Luc's awkwardness with the children. She tied them all together; she kept them normal. She kept them sane. But now she was gone, and the void left by her was creeping up on all the rest of the inhabitants of the house where they all lived. Did Lily shield them from the monster that lived in the house as well? Was everything that they knew simply an illusion of happiness? Were they happy or safe in the first place?
I really don't know how to talk more about this book without giving away the plot; so I won't even try. All I'll say is that you will find a lot of parallels in this story. Is this a horror story? Is this a story about human relationships? Is it about dealing with death? Is it about living with a mental illness? Where is the line that separates sanity from insanity. When one person is sick, how do the others in a family stay normal? Are monsters real? Or are we all monstrous beings waiting for the opportunity to bare our fangs? I guess each individual will interpret this story differently, based on his/her experiences. But that's what makes this book so unique, so great.
All I have left to say is that-- Go read this book. If you like dark, gothic tales of monsters and madness, go read it. If you like family drama, death, sadness, tragedy, go read it. If you like a gut wrenching love story, well, this may not exactly be "gut wrenching", but still, go read it. If you like to read a book and after finishing it look around to make sure all the lights are on in the house, go read it. Just go read it. Like, NOW!
5 out of 5.
Title: White is for Witching (Buy on Amazon)
Author: Helen Oyeyemi
Publisher: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, New York, 2009
Genre: Fiction, Fantasy, New Adult, Gothic
Source: University of Denver Library