2024/029: Disturbance — Jenna Clake

[tamaranth]

2024/029: Disturbance — Jenna Clake

There was not a box in which to write: I have been casting spells with my teenage neighbour and I think I might be losing control. [loc. 1639]

The nameless narrator of Disturbance is in her mid-twenties. She has moved to a small town to escape her abusive ex. She's still frightened that he will track her down, or that he's dead and haunting her. It does seem that there is a presence sharing her small flat: lights flicker, doors open and close, she feels as though she is not alone. One hot night, she watches from her window as her teenaged neighbour Chelsea enacts some kind of magical ritual, perhaps connected with Joseph, whose treatment of Chelsea troubles our narrator. 'I knew from experience that the accusations could only worsen, and then something terrible would happen.'

She becomes friends with Chelsea, and with Chelsea's friend Jess: she attempts magic to rid herself of the weight of that abusive relationship, and perhaps to remove any remaining influence of her ex. But she's still not sure that magic is possible -- and she begins to wonder if Jess really has Chelsea's best interests at heart.

This is an aptly-titled novel: it gave me nightmares, and made me think about some of my own long-ago relationships in a different light. I'm not sure the narrator is altogether sane, and I'm not sure whether the things that she experiences are 'real' in any objective sense. But her voice is powerful, and the story of three 'witches' is unsettling, though it never tips fully towards the supernatural. I think I'll read more by this author: I found her style compelling.

Fulfils the ‘published by Hachette’ rubric of the 52 books in 2024 challenge.

Fulfils the ‘A novel with an unreliable narrator’ rubric of the Something Bookish Reading Challenge.