Folie á deux: A review of Marrow by Tarryn Fisher

Marrow by Tarryn Fisher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the Bone there is a house.

In the house there is a girl.

In the girl there is a darkness.

Margo is not like other girls. She lives in a derelict neighborhood called the Bone, in a cursed house, with her cursed mother, who hasn’t spoken to her in over two years. She lives her days feeling invisible. It’s not until she develops a friendship with her wheelchair-bound neighbor, Judah Grant, that things begin to change. When neighborhood girl, seven-year-old Neveah Anthony, goes missing, Judah sets out to help Margo uncover what happened to her.

What Margo finds changes her, and with a new perspective on life, she’s determined to find evil and punish it–targeting rapists and child molesters, one by one.

But hunting evil is dangerous, and Margo risks losing everything, including her own soul. 

MY REVIEW

There is a psychotic intelligence to Tarryn Fisher's writing. It's infectious. It's intrusive. It's folie á deux, contagious insanity. It's manipulative in a way that reflects genius. That is what I loved most about Marrow. Even her descriptives give life to the most mundane things. Noises. Objects. It's described in a way that gives any, and everything, a soul. Marrow is a living, breathing thing that will invade your mind, rearrange the furniture, then blow it up.

Parts of me craved a bit more character interaction, but instead I found myself imprisoned inside the mind of Margo Moon. The hero? The villain? The other. Tarryn Fisher's characters surpass all labels. It is never black and white. It's all about perception. With Marrow, no two readers are going to read the same story. I'll admit, I did find some things confusing, leaving me with unanswered questions, but I can't help assuming that was the intent, part of the premeditated psychosis that is beyond my comprehension. That is the genius.

This is what sets Tarryn Fisher's novels apart from the formulated influx of fantastical romance novels where the characters' farts smell of love and promises. This is its own genre of fiction.

Some will say that love is definitely a minor theme in Marrow. If talking about the love between Judah and Margo, I agree, but love is the central theme. Margo's love for something far more dark. Something, that by the end of the novel, I not only understood, but condoned. Calling her a vigilante would be far too simple. Obsession. Vengeance. Justice. Whatever the motivation, she loved too much. The intent that created Margo, was emotional and deeper than any one word such as love could adequately describe. So for me, in some truly messed up way, this story had a "Happily Ever After."

But for you, you'll have to read it to decide.

READ ON!

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