With her latest YA novel, I Am Made of Death, Kelly Andrew once again drops us into the world of her first books The Whispering Dark and Your Blood, My Bones.
Since the moment she fell into a hole at Red Rock Canyon at four years old, the protagonist, Vivienne Farrow, cannot speak without causing imminent death. Broken and terrified, she met a creature that crawled into her bones and made her voice poisonous. Tired of feeling so out of control within her own body, Vivienne decides to risk death by convincing a medical student to perform a theoretical surgical exorcism on her. A big wrench in her plan comes in the form of Thomas Walsh, the new interpreter her step father hires to follow her around. Thomas is under a mountain of debt and Phillip Farrow’s job will take care of most of it — he cannot afford to lose track of Vivienne. As the two isolated teens are forced to cohabit, they start to form a bond that can ruin both of their goals.
Similar in tone to her previous books, the atmosphere of this book is dark, messy, and tense. Vivienne is a bit of an unreliable narrator in the sense that she loses track of her body when the creature seizes control. Vivienne’s anger and despair make her a difficult protagonist to like although she is an easy protagonist to root for. This contrasts with the way Thomas is easily likeable, but at the same time we can’t help but root that he gets out of Vivienne’s way.
Vivienne inhabits a world of powerful families with a lot of money. Although the biggest reason for Vivienne to feel out of control is the supernatural, her home situation is almost as oppressive. Andrew forces the reader to see that humans can be just – if not more – monstrous than actual monsters. She also illuminates the drastic measures that young adults are forced to take when the people who are supposed to take care of them instead put them in harm’s way.
Vivienne is depicted as cold and opportunistic, because she doesn’t spend a terrible amount of time considering the consequences of her actions. Even though Thomas is supposed to be the voice of reason and a light foil to Vivienne’s dark, Thomas also spends little time mourning the losses that occur. They don’t think of things as “right” or “wrong” but do reflect on how their actions cause pain to their loved ones and by the end are forced to confront how far they’re willing to stray to achieve the goals they desire.
If readers have read Andrew’s previous novels, they’ll find the world easier to understand and enjoy the appearances of and references to characters from the first two novels. Between her three novels, Andrew is carefully building an intriguing world full of unknown magic and cryptids. However, readers don’t need to have read her previous novels to appreciate this book. They will easily be hooked by Vivienne’s determination to once again be in control of her own voice.
- Liliana