As I Descended

I’ve only read one Robin Talley book before I started As I Descended, and that one holds great personal value to me. I live in India where being with someone of the same gender is considered illegal and LGBT people are highly discriminated. When I read my first Robin Talley book, What We Left Behind, and my best friend saw what I was reading about, he found it in him to come out to me. Which brings me to the fact that I had HIGH expectations going into this book that were because of a) past experiences and b) that this was a Macbeth retelling. “Wicked things this way come.” My Thoughts: 1. I’m not a believer in ghosts – I never have been. When I was a kid and everyone around me thought it would be cool to tell ghost stories, I listened to be a part of the group and not because I believed. I loved how As I Descended had a mixture of those who believed and those who didn’t. I also LOVED how REAL Robin Talley made ghosts seem in this book. 2. To elaborate the last line above, I loved the how spirits were handled in this book. They were this menacing background presence and even spoke in another language. I loved all the ghost stories and the noises everyone heard. THIS BOOK DID GHOSTS WELL. I’ll never believe, but this was still a GREAT story. 3. I LOVED THAT THERE WAS A F/F (and also an M/M) RELATIONSHIP. Equal to that, I also loved the girls (and boys) in the relationship. They were such different people, but the way they were together, the way they were always on the other’s mind made this so much better and the ending that much harder. 4. I ADORED THE MULTIPLE POVs IN THIS BOOKS. I loved learning what each of the characters was like – Lily, Maria, Brandon, Delilah and Mateo. The POV switch was so insightful, and kept the entire thing from being monotonous. I also loved that the *ahem* fatal scenes WERE TOLD FROM THE POVs OF THAT PERSON, BECAUSE HOW DIFFERENT AND COOL IS THAT? 5. Basically, this book EXCEEDED my expectations and I’m going to be adding Robin Talley to my list of auto-buy authors. A fast paced, spirit filled perfectly executed diverse book that I couldn’t recommend more.