RaveElectric Literature... Schaitkin elevates a juicy page-turner into an incisive cultural commentary that de-centers the white female victim narrative ... instead of lingering on the well-trodden drama of the tragedy itself, the author turns a critical eye toward our collective fixations and assumptions ... Through narrative, character development and world-building, Schaitkin doesn’t just manage to avoid the Dead Girl story trap, she successfully subverts it ... This narrative choice allows the author to highlight the persistent, problematic fetishization of dead white women through Claire, as well as invoke issues of race and class through Clive—and treat both concerns with equal importance ... Schaitkin’s exhaustive, research-backed rendering of the island of Saint X and its inhabitants is key to the novel’s ability to transcend what might otherwise have been a simplistic story about another missing woman. Through the careful portrayal of Caribbean characters and culture, the author calls attention to the ripple effect of one woman’s death on an entire community ... By telling these stories—the ones we don’t usually hear—Schaitkin de-centers and helps to partially dismantle the dominant narrative of the white female victim ... Schaitkin effectively brings new dimension to the subject by facing its ugly side head-on. Instead of romanticizing Alison’s death, the novel addresses the dysfunction of glamorizing or profiting from these situations, emotionally or financially ... Schaitkin wisely avoids a neat resolution, underscoring that what’s at issue is less how or why Alison died, and more the reverberations and implications of our mythologizing of such events.
