RaveAutostraddleJudas Goat is full of these images, of this language that makes you want to look away while pulling you closer ... Bates writes with such precision it’s almost ghastly ... a splash of cold water to the face. These poems wake you up only to make you tremble with their frankness.
Zoje Stage
MixedPIttsburgh City PaperWithin the first pages of Getaway, I already found myself at a place of unease. The traumatic event that Imogen survives is essentially a fictionalized version of the Tree of Life shooting, and while there are moments that set it apart from the events that day, in general, it\'s described fairly closely to the tragedy. Starting Getaway this way creates a problem for me as a reader. When creating a storyline based on a real event, you run the risk of reality clashing with the fiction you’ve created as a writer. The rest of the book, the fear it tries to create, the dread and terror, all pale in comparison to the real-life event on which it is based. I became trapped in the remembrance of Oct. 27, 2018, and couldn’t get out of it to really delve deep into the rest of the book ... I love a good, complex character. But something about Gale’s characterization didn’t sit right with me. Despite Imogen’s struggle to see him as human, he’s ultimately just a boogeyman the women encounter on their quest to become stronger selves. Maybe as a reader, I’m as naive as Imogen, who wants to see the humanity in someone, especially someone who’s been the victim of the criminal justice system. But every move Gale makes seems out of character ... In the end, it reminded me of a horror movie, one I find myself struggling to sit with and wanting to fast forward through because of my discomfort. Stage is a talented writer who knows how to create a world, and I appreciate her adding complexity to her characters, but ultimately, I think the book gets stuck in the first few pages. Wanting to know what evils they will encounter spurns you to read further, but the villain of the Canyon is not as scary as the Canyon itself, or the real-life event the first few pages are based on.
