Pyre Ren

From my own perspective, it felt gratuitous and dark just for darkness’ sake, which it has every right to exist as. It just isn’t for me. The protagonist had the mindset of a teenage boy that just never grew out of his angsty passivity, he was entirely too full of himself, and the book was just a collection of dark scenes messily tied together into a narrative, and an ending that felt inevitable to happen but was ultimately one of the least satisfying parts of the whole book to me. I *understood* how the main character and Helen exist as foils to one another, despite being so similar. The destructive nature of being together for them, with the main character having his wants for a life of isolation and being lost in his own irksome and self righteous works slowly ripped apart as he gathers connections to others, develops feelings in his own way, and even saves a woman’s life. Meanwhile Helen, who wanted to fit in, fell more desperately into her desire to be wanted by someone that she saw as a kindred spirit. She felt understood, she felt accepted, she felt she didn’t have to hide herself and wanted to create a world and even a family in which these anti-societal behaviours are deemed the norm, thus slipping further into them as she in her own conformist ways began subscribing to the main character’s views of being special and to embrace this “darkness” they have. The book is easy to understand and analysed, but the whole entire thing felt forced and so full of itself.