Mattie Baker

Enthralling. The cover of the book “Mary” is much more pleasing than the book itself. The cover art was done by David Palumbo.

As a horror book, “Mary” is not scary. What is, is that the author thought it was a good idea. 

I usually try not to bash authors for their writing. Making an entire book with a plot and moving parts is difficult, and I respect them for doing it. But the author, Nat Cassidy, is my exception. 

This book follows Mary as she deals with the issues that come with aging as a woman, reconnecting with your past and being incredibly psychotic. You know, things we all experience. And I don’t have an issue with any of these things, just how they were executed. 

Mary is one of the most unlikable main characters I have ever read about. And what’s worse is the entire book is from her perspective, so readers have to listen to her whining, delusional thoughts the whole time. Now, I’m all for a crazy narrator, but that’s the thing about Mary, she’s not psycho in the way that you’re rooting for her. She’s just more of a weirdo that you’d never want to talk to (except now you’re stuck in her head for 400 pages). 

In the book, Mary gets fired from her job and at her estranged Aunt Nadine’s request, she comes back to her hometown, Arroyo, to take care of her. Poor Aunt Nadine, thinking Mary could handle a single responsibility. 

Anyway, Mary coincidentally can’t seem to remember any events from her childhood, yet is haunted by dreams of the Cross House, the ominous mansion, hospital, school combination in the middle of Arroyo. 

Of course, because Mary is the main character, she has more problems than that. I would list them but that would take far too long. The main ones are that she can’t look into a mirror without passing out, her murderous urges, the weird nonsense she can’t remember writing in her journal, and, how could I forget, the fact that she’s premenopausal. 

Why would a grown man ever write a horror novel about menopause? I couldn’t tell you, but Nat Cassidy did it, and he did a horrible job (who would’ve guessed). Not that the book is necessarily misogynistic, more that all the “feminist” ideology and talk of womanhood feels superficial, and of course it does, it’s written by a man who could never understand any of the subject matter. 

This being said, the worst thing about this book is that it had potential. The idea of “Mary” is intriguing and fairly original, and it could’ve been a great read. Unfortunately, in the end, it fell flat in the aspects of horror, flow and proper female representation. In spite of this, many people enjoyed it and think it’s worth the read.