Short Book Reviews: Escape from the Brothel (with Unbelievable Horses)

The Good Luck Girls, by Charlotte Nicole Davis (Tor Teen)

I gave up on this book about a quarter through. The opening really grabbed me – the dystopic world with its resonance of the Wild West, “dustblood” girls raised in a brothel, drugged so they would not resist their boorish “brags,” the autocratic madam, the girls being tattooed with magic symbols that not only identify them but flare into agony when covered up. And sweet, trusting Clementine, about to entertain her first customer. When she resists being raped, she accidentally kills him (and although she does not know it, he is the son of a very powerful, wealthy family who will be bent on revenge). Her sister, Aster, concocts an escape attempt as the alternative to execution. These are young teenagers, so of course their planning is haphazard, but they manage to get away, aided by the madam’s favorite and a pair of other girls. I was with them, entranced, every step of the way.

That, alas, was where I ran into obstacles. If I trust a writer, I can immerse myself in the story, accepting details I do not necessarily understand as part of the world. After all, our own world isn’t always explicable or consistent. But when I’m jarred out of the narrative by a detail I know isn’t right, it can be hard to resume the flow. That happened when the girls had stolen some horses and were about to flee. The author had them cracking the reins to signal the horses to move forward. Anyone who’s spent any time with horses knows this is nonsense. All it accomplishes is futile arm-waving and an annoyed horse. There followed, in close succession, equally implausible details – horses having black eyes (they don’t), galloping through the night (a sure way to kill a horse), and stabbing a mountain lion between the shoulders (please check an anatomy chart for why this is not an effective strategy). By this time, I was questioning everything in the narrative. The writer had lost my confidence.

To make matters worse, I found the escape chapters emotionally flat after a gripping, excitement-laden beginning. Instead of having an emotional shape, this section felt as if the author had strung together one danger after another without a clear direction. The girls were headed to a possibly imaginary person, far away, who might be able to remove their tattoos, yet this wasn’t established in my mind as a pressing need.

In contrast, there was a well-executed dramatic sequence in which one of the girls (the madam’s favorite, Violet) goes into withdrawal from the sedating drug, Sweet Thistle, and two of the girls venture into a town to find a supply of it. They had to cover their tattoos and suffered increasing discomfort, but I didn’t come away believing that the tattoos were a critical threat to them. So the journey becomes just one unconnected episode after another toward a dubiously necessary goal. At least, that was my experience when I set the book down.

To its credit, this story centers on teen girls in a dangerous world, who are at first powerless but discover their own resourcefulness and overcome their initial antagonisms to work together. Those are worthy themes. I applaud the author for portraying young women with agency. I hope that other readers will not have the same difficulties I did and will immerse themselves in this story.