Never-Contented Things by Sarah Porter

I was NOT expecting this book to be the way it was, and based on the reviews already up on Goodreads that I've skimmed, neither were most other people.

I love all things Faerie, from Melissa Marr to Holly Black. However, Never-Contented Things was decidedly darker than any faerie book I've read before.

I know a lot of people are expecting this to be kind of like The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, maybe a little creepier, maybe a little darker.

Never-Contented Things is completely lacking in the political intrigue and intricate faerie culture that has drawn so many people to books like The Cruel Prince. This isn't to say that it's a terrible book, although it did take me a while to get interested in it. In fact, I would describe Never-Contented Things as more of a darker version of Coraline, that just happens to have faeries.

(Strangely, I also got Sawkill Girls (Claire Legrand) vibes from it. I'm not sure why. But I loved Sawkill Girls and Coraline was my favorite book when I was in elementary school.)

The first thing to get out of the way is that I didn't find many of the characters to be likeable. The two main characters, foster siblings Josh and Ksenia, have such a strange, codependent dynamic that just made me feel...uncomfortable a lot of the time. Their best friend, Lexi, who is also a main character, was probably the most likeable out of all of them, but I did find her to be a bit self-righteous at times, although objectively she was a very good person. The two main faeries, Prince and Unselle, had absolutely no redeeming qualities and, even more surprisingly, had much fewer spoken lines than I expected.

However, the character's personalities aside, I really liked the diversity in the three main characters. Ksenia is often mistaken for a boy, and while she does use she/her pronouns, she is very androgynous and is attracted to both men and women. Josh is also gender-nonconforming and pansexual. Lexi is black and throughout the book discovers that she is attracted to women as well as men.

Josh and Ksenia are essentially kidnapped by the faeries and taken to an alternate version of their town, one where they believe they have no hope of escape. However, Josh believes that he and Ksenia aren't right for the real world, and that staying in this alternate world will enable them to stay together forever. Ksenia is more skeptical, partially because while Josh sees her as the love of his life, Ksenia sees Josh as a little brother.

You know that feeling when you wake up from a long nap, and everything just feels...off? You aren't sure what time it is or what's going on, and you go through the rest of the day dazed and disoriented?

That's how reading this book felt for me, at least through the first 1/3 or so. That initially put me off from reading, and I was considering DNFing it. Then I realized how incredible it was that the writing could make me feel that way, especially since it was the way Ksenia was feeling throughout the first part of the book. The prose is absolutely amazing, and like nothing else I've ever read.

I decided to rate this book 3/5 stars, since I'm still kind of conflicted about my feelings towards it. It was definitely an experience reading it, but I didn't LIKE reading it. Like I said, I felt "off" most of the time while reading, mostly since it was creepy as hell and there were a lot of uncomfortable themes, as well as characters saying completely morbid things that generally aren't said in normal conversation.

But I did enjoy reading a book with completely unlikable characters, as well as the dark, Coraline-esque atmosphere, which was probably my favorite part of the whole book.