Dietvale, Andrene N Low

Before proceeding any further, it's worth repeating the trigger warning from the blurb for DIETVALE:

"Contains torture and rape. The retribution is both swift and brutal."

The story, in a nutshell, is one of recently divorced Marilyn, who, in an attempt to regain some control over her life, heads off to a remote, expensive health spa popular with "B" list celebrities and wealthy wives, where it turns out that daily enemas and kale salads are far from the worst possible thing that could happen.

It's worthwhile remembering that there is a dark, brutal sense of humour at the core of this novel - because frankly things get very confrontational at points. Rape, torture, and alas, many people not making it out alive are thrown up against some interesting character personalities, not the least of which is Marilyn herself. A supremely unlikeable woman, made sympathetic by an horrific attack, promptly becoming more and more unlikeable despite seemingly trying to be a better person - at least for a while. And even more unexpectedly was the idea that despite all this awful, just awful stuff going on, regardless of Marilyn and many others in the cast, being really quite horrible people, was a tendency to laugh at a lot of the observations - which are dry, and dark and really quite funny - I guess as long as you have a sense of humour that veers towards the darkest end of the gallows.

Probably doesn't hurt at all that the setting - a health farm / diet obsessed fat removal factory is the sort of place in which horrors are easy to imagine, but potential readers need to be aware that there's also a bit of the supernatural built into DIETVALE, although I have to admit this was less than convincing - feeling somewhat ancillary for want of a better description, along with the more real life horror's associated with Marilyn and a bunch of other ... patients ... inmates .... victims ... whatever you want to call her fellow captives attempt to escape a nightmare that's less to do with kale and more to do with real life threats.

I have to admit I spent most of the time I was reading DIETVALE wondering what I'd encountered. What with really disliking Marilyn, to feeling some considerable sympathy, to hoping like hell she'd be able to inflict a lot of retribution on the way out, to end up really disliking her again, only this time feeling profoundly guilty for doing so was a bit of a journey.

All in all a wild ride, perhaps a bit erratic in places, but, has to be said, a novel that was most definitely different from the standard fare.