 I recently read Starling House, a novel by Alix E. Harrow. Starling House tells the story of Opal, a twenty-something woman who seems to be forever down on her luck. Her small Kentucky town doesn’t give her many options to provide for her younger brother, so she accepts a job cleaning a historic house that most everyone believes is haunted. If you want more details, you can read my full review HERE. (Please note that Starling House is best suited for an adult audience and deals with heavy content and mature topics. The majority of that content will not appear in this post, but you can view my full list of content warnings in the review above.) (Please also note: this article will contain spoilers for Starling House. So if you’re thinking of reading it, give it a go, and then come back here. This article will be waiting for you.) Starling House released in 2023, and was met with starred reviews, award nominations, and book club recommendations. It’s a modern classic, a book that will long outlive the decade that published it. The thing that makes this story stick is how it peers into ugly topics—ugly things that we’ve caught lurking around our own spaces, too. But today, I want to talk about the ugly thing that stuck with me the most. Let’s talk about the religious aspect of the many abuses that Starling House—both the place and the story—suffered. This story happens in a small town called Eden. And Eden, like Opal herself, has the worst luck. If a freak accident happens, you can bet it happened in Eden. The townspeople shift the blame onto Starling House and its inhabitants. Spoiler alert: Starling House and its very first occupant are at the heart of it. But they are not to blame. Long ago, Eden turned a blind eye as three wealthy brothers abused their niece, Eleanor, in order to keep her fortune. Whether from her imagination or from somewhere else, Eleanor drew up dark creatures that rampaged the town, bringing bad luck and unfortunate accidents everywhere they went. Seeking revenge for how Eden ignored Eleanor. The people that looked away during the worst of Eleanor’s abuse are the ones the book also describes over and over again as “good God-fearing folk.” Religious trauma and religious abuse come up more and more prevalently. We can’t go a month without another victim coming forward, or another prominent Christian being exposed. For the first time, these victims can come forward and tell the truth of what has been done to them. I’m one of them. I grew up with an abuser who adopted cult-like beliefs that at one point originated from Christianity. This person used God and the Bible and those beliefs to hurt me and people I care about. And yes, other Christians did look the other way. I doubt any of them did it on purpose. Do any of us do it on purpose? We just don’t know what to do, so we figure we’re better off not doing anything at all. It’s more comfortable anyway. Or we fear making things worse for the victims, so we don’t stop long enough to consider the possibility that we could make things better for them. None of us ever set out to be the villain in the story, do we? When I closed the digital cover of Starling House, all I came away with was rage. And at first, that felt good. I’d walked with Opal through all Eden’s ugliness, and I desperately wanted her to have her revenge. After the years of abuse I experienced, other Christians encouraged me to forgive my abuser, as if I could just sweep it all under a rug. I could write essays upon essays on how what many churches have embraced as “forgiveness” and what is actually healthy are two vastly different things. But this encouragement to forgive and move on and be done with it as quickly as possible tried to short cut an important part of the journey. We have to let ourselves and let others be angry. To feel all those emotions and walk through them at our own pace. I was angry. I still am. I think I will carry a piece of that anger with me forever. Someone did things to me and to people I care about that should not be done to anyone for any reason, and much of it was done in God’s name. It was wrong, it is wrong, and it will always be wrong. And it’s normal to be angry about things that are wrong. The anger that I wasn’t allowed to express found comfort in Opal and Eleanor. And while we need to rage over the things we’ve lost, especially when those losses come from people who say they love God, when I thought Starling House had left it there, it only felt hollow. But as I prepared this post, which was originally going to look quite different, I came across R. L. Nguyen’s review of the book. (If you don’t follow R.L. Nguyen, I would highly, highly recommend you do. She’s quickly become one of my favorite creators.) She also processes a lot of these big topics on her various platforms. She noted in her review, “. . . it was really thoughtful and healing. I haven’t seen a ton of books that validated victims’ cries and rage, but also said ‘there’s something better in store for you than revenge.’ There was poetic justice and there was hope (even if the progress was small).” (Read her full review HERE.) It took her words for me to see it, too, but hope was in this story all along. Opal finds the people who love her, even if they are imperfect. Opal holds onto broken things, whether imperfect people or rundown houses or shady little towns, always hoping they can be repaired. Opal builds a life for herself, a life that she loves, a life that the hypocrites of the world around her can’t touch. She still carries that anger with her. But she also acknowledges that the anger is not a place she has to stay in. There’s room for both anger and hope in this story. There’s room for both anger and hope in you, too. And those places where anger and hope meet can be some of the most beautiful places. I write stories for the weird girls and the women they’re becoming. A lot of the weird girls that I’ve met have been deeply hurt by Christians. It’s almost a hallmark of the weird girl experience. My stories will likely be lighter than Starling House. But they will at times dwell on the grief and the rage of what we’ve lost. My stories at times may seek to get the revenge that so many girls never got. They will cry and scream and break things. But they will also support someone else who is angry and hurting. They will pick up and dust off the broken things, and they will hold them close because they still hope they can be repaired. I want to do that as a person, too. Whether or not you ever read Starling House, whether or not you ever read anything else I’ve written besides this article, I hope maybe you can do that as a person, too, whatever that may look like. To let the rage move through you as needed. And to also hold on to hope in the same spaces. Hi, I’m Rachel! I write fantasy for upper young adults and new adults. But more importantly, I write the novels I needed growing up—the novels I still need. Novels for the weird girls and the women they’re becoming. Maybe you need those stories, too? You can get one for free by signing up for my email newsletter via the “HOME” page of my website. It might involve a girl and the magical violin she didn’t want and maybe a metaphor about grief. Plus, you’ll also get email-exclusive updates on my dieselpunk Anastasia reimaging. Sound good? I hope I’ll see you there!
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