Diabolical Lesbians and Evil Spirits // As I Descended

Title: As I Descended

Author: Robin Talley

Pages: 370

Publication date: October 6, 2016

Maria Lyon and Lily Boiten are their school’s ultimate power couple—even if no one knows it but them. 

Only one thing stands between them and their perfect future: campus superstar Delilah Dufrey. 

Golden child Delilah is a legend at the exclusive Acheron Academy, and the presumptive winner of the distinguished Cawdor Kingsley Prize. She runs the school, and if she chose, she could blow up Maria and Lily’s whole world with a pointed look, or a carefully placed word. 

But what Delilah doesn’t know is that Lily and Maria are willing to do anything—absolutely anything—to make their dreams come true. And the first step is unseating Delilah for the Kingsley Prize. The full scholarship, awarded to Maria, will lock in her attendance at Stanford―and four more years in a shared dorm room with Lily. 

Maria and Lily will stop at nothing to ensure their victory—including harnessing the dark power long rumored to be present on the former plantation that houses their school.
But when feuds turn to fatalities, and madness begins to blur the distinction between what’s real and what is imagined, the girls must decide where they draw the line.

To start out this review, I'm going to give you a run down of all the types of lesbians you will find in this book:

• closeted lesbians
• creeped out but skeptical lesbians
• lesbians who can talk to spirits
• diabolical lesbians
• regretful lesbians
• highly concerned lesbians
• super terrified lesbians
• pretty darn crazy lesbians

To be fair, these lesbians are all the same two lesbians, namely Maria and Lily. This book is obviously super intense, and goes all over the place in the drama department. It's a Macbeth retelling, too, so it's super dark and creepy as well. It's atmospheric and you can feel the fog of bad things coming on every page.

The setting is perfect for the story. First of all, I'm a total sucker for boarding school stories. and a haunted boarding school? Don't even get me started. I loved getting to know the dark history behind the school and thought it was woven into the story very well. Acheron wasn't just there for the sake of making the story more appealing, it was really it's own character.

Though I loved the setting, the retelling aspect, the diversity (including disability rep!), and the strong writing, I did find myself wanting a little more in terms of character goals and the relationship between Lily and Maria. It seemed like they lost sight of their goals pretty quickly after the first bad thing that happens (trying not to spoil so I'm being vague), and then we don't get to see much of their relationship either. Maybe the way it was played out was realistic, but I wanted them to be even more diabolical and focused on their goals.

Despite those little quibbles, I still loved this book and highly, highly recommend it. I can't believe I've waited this long to read something by Robin Talley, and I don't anticipate this being the last book I read by her. If you're looking for something with a lot of diversity with a heavy dose of creepiness and have a love of Macbeth, definitely check this one out.