The God of Endings

This is a dark novel about a woman (coyly calling herself Collette LeSange, but born as Anna) running an elite preschool for the children of wealthy people in a small, upstate New York town. The town is the same town where she was unwillingly turned into a vampire as an adolescent girl by her “eccentric” grandfather. After about 150 years away in Europe, where she had several experiences of devastating loss, she has come back to her childhood home and opened her successful school. Trouble starts when she accepts Leo, a sickly child with parents who appear to be at odds with each other. Leo shows precocious talent as an artist, though, and “Collette” can't resist admitting him to the school against her usual policy.

About that same time Collette begins experiencing increasingly uncontrollable hunger for blood and seeing portents of Czernobog, the “god of endings” of the title. As we see events at the school unfold, we also see the story of what happened to Collette after she was shipped off to Europe by her grandfather, so we understand her deep sense of loss and grief, and her anxiety that another terrible loss may be coming.

This book does a good job of evoking anxiety and dread. Collette, the main character, is sympathetic. She clearly loves children, knows how to work with them, and tries to protect them. She tries to keep herself under control by following strict routines. But as changes begin to occur in herself, her anxiety about what's going to happen and her ability to keep hold of herself climbs, and mine did too.

I found myself annoyed each time Collette questioned her experiences of portents of Czernobog, and more annoyed the more I knew about her past. She's seen these things before! She knows what happened! How can she question whether it's really happening now, or whether it really means what she's afraid it means? I found it especially annoying since questioning our experiences is something women are taught to do from a young age. I didn't want to see her do that.

There's a lot I'm leaving out, because there's a lot going on in this book. If you like melancholy with an icing of dread and an occasional gross out, you should give it a try.