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As I Descended by Robin Talley

overview: As I Descended is a queer retelling of Shakespear’s MacBeth taking place in a haunted southern private school. It follows four characters: the lead Maria, her girlfriend Lily, her best friend Brandon, and his boyfriend Mateo. Ghosts and murder follow.

plot: I have not actually read most Shakespear works, I admit, meaning I generally go in blind with these. The plot is relatively straightforward, but gripping with how quickly it moves. The first chapter doesn’t waste time with its intro into ghosts, mischief, and tension between characters. Very little of the book feels like fluff with every minor interaction or moment of introspection building how the plot progresses or showing us the mental state and reasoning behind the character’s actions. It’s not anything particularly groundbreaking message wise or structurally, especially for young adult, but it’s solid and interesting if not slightly rushed at the end.

characters: I believe the characters are something this novel does well except for one case: Maria. Maria, our main character, begins the novel as a soft-spoken overachiever who plays by the rules. After being coaxed by her girlfriend, she commits to tricking the queen of their private school into failing her drug test. Only, it doesn’t go well. I enjoyed Maria’s fear and guilt over accidentally hurting Delilah, then later Brandon, but when it comes to Mateo, I suddenly wished there was more build up to her sudden commitment to wanting to kill him, too. I understand her reasoning in a general sense, but I still wish I could’ve gotten more of the logic and emotion so I could feel like it was truly earned by the character I met at the start. But besides that, I love the cast of characters. Lily who is unapologetically morally gray and okay with playing dirty to get ahead of the people who look down at her for her disability. Brandon who is a generally nice guy with his own issues that just wants his best friend back. And Mateo. The understandable antagonist who goes from bystander to the heart of a double would-be-murder plot in seconds. I really felt for him, which is why I love him as Maria’s antagonist. Because I also felt for Maria and Lily who are morally gray, but ultimately didn’t mean to hurt people but did and probably deserve the consequences for it. Have I mentioned I love morally gray queer characters? Because I do.

One other thing I will note, though, is that I wish more of the setting was utilized. While Maria being brown and Lily being disabled (and both gay) is a major reason why they chose to do what they did, this book suffers from having a white author. Class and race are two very tied things that are only mentioned on the surface unlike queerness or disability. Maria is described as “acting as white as possible” by one character, but the author doesn’t do much with this. She’s said to have worn her hair naturally until after the second murder, but if she’s acting “white”, why not have her straighten her hair the whole time? And Maria blamed other Latinos for “drugging” Delilah. Why not make that a point for how she’s betraying her ethnicity for whiteness? And the school was built on a plantation where Maria is described as “coming there in a price tag” were it still the colonial period. Why not do something with that? Why make the setting a white, rich private school built on slavery for the aesthetic if it doesn’t serve purpose? Ultimately, I understand white authors not wanting to overstep, but I can’t help but feel that a missed opportunity for richer storytelling is missed when you aim for diversity yet don’t embrace it.

Would Snoop recommend? If you’re a reader of YA, interested in supernatural beings messing with the living, enjoy morally gray queer characters in all their imperfectness, and private school politics, then yes.