#also *salutes hemlock grove*

[irtifuck]

But imagine...

Maverick is sitting alone at the bar, looking blankly at "Hemlock", murmuring to himself, with zero energy...:

"I need the need..."

"The need for speed," is completed by a whisper, an unexpected one, with the same zero energy; Maverick lifts his eyes, only to see Iceman.

Maverick can't decide on which one to be more surprised...: the fact that they were literally able to exchange whispers, or the fact that he found Ice, with eyes full of water, yet smiling bitterly.

[carlyjyll]

Review! Hemlock Grove: Part 3 The Forever Howl

Time to dive back into that wacky Gothic adventure by Brian McGreevy called Hemlock Grove. There will be SPOILERS!

Review Time!

Guys, I’m upset. This is the last part of my four-part review for Hemlock Grove and I have to say that I’m really sad to say goodbye. Which is odd considering how God awful this ended for all of our characters.

So we start this final part with Peter and Roman making up! Also during this marvelous reunion, we have Peter confessing he loves Letha! Yay, the gangs all back together again! Well metaphorically speaking, Peter and Roman gotta go kick ass first. Sadly their attempt at stopping the vargulf is futile as Dr. Chasseur decides this is the right time to tranquilize Peter just after he transforms into his wolf self.

THANKS A LOT, CHASSEUR, YOU JUST GOT EVERYONE IN THE REST OF THIS BOOK KILLED INCLUDING YOURSELF! 

I digress, as Chasseur’s attempt to take Peter away and kill him is stopped by none other than the world’s greatest mother, Olivia Godfrey. This light of joy has Peter brought back to the Godfrey mansion as she proceeds to tie Chasseur up for two days before devouring her. Which I really liked Olivia’s story about her and her sisters game before killing Chasseur, it was sickly satisfying.

Before Chasseur dies, the vargulf kills Alexa and Alyssa Sworn. This causes Christina’s hair to become fully white and leaves her in a very bad place still believing that Peter is killing all the girls. This idea is shared by many others as the Rumancek’s trailer is burnt down. Olivia puts the Rumancek’s up in her house, where the next morning Peter and Letha are finally reunited!

 Unfortunately, this reunion is spoiled as Neck and Nose show up to arrest Peter. Nose is a complete racist but honestly are any of us surprised? As Peter is getting beat by the cops as they try to take him in he pretty much confirms his love for Roman. “And Roman. Help Roman become a man on the path of light and love. Not the other way. Tell Roman... all the things I couldn’t.” (page 247) UMMMM if that isn’t a confession I don’t know what is!  As is the theme of this book Roman shows up just in time to tell the police to 1) fuck off or 2) he’ll make them shoot their brains out. This works because Roman is Roman.

Peter hides out in the chapel where Dr. Godfrey helps Roman and him to do this. Roman then reveals to Norman that Peter is a werewolf as Roman and Letha get it on in the chapel. Where Christina, having escaped her room, watches them. Norman only finds out about Christina’s disappearance as he decides to leave his wife permanently for Olivia. Poor Marie :( but also yay Marie? 

The next day it becomes known that another girl was killed. Peter and Roman go to Destiny to find out what to do. Roman goes on his own and becomes a Disney princess in this chapter. I kid you not. He starts stepping up for all these animals only to be met with Peter having to kill his cat in order for the vargulf to be stopped. This part made me go and hug my cat for a good five minutes until she scratched.

We also learn that Nicolae didn’t actually cross the Atlantic by lily pad, though that would be very cool. He actually stole a car and then sold it for an airplane ticket. Go Nicolae for being stealthy!

Norman apologizes to Shelley at long fucking last for being, well, Norman. This is of course before Shelley takes off to the chapel (but we’ll get to that in a moment.) At the same time, we learn that Christina escaped and went to Letha’s place. 

Now, man oh man, this next part was so well written. I just loved getting to see the insight of  Christina and how she became the vargulf (Spoilers).  That she once kissed Peter (while he was sleeping. Like girl, no wonder you ended up kissing a corpse! Stop kissing people in their sleep!) Then she followed after him once he transformed and poured water into his paw print and drank from it, thus become a werewolf herself. The entirety of Chapter Black Run was fucking wonderfully written, I really enjoyed it.

Then comes the climax! Which is so fucking Shakespearean, I love it. We learn that Jenny was the latest girl to die, you remember the girl that was fired at the beginning of the book for being nice to Shelley. Inside the church, Peter ties Christina up before they both turn into their wolf forms and battle it out. Shelley comes bursting through at the last minute and kills Christina, which is rather unfortunate as Sheriff Sworn sees her holding a limp body of yet another dead girl and shoots her. Not just once or twice but several times, causing Shelley to flee and go missing.

Peter lives! And all is right with the world! The End!

If only.

We skip to six months after Christina dies and Shelley goes missing. Letha is going to give birth but dies while doing so. Which, fuck, I knew this was coming because I watched the show but damn it! It still hurts! Anyways we cut to Olivia telling us her past, where long story short she was ugly af, but somehow got laid and had a baby that was adopted by the Rumancek family! So technically this would mean Peter and Roman are related somehow, which seems to be the new in with the Godfreys. Mainly because we learn that Roman was the ‘angel’ that Letha said got her pregnant, and her baby is his. Roman slices his wrists, which does nothing but trigger his full transformation into an upir, much to Olivia’s delight.

Peter leaves Hemlock Grove.

*Tears Go By, by the Rolling Stones plays*

So that’s the end of my Part 4 of Hemlock Grove! 

Like I said at the beginning of the review I’m sad that this is over. :( This book was not afraid to be ugly and twisted and flesh all of its characters. I absolutely loved how fucked up this book was! 

Big kudos to McGreevy though, that man knows how to tell a story. He literally laid out all the pieces for us in plain sight and yet we still were questioning what the hell was going on. That’s a hell of a storyteller there.

McGreevy’s writing style is so intriguing to me. Like I said in Part 3 of my review, reading his book has made me reevaluate a lot of my own work (which is excellent! I always need to improve myself in that area). He also gave me courage to make fucked up characters and not be bothered if everybody loves them. It doesn’t really matter if they’re beloved characters it's more about if they’re interesting or not. At least to me. Like I don’t for the life of me ever want to be associated with someone like Roman, but I will read fucking ten more books about that boy because his decisions and him as a character is so fucked up and intriguing. 

So a salute to McGreevy for writing this really awesome book, it kicked ass and is gonna stay in my brain forever. Especially Olivia’s final letter and chapter Black Run.

BONUS! Favorite Quotes!

“Shee-it” x2 

“It’s beautiful” *two seconds later* “I’m not a homo,”- Roman to Peter about shifting back into his human form.

“The fucking cat.”- Roman about the fucking cat

“Fucking actresses.” Chasseur about Olivia.

“Well okay.” - Roman about his life. This is probably the most relatable thing Roman has done.

“The women of the audience may want to close their eyes now.”- narrator becoming self-aware.

Go check out all of Brian McGreevy’s links!

Check out Brian McGreevy’s website here !

Buy his book, Hemlock Grove here!

If you haven’t seen Hemlock Grove on Netflix go and give it a look!

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3