Review: By Pain of Death by Suzanne Clay
Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Content Warnings for book: Depictions of chronic pain, agoraphobia, reference to off-page sexual assault (not by or about MCs), reference to suicide, misgendering, death
Kink: N/A, has one veiled sex scene
"Stop. Torturing. Yourself. For me," Seph whispered between kisses. Then he held him tightly, a warm barrier against spine-covered terror. "Stop. Stop, stop, stop."
"I want to be better than this..."
"You are exactly who I want you to be." Seph sucked in a gasp of wet air, speaking through quiet tears. "Upon my word, whatever fears you have, whatever pain you feel, I don't care for you despite them. They're a part of you. Do you understand? And whatever makes up who you are? That's what I'm falling deeper and deeper for every time I see you."
I... am finding it difficult to put to words how this made me feel except that despite it's length (40ish pages), it touches on a lot of emotional and beautiful moments about love, about chronic pain, about transness that I don't think I've really read before. I am not someone with chronic pain but as someone who is transmasculine, I really loved that representation here. I also loved how Clay did not have us wallowing in transphobia, nor offer accidental misgendering from Hades.
Clay's writing is amazing, it really shines in both how poetic it is and simplistic in other moments. It felt so fluid, like I could imagine the detail of every scene and, through the POV character which is Hades, how he was feeling. I loved how she pulled in elements of the Greek mythology and aspects of both gods - it was not heavy-handed or cookie-cutter in the way you might think. The metaphors were just so well executed in my opinion. It's just a new favorite of mine.
I highly recommend this book. Consider my lack of words to speak to how well-written and enjoyable it was, that I wish you experience it yourself.
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