The Violence by Delilah S. Dawson

 A mysterious plague that causes random bouts of violence is sweeping the nation. Now three generations of women must navigate their chilling new reality in this moving exploration of identity, cycles of abuse, and hope.

Chelsea Martin appears to be the perfect housewife: married to her high school sweetheart, the mother of two daughters, keeper of an immaculate home.

But Chelsea's husband has turned their house into a prison; he has been abusing her for years, cutting off her independence, autonomy, and support. She has nowhere to turn, not even to her narcissistic mother, Patricia, who is more concerned with maintaining the appearance of an ideal family than she is with her daughter's actual well-being. And Chelsea is worried that her daughters will be trapped just as she is--then a mysterious illness sweeps the nation.

Known as The Violence, this illness causes the infected to experience sudden, explosive bouts of animalistic rage and attack anyone in their path. But for Chelsea, the chaos and confusion the virus causes is an opportunity--and inspires a plan to liberate herself from her abuser.

In a post Covid world a new virus is sweeping through the nation, mainly confined to warmer climates, and known as The Violence. There is a vaccine, but only for the very wealthy. Those who contract the virus have bouts of murderous rage causing them to kill whoever happens to be handy at the time, and have no memory of doing so once the rage passes.  Those who have or are suspected to have The Violence are herded into quarantine centers that are basically prisons, sometimes never to be seen or heard from again.

In this backdrop we meet Chelsea, neglected as a child and now abused as a spouse, along with her two daughters. Chelsea plans to use the virus as a means to save her children and escape from her abusive husband, but things don't go according to plan.

This is a book that I found in the horror section, but it was more a dysfunctional family drama. There was much that I enjoyed about the story, but more than a few spots were a bit draggy and drawn out. All of the male characters had extreme personalities. They were either abusive mysogynistic borderline perverts, or over the top sensitive sympathetic and empathetic to a woman's every need. It kind of gave me whiplash going from one extreme to the other and I wished that someone could have been just plain normal. There were a few plot points that seemed to contradict each other, but I can't really go into it much without giving away spoilers.

I'm going to give this a 3 out of 5 stars, as something I liked but did not love.

My thanks to Del Rey Books for the advance copy.

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About the author

Delilah S. Dawson is the New York Times-bestselling author of Star Wars: Phasma, Black Spire: Galaxy's Edge, and The Perfect Weapon. With Kevin Hearne, she writes the Tales of Pell. As Lila Bowen, she writes the Shadow series, beginning with Wake of Vultures. Her other books include the Blud series, the Hit series, and Servants of the Storm.

She's written comics in the worlds of Marvel Action: Spider-Man, Lore's Wellington, Star Wars Adventures, Star Wars Forces of Destiny, The X-Files Case Files, Adventure Time, Rick and Morty, and her creator-owned comics include Star Pig, Ladycastle, and Sparrowhawk.

Find out more at www.whimsydark.com