Odd Spirits: Review

I received and ARC of this novella in exchange for an honest review and that had no impact on my thoughts about this story. *trigger warning for biphobia in this novella*

"Well he is a narcissist."
"He's a Leo."
"That's what I said."

When I read the description of this book on tumblr I was so excited to read it and the first maybe 60% lived up to the hype. I loved Gibson's writing for one thing, it was quite lovely prose without being overly done and was descriptive enough that I had clear ideas of the characters right from the start.

I liked that there was a bit of a dual narrative in the beginning, the central storyline about the mysterious things happening in the house in the present as well as some insight into how Rhys and Moira met through flashbacks. All of this, I thought, was done well. The writing and characterisation reminded me a lot of The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater, I'd even go so far as to say that Rhys was a lot like I would imagine Adam Parrish would be like if he had never met the Gangsey but had somehow ended up married to Blue.

The plot basically follows Rhys and Moira as they go about their everyday lives as psychics and try to figure out why there are strange things happening in their home. Has Rhys summoned something and failed to banish it properly? Has a ghost randomly decided to take up residence in their study? It all comes to a head when they decide to invite The Society, a group Rhys got involved with at college and who taught him a lot about summoning spirits. This is only a novella so I don't want to give away too much more of the plot for fear of spoiling the entire thing but really there's not a whole lot of plot to begin with.

What I liked:

• The overall tone and atmosphere created, especially in the beginning
• The character of Rhys, possibly because he reminds me of Adam Parrish
• Moira calling out David for being a Leo (see beginning of review)
• The writing style
• The message about honest and open communication

What I didn't like:

• David being sexist for literally no reason and unnecessarily gendering crystals? Like I'm sure it's something that might happen in real life but I thought it was a bit ridiculous
• Honestly didn't love the way David was portrayed at all to be honest. Sure, jerks happen but I felt like the author kind of demonised him to justify the awful behaviour of Moira later on
• Moira in general, I hated her so much by the end of this oh my goodness

*** Spoilers ahead***

What I hated:
○ The fact that Moira is literally a biphobic jerk to her husband and he somehow ends up apologising to her! And the overall impression of the scene is that they both need to be better at communicating their concerns and sure, that's a good idea but that doesn't give her the right to tell him that his sexuality doesn't seem like a real thing and be super jealous of his ex just because he's a man and the two are still friends. I understand that this might be realistic and that bisexuals undoubtedly experience attitudes like that, even from their spouses but I really don't think the behaviour was called out enough. They end up getting it on like all is forgiven at the end and it just seemed rushed and ridiculous that that would happen when Moira was so awful. I hate to call out the female character in something because I know a lot of the time female characters are unfairly judged compared to their male counterparts but in this instance I think it is warranted. For the sake of equity, Rhys did have character flaws too and his jealousy wasn't healthy but he appeared to be aware that that was the case and didn't tell Moira to do something to stop people flirting with her. He just honestly communicated his feelings on the matter. Moira on the other hand tells her husband that she doesn't want him to see one of his only close friends from college because the fact that he is an ex of Rhys's makes her uncomfortable. Ugh.