Book Review | The World Cannot Give

Laura Stearns is completely obsessed with Byronic writer Sebastian Webster, so much so that she decides to attend the religious boarding school where he is buried. There she meets a fanatical girl named Virginia who shares her same love of the writer, and she finds herself caught up in Virginia’s grand dreams of starting their own cult.

The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton is a coming-of-age dark academia about obsession, religious fervor, and repressed queer desire.

From its synopsis, I wanted to love this book so much and the beginning started off so strong. The prose is so gorgeously wrought and Laura’s religious zealously initially felt so vivid and believable to me.

However, once Laura joins Virginia's clique, the story meanders and loses focus—devolving into petty relationship drama between dull side characters.

I also took issue with Virginia's own character. She feels undeveloped and unconvincing to me. She lacks the charisma to be a cult leader. She mostly parrots a few lines of Webster’s over and over again. We don’t get her background or her motivations beyond the surface level—like how she went from being Jewish to going to a Catholic boarding school and wanting to start her own cult. This is a shame since she is the crutch of the story, and yet, she fails at it.

Lastly, the shocking ending felt more like a whimper then a bang. I had hoped for religious horror and a cathartic end, and yet, because it was so poorly set up and horrendously rushed, it lacked the emotional impact it could have had.

All around, the book had so much potential, and yet the characters and the plot ultimately feel half-baked and incohesive to me.

Thank you, NetGalley and Simon & Schuster, for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Book Details:

Publication Date : March 8, 2022

Publisher : ‎ Simon & Schuster

ISBN : ‎1982170069

Pages : 320

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