Avery Curran’s Spoiled Milk is a gothic tale of a girls’ boarding school in 1928. After the tragic death of golden girl Violet, Emily, Violet’s best friend, knows this was no accident. Emily is desperate to prove she was murdered, so she enlists the help of the other girls in her year, including even prim and proper Evelyn, Emily’s biggest rival for Violet’s affections when she was alive. As more strange things start happening around the school, though, beginning with rotting food and spoiled milk and escalating as more girls begin to die, it becomes clear there is evil infecting the school, and it is more powerful than Emily could have prepared for.
Oh, I loved reading this. It was exactly what I wanted it to be. I loved the narrative voice of Emily telling the story from the future, which somehow added both tragedy (because she knows what’s to come) and humor (because she has enough distance from these events now that she is occasionally very snarky about them, particularly when it comes to her own choices). Despite being utterly convinced of her own occasionally misguided assumptions and not always inclined to be kind to her classmates, Emily has a charm and a wit to her that made her easy to root for, even if I could never have been friends with her in high school.
Really, I loved every one of these girls. They felt very authentically seventeen in that they were kind of terrible but mostly trying their best, on the cusp of adulthood but also so very young. I loved their relationships with each other, and I loved getting to care about them, even as they broke my heart. I particularly enjoyed the long-established romance between Alice and Dot, which, though mostly in the background, brought a gentle warmth that I appreciated considering everything else going on in this book.
I was initially a little let down by the ending, which doesn’t really answer all of the questions the book raises, but after letting it sit for a few days, I think that was ultimately the right choice because I can’t imagine a way to directly answer those questions in a way that would have felt satisfying and organic. Curran carefully reveals enough details throughout earlier sections of the book to allow the reader to put together enough of an understanding on their own, and anything further is really not the point.
Sapphic gothic historical ghost stories usually excite me in concept, and this one absolutely delivered on its premise. Haunting and heartbreaking, with just enough romance to enchant me further, I am obsessed with this book. I can’t wait to see what Avery Curran does next.
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