Squid Boy Raven Girl - R.R. Davis - ★★★

AUTHOR: R.R. Davis

ILLUSTRATOR: Francesco Dabbicco

GENRE: Fantasy-Drama.

PUBLICATION DATE: August 12, 2025

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A literary fiction about a young boy and his monsters: real and imagined. Arctic setting, introspective lead character, and good overall plot. Too melancholic and dark at times, dense in writing style, gruesome, and slow paced. Strictly for adults despite the young protagonist. Not my cup of tea due to some of the writing choices. Recommended to certain lit fic fans.

Plot Preview:

1995, Labrador Island, Newfoundland, Canada. Twelve-year-old Robert, half Scot and half Innu, stays on the rocky island with his father and his younger brother. As Robert physically resembles his Scottish father, it is not easy for him to fit on the island. His overbearing dad adds to his travails by not allowing to leave their yard anytime or to interact with the locals. The most important rule for both brothers is: Never touch the floor at night. However, as the outside world starts to seep into their remote home, Robert is forced to confront many demons, both within and outside the house.

The story comes to us in Robert’s first-person perspective.

Bookish Yays:

❄ The Arctic setting of Labrador Island. Right from its atmosphere to its local culture and beliefs, the island comes alive in this book. The story highlights well the perks and perils of life in a small remote location and the political apathy towards the indigenous people.

❄ There’s something poetic about the way the story begins on summer solstice and ends on winter solstice. Not poetic in a soothing way, but in a melancholic way. Those who enjoy introspective prose will appreciate the role played by the solstice in the storyline.

❄ The secondary characters, who are layered despite being visible to us only through Robert’s first-person POV.

❄ The raven, with an especially appropriate name. Love!

❄ I didn't know that Inuit and Innu were two different indigenous cultures. Always great to learn something new!

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🌊 Robert as the protagonist. A serious boy, mature for his age possibly because of his circumstances. He sounds older at times, but his youthful naivete also is visible. He suffers much from the burden of being the elder child. As an elder sibling myself, I connected with him at least on this regard. But I am not sure why I felt distanced from him and his toils otherwise. This might be more of the stylistic issue with the writing than with the character.

🌊 The writing. Engrossing but also taxing. The prose was a bit too flowery for my taste, and the plot development, a bit too disjointed at times. It took me a long while to get into the book as I couldn’t focus.

🌊 I had expected a slowish tempo due to the character-driven style, but this book drags in between.

Bookish Nays:

🧊 Personal preference: The foul language wasn’t at all my cup of tea. This is adult fiction, but I thought having a teen narrator would mean that the content would be mature but not beyond a certain limit. I can tolerate bad words to some extent when the situation requires it, but the contradiction between having a teen narrator and having excessive profanity (not uttered by the teen but by those around him) was too jarring for me. One of the profanities is in my pet-hate list, and I get immediately irritated when I see it. Moreover, the content also includes several gruesome and disturbing scenes that added much to my discomfort. Any writing that feels overly sensationalised doesn’t work for me. All this might not bother other readers, so take this point with a pinch of salt.

🧊 The ending is somewhat bittersweet (more bitter than sweet, TBH.) I would have been okay with this had the plot clarified all the pending arcs. But many threads stay unresolved. This could be a good decision from a literary perspective but frustrating for readers who prefer closure.

All in all, the characters were powerful and the plot too was engrossing. But the overly literary writing style, the languid pacing, and the unexpected disturbing content took away from some of my reading experience. I like literary fiction but not the kind that focusses mainly on the traumatic experiences of life. That said, there are many readers who enjoy such plots better. I hope this book reaches their hands.

Recommended to literary fiction lovers who are used to character-focussed plots and are okay with trauma narratives.

My thanks to Blackwater Press for a complimentary copy of “Squid Boy, Raven Girl”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.