So I read stags S.T.A.G.S. and here's what I thought...

Content Warning // Mention of suicide

 

Hello, it’s me, who could have seen that coming. So, I read S.T.A.G.S by M.A. Bennett, as you might have been able to gather from the title of this post. This isn’t going to be a comprehensive review or anything, it’s literally just going to be a vaguely coherent ramble of my thoughts having recently finished it.

    Also, there’s going to be a spoiler warning. So, if you haven’t read this book, but want to, maybe don’t read this.

     So, to jump in, right in the beginning, Greer (the narrator), says that she might be a murderer, like, this is the first line. This is immediately followed with her saying since she didn’t mean to kill, she’s manslaughterer. So, she’s saying she killed someone. And then, as the story goes on, she keeps saying “the murder”, but then the “murder” happens in the story, and, as it happens, it’s not a murder, like she says. But. Throughout the story little nods keep getting mentioned to how it was all her fault and that she’s the one responsible.

    To actually talk about a bit of the story, Greer MacDonald is at this fancy school, S.T.A.G.S., on a scholarship, whereas pretty much every other student is there on their parents’ money. The school gave me very Hogwarts before JK Rowling outed themselves as a transphobe. Now, the most important/powerful students at the school are known as the Medievals (headed by Henry de Warlencourt), and the school is very, “Boo, technology. Technology is ruining the world”, as students aren’t particularly allowed to use technology, or if they do, they are referred to as Savages.

     I will say, as a separate point, I’m not the most astute reader. Like, in the words of Bea Miller, “I just want to feel something,” and if a book can do that, I’m good with it. But the whole down with technology, I didn’t realise that that was an actual plot point for the book until near the end, when the climax was happening.

   So, Greer gets something called “The Invitation”, where she is invited to what is essentially a weekend getaway with the Medievals, and two other students. The two other students in this instance are Nel and Shafeen. This invitation basically gets them a weekend of blood sports with the Medievals in terms of hunting, shooting and fishing. I will say, that isn’t entirely what I thought the book was going to be about when I saw the front and back covers, but I wasn’t necessarily upset by it.

    But also, I didn’t read the quote on the top of my copy of the book that said:

    “A darkly compelling examination of the allure of privilege.”

    Maybe I would have got more of what I was expecting if I had actually read that. So, I definitely can’t blame the book for not being what I expected, that was 100% on me.

    Then Greer, Nel and Shafeen are taken to this idyllic, I guess, countryside estate. And, idyllic is the word, because Bennett managed to create some really stellar images. Like, whether I was seeing the things Bennett wanted me to, I had my own picture of what the house on the estate looked like, I had my own idea of what Greer and Henry looked like. That is probably my biggest compliment for the book, the world was beautiful, and the characters, mostly, felt believable.

    What I will say about Greer is that she annoyed me. I don’t mean that as a bad thing, though, because I understand why she annoyed me. So, SPOILERS here, The Invitation is basically the Medievals way of keeping people in place, so that people like them, with money, can stay in control. But the people that get The Invitation were most often students that were purposefully bullied or isolated in school. Basically, they’re starved of affection and attention beforehand, and then once this weekend getaway happens, they’re showered with this attention from the Medievals and are thus likely to do what they want.

    And this was both why Greer annoyed me, and why I understood why she annoyed me. So, SPOILERS again, Henry de Warlencourt is the main antagonist of this book, and, after Nel and Shafeen’s convenient accidents, they, along with Greer come up with a plot to take down the Medievals, because they’ve figured out what they’re doing. And, prior to this plan being made, Greer develops a little crush on Henry, because she’s starved of attention and he’s showing her the barest minimum of kindness. But then as the story goes on, Greer sees Henry for the garbage person that he is. Then the moment he (Henry) starts being nice to Greer again (once Greer, Nel and Shafeen begin their plan), she immediately starts to stop thinking that Henry is a bad person.

    That is why Greer annoyed me. She really drank her dumb bitch juice and started thinking that a boy, that she knew was a bad person, was good.

    Like, I get it, it’s because she was starved for attention, and towards the climax of the book, Henry (I believe) literally says that that is what the Medievals do to keep the people they invite on the weekend retreat. They purposefully starve them of friends and attention.

    Anyway, I didn’t like the climax of this book. And this next section will spoil that climax, so… I don’t know, this is like my fourth spoiler warning.

    So, Henry de Warlencourt, like I mentioned, is the main antagonist, and the book comes to a head when Greer is meant to essentially be drowned in a lake, but she escapes, and ends up climbing up a waterfall, with Henry chasing her. Then, at the top of the waterfall, she gets Henry to confess to all of the terrible things he did and has Nel and Shafeen record, and upload his confession to the cloud, basically destroying his cruel tradition. So, his solution is to take his own life by throwing himself over the waterfall.

    What Greer says at the beginning of the book is correct, her, Nel and Shafeen weren’t technically murderers, but they were “manslaughterers”, because they drove Henry to commit suicide. But because Greer still has feelings for Henry, she feels horrible about it. Now, I don’t want to be mean, but I wanted to tell Greer to shut up. Henry was a monster who was going to kill her… And, again, I get it, she was attention starved… but, girl… really?

   And my biggest complaint was that after Henry takes his own life, that’s it. Everything else conveniently wraps itself up. So, at the end, I was kind of just sat with the book like, “Oh, okay…” It was a very, "Well, it's over" moment.

       It was a really interesting story that, to me, tanked at the end. I felt like the end could have been so much better. Before he takes his own life, Henry mentions that the tradition will never end, and while the ending alludes to one of the other Medievals taking over from Henry, I feel like the ending could have been so much more exciting had maybe Greer, Nel or Shafeen taken over from Henry. It could have been a whole inescapable loop kind of thing. But instead, it was nothing.

    Anyway, they were my incoherent thoughts on S.T.A.G.S., a solid book that was sullied by an unsatisfying ending.

       Okay, bye!