Wrath Becomes Her by Aden Polydoros is a book that lingers with you long after you have finished reading it.  I haven't read a book like it before bar, the one that bares some similarity, and that is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 

One is a monster created from the dead and the element of a storm, the other from the clay of a river bed and once again, the dead - but that's where the comparisons end. This is a book where the author will make you a plethora of hard emotions, from grief, to fury, vengeance to despair and the glimmers of what it feels to be loved deeply in a romantic and familial manner. 

I hadn't known about the legend of the Golem of Vilna in Lithuania, (where our story also takes place) which is from an 18th century folktale but this Golem was to help feed and defend the Jews partially when they broke rules to observe their holidays in peace and these Golem would be there to ensure their safety. I've now read a fair about it thanks to Wrath Becomes Her - so thank you, Aden Polydoros, for the opportunity to learn something new.

Unlike these Golem, Vera is made solely for vengeance and to destroy the men who took away a teenage soldier, but she isn't a normal creature. Due to a rather macabre practise that breaks the rules of creating a Golem, Vera experiences memories of the girl she resembles and can recall the moments of her death. The author's care in writing this is apparent and whilst it is hard to read such a violent moment; it is set during a fictional attack in 1943 and war is violent, cruel, dirty and lingers with you always. 

To me, this is not just a tale of vengeance and war, but of grief and processing that loss.. You (and Vera) witness the grief that Ezra as a father experiences and how his sheer determination to restore elements of his daughter causing him to discard his morals and embrace his fury... and my heart ached for him even if I couldn't fathom how he could do what he did. With Akiva, there's so much loss, and I understood his too - he's lost his lover, his friend, and hope for a future, this even more than the father's loss? Caused me to need a moment and to cry a little, although both men's grief and experience of loss are one that shocks you and leaves a wound that never heals.

Vera's confusion of just who she is and where she belongs whilst feeling not only her own emotions but those of the girl she'd made to resemble? Had me wishing I could slip into the pages and reassure her that she matters and that her disheartment over humanity is one that all can relate to. She deserves so much more than she's given, and I hate seeing her hope and pain turn to anger and indifference as she sees the reality of the world she's been thrust into.

Wrath Becomes Her may well be set in war torn Lithuania with a creation that lingers in folklore and horror stories but I know that many will be like me when they come to the end and see how the world is sadly as dark and cruel as the one so beautifully written in its dark fragility by Polydoros. I had from the first look at the cover art and read the synopsis known it would stay with me... but I was left chilled and saddened that a creature made of clay was left (ironically) hardened by the reality of what humanity can be. It's an effective way of highlighting too how those who are deemed different can be seen as dangerous, and that too left me chilled.

I think I'll be haunted by Vera by a long time.