“I want the world to be gentle with me, but I don’t know if I deserve it. I’ve not been gentle with the world.”

Being an actress, being famous, being in demand, being a woman, no wait, actually just being human is hard.

If anyone knows the pressures of living a glamorous life in the public eye, it’s Lulabelle Rock. Everyone wants a piece of you and everyone either wants to see you succeed or gleefully watch you fail. Yet in this near-future world there is the technology to create clones of yourself known as Portraits and naturally for a wealthy woman like Lulabelle who must constantly be present to remain relevant she has made twelve perfect Portraits to fulfil the many duties that come with the price of being famous. Where our story begins Lulabelle has made a thirteenth Portrait and her purpose is solely to assassinate and dispose of all the other Portraits. This thirteenth Lulabelle is the one we follow as she navigates through the strange and mysterious Bubble City, locates each target and kills every version of herself that was made. Her task is no means simple though and things quickly become messy when Lulabelle begins to develop a conscience, when she begins to question her existence, her true reason for being made and when she falls in love with one of her targets.

Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock by debut author Maud Woolf is a stunningly layered, genre blending quirky noir which captured me from the very first page to the very last. This is a novel that draws you in with its strange premise but holds you with its emotional exploration of the human experience. 

With razor sharp first person narration, Lulabelle guides us through her journey into the glitzy high end streets of Bubble City, a place full of strange fashion, wild parties, business and elite people. It is a place of wonder but through Lulabelle’s eyes we see it is also a place of falsehood. Portraits can be seen roaming the streets freely, distinguishable by their perfect, blemish-free appearances. Anyone who is anyone owns Portraits of themselves, they alone can afford the technology of the vats, but what exactly that technology is, we are never fully told. That does not mean that Woolf does not include rules for Portraits, or limitations, in fact there are quite a few. Portraits can be injured, they can die, they can kill clones of themselves but never another’s Portrait, nor can they harm a human. A company called Mitosis regulates these factors with tracking devices embedded in each clone and around the clock their engineers and lawyers patrol across Bubble City. No Portrait is left completely unsupervised for long, they are never truly free.

“People, we age and change and gain weight and lose it and get sore joints. The minute we stop growing we start dying. Our lives rise and fall like waves on an ocean. But you – you’re crystallised.

You’re a frozen moment in time.”

However, before reaching the city Lulabelle interacts with her first complete stranger, a young goth she labels the Hitchhiker, and this is the point where we begin to learn much through imagery and underlying themes. At the beginning of each chapter we are given an epigraph with a description of a different tarot card, the deck which was given to Lulabelle by the Hitchhiker becomes a significant motif throughout, and we quickly discover each card relates to the Portrait being assassinated or to a side character Lulabelle meets within that chapter. Of course Lulabelle’s card, number thirteen, is Death. Though does this foretell that she is the bringer of death or her own death? This is just one of the many ways Woolf sprinkles wonderful depth throughout her novel and I felt it was such a clever addition as each card, each Portrait, each interaction could be interpreted in a myriad of ways—nothing is as it seems.

“But what if the whole painting is a mistake? Or terrible? And the more you work on it, the worse it gets?”

 

“Well yeah. That can happen.

But what’s the alternative? Just leave the canvas blank?

Or leave it unfinished? It’s hard to tell if it’s good or bad till you’re finished. And what’s good or bad art anyway?”

At the heart of this novel Woolf explores themes of individuality and self awareness and it is so spectacularly done. There are thirteen versions of Lulabelle and not one of them is happy or content with themselves. These are not just mindless clones, they are sentient beings with Lulabelle’s core memories, her feelings and yet they also long for more. The longer they exist the more they desire their individuality, to do more than the role they were created for, to be just that bit more human. The novel revolves around a lot of dialogue between our Lulabelle and the other Portraits. At first glance the subjects they discuss feel strange, disassociated and they are often filled with satire and dark humour, but on closer inspection they are filled with so much meaning, so much emotion. As Lulabelle discovers subtle differences between each Portrait, deviations from their original counterpart, they force our Lulabelle to question who she really is, they muddle with her memories and they make her consider her own morality. Don’t these Portraits, who have become more than just copies of Lulabelle Rock, also have a right to exist? Can she also be more? 

Throughout we see that being a woman there are many expectations set upon us. Fall in love, get married, be a mother, be creative, have a successful career, be sociable, be beautiful, never fall ill, never fade away, be tough, be gentle, be kind. When life demands so much from us and we have such little time, how are we to be everything all at once? This is what makes this novel so sorrowful upon reflection and towards the end things take an even more poignant twist as Lulabelle begins to understand loneliness and crave companionship. As she strikes up a closeness to the artist Portrait, Woolf explores how we all start as blank canvas’ and how we can adapt, change, grow. The Portraits’ appearances may always remain the same, never aging or deteriorating unless injured, but their minds are an ever expanding part of themselves. The question is, do they see this as a blessing or a design flaw? In turn, here is where Lulabelle truly understands what it is to be human, to have regrets, make mistakes, feel pain but carry on regardless. Though it is not all doom and gloom as she also discovers the pleasures in life, from discovering your favourite foods to even experiencing love. She learns what it is to love someone else more than yourself. 

“Does the piano want to be played? Does the horse want to be ridden?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “No. Yes.”

“What do you want?” she asks me. When she leans closer, I think for a minute that her right eye is blue. “Do you want to live?”

Woolf makes her readers contemplate on much in her debut and I feel each reader will come away with their own experiences and perhaps even relate to Lulabelle in different ways. For me Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock is an addictively enthralling sci-fi thriller with razor sharp prose, cinematic scenes and a surprising tender exploration of experiencing the highs and lows of life and finding love.

E-ARC provided by Caroline at Angry Robot Books. All quotes used are taken from a very early ARC and are subject to change upon publication.

Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock is out 9th January 2024 but you can pre-order a copy on the Angry Robot Website