59 pages • 1 hour read
Harley LarouxHer Soul to Take
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Transformative Power of Love
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence and cursing.
Her Soul to Take suggests that finding love can be transformational. Rae and Leon are initially at odds, both attempting to get something from the other. Leon is desperate to get the grimoire from Rae, an item she must give to him willingly. Rae will not hand it over because she wants Leon to protect her from the monsters attacking her. Over the course of the novel, however, self-interest gives way to a bond that makes both Leon and Rae better people, together and individually.
More specifically, Leon’s arc takes him from valuing freedom above all else to valuing Rae and her love even more—enough that he’s willing to die to save her. By the novel’s climax, Leon has the grimoire page with his true name and could return to Hell without a backward glance, and yet he stays to protect Rae. He even takes on a Reaper, which is a fight he knows he cannot win. As he lies dying, he thinks, “Funny, I’d always thought I would die angry. That I’d die for hatred and fury. Dying for love didn’t hurt any less; it probably hurt more. But I felt better than I thought I would” (425). The passage implies that while Rae’s love has brought him pain and complications, it has also given his life meaning.
Meanwhile, Rae’s love for Leon helps her find her bravery in a situation where she has previously prioritized mere survival. After Leon insists that she drive away from the Reaper, Rae realizes that she cannot flee the fight. She must go back for Leon, even if it means she will die. Bolstered by their connection, Rae later faces Jeremiah and then the Deep One, ultimately beating all odds and surviving.
In all of this, the novel suggests that being loved is no less transformative than being in love oneself. When Rae returns for Leon after he’s nearly killed by the Reaper, Leon—who has been used as a weapon for over a century—is confused. He does not see any value in himself, except what he can provide others, and he cannot protect her in his injured state. Realizing that she loves him transforms his worldview:
She was foolish as hell, but she—she loved me. She said it. It was almost laughable, because why would a woman so vibrant, so alive, love a monster from Hell? Why would she risk her life to come back for me, or offer her soul when I’d already given all I could to protect her, when I had nothing more to give in return? Love. Because she…loved me (451).
The moment suggests that in a loving relationship, simply being oneself is sufficient. This is a liberating concept for Leon, and it rounds out the theme by suggesting that as transformative as love can be, it is also about accepting a person as they are.
Consensual Power Dynamics
Her Soul to Take delves into the interplay of power, submission, and consent, offering a nuanced portrayal of power dynamics. The novel centers the relationship between Leon and Rae and emphasizes consent within their relationship, highlighting how trust can transform pain into something positive and affirming. Their relationship is juxtaposed with both Leon’s relationship with Kent Hadleigh and Rae’s relationship with Jeremiah Hadleigh, which show how the absence of consent renders pain merely a tool of control.
From the beginning, Leon demonstrates an unwavering respect for Rae’s autonomy, even when it frustrates him. In particular, he is frustrated that she will not give him her soul: “I really fucking want your soul, Raelynn. I want it so goddamn badly it makes me sick. I want to own you, from now until eternity” (255). However, despite his desperation, he does not want to force her to give him his soul, nor can he: The details of the novel’s world building thus make consent a high priority in any relationship between demons and humans. When Rae finally does give her soul to Leon, she does so without expecting anything in return. Rae knows that Leon can no longer protect her, but she still wants Leon to have her soul. There is nothing transactional about Rae’s gift of her soul; it is just done for love.
I didn’t really care if I bled anymore, so long as I bled for this: for love. It was the only thank-you I could offer—my final devotion he’d likely never even know I gave. But at least my choice was clear now. My soul was Leon’s, even if the God stole it. It was his, always, as was I (449).
The same dynamic extends to Rae and Leon’s sexual relationship. Leon possesses immense physical strength to which Rae is undeniably vulnerable. Leon could easily hurt Rae, including by taking sexual advantage of her. Rae even asks him why he does not, but Leon makes it clear that intimacy and seduction are only pleasurable when they are consensual. In their intimate moments, Leon seeks verbal and enthusiastic consent, never assuming it. Rae’s active role in the dynamic is crucial. She is not a passive participant but willingly embraces her desires, which challenges traditional ideas about submission. By portraying Rae as an empowered individual who actively negotiates her boundaries, the novel emphasizes the importance of agency even in relationships with significant power imbalances (whether intrinsic or chosen). The message of the novel is that dominance does not necessarily equate to coercion or harm.
To underscore this, the novel juxtaposes the consensual power dynamic between Leon and Rae with Leon’s relationship with Kent and Rae’s relationship with Jeremiah. Leon was imprisoned by the Hadleighs for over a century and given tasks by Kent and his forefathers. When Leon refused, he was tortured mercilessly until he complied. This left Leon with severe emotional and literal scars, inhibiting his ability to connect with others. Similarly, when Rae is captured by Jeremiah, Jeremiah carves symbols into her chest without her consent to sacrifice her to the Deep One. This moment is quickly contrasted with Rae’s choice to give herself Leon’s mark, which saves her life and her soul. Through such contrasts, the novel offers a nuanced portrayal of power dynamics, emphasizing the importance of enthusiastic consent.
Survival, Autonomy, and Trust in a Dangerous World
Her Soul to Take explores the ways that survival and autonomy are complicated in a dangerous world. In particular, it suggests that individual survival often relies on trusting others—a lesson that both Rae and Leon need to learn.
Rae begins the novel struggling to understand and then survive a supernatural world that she never knew existed. Though Leon offers her valuable insights into how to do so from the start, she repeatedly resists relying on him, most notably in her unwillingness to give up her soul in exchange for his protection. Rae sees this as an intolerable encroachment on her freedom and pursues other means of protecting herself. For instance, she tries to upload the video of the summoning online in the hope that it will reach someone with experience in the supernatural who can then advise her; later, she decides to steal a protective artifact from the Hadleighs’ house. Her confidence in her own resourcefulness is best summed up in Chapter 20: “My general outlook was that every problem had a solution. I just had to approach it from the right angle. There was always a way” (181).
From the start, however, Rae’s desire to maintain her independence grates against her sense that she can and perhaps should trust Leon:
If I’d actually thought they were a threat to me, I wouldn’t have taken another step closer. But that was the weird thing. They should have been frightening, but instead, I felt this bizarre trust. This completely unfounded belief that they wouldn’t lay a hand on me unless I wanted them to (73).
While Leon shouldn’t be trustworthy, the novel shows that she is right to trust him, as Leon consistently protects her from the humans and monsters that threaten her, even at considerable cost to himself. More significantly still, the bond she forms with Leon actually empowers rather than constrains her. This is clearest when Rae uses the “silver thread” connecting her to Leon to pull herself out of the mines. The episode encapsulates how connection to another can give a person the strength they need to survive.
This is a lesson that Leon also struggles with. However, while Leon does face threats to his physical survival, the novel primarily explores the perceived threat that connection poses to his emotional survival. Leon’s sense of self hinges on his perception of himself as self-interested; what’s more, his story about his former human lover makes clear that he is afraid of the depths of his feelings because of the potential for loss and grief. However, Leon eventually realizes that to have a meaningful future, he has to let Rae in: “But this anger, this fury that kept me going, wasn’t for her. None of it was meant for her. I’d built up my walls to protect myself, not to shut her out” (352). In other words, trust and connection are necessary not only for survival but also to making survival worthwhile.
Ultimately, Her Soul to Take frames autonomy and connection as intertwined. Acknowledging that one needs others to survive does not limit one’s agency but rather bolsters it, rendering the actions one takes more impactful and meaningful.
