I absolutely adore this series. Long novella series aren’t incredibly common, and this one is especially unique in that its installments function bothI absolutely adore this series. Long novella series aren’t incredibly common, and this one is especially unique in that its installments function both together and separately, allowing its readership to dip their toes into these stories one by one, enjoying the world on a scale both large and small.
To be honest, I had left the past couple books in this series feeling slightly lackluster. The first book, THE EMPRESS OF SALT AND FORTUNE, was a riveting and gorgeous story. The second one, WHEN THE TIGER CAME DOWN THE MOUNTAIN, contained such a wind of whimsy. But then the third book, IN THE RIVERLANDS, felt like Nghi Vo had already run out of story structures. The third book was a fun read and had lovely writing and characters, per usual, but honestly tried too hard to replicate the exact emotional arc and payoff of the first book, and fell short in that attempt. The fourth book, MAMMOTHS AT THE GATES, was better than the third in that it clearly was forging its own path, but it felt more like a separate reprieve from the other adventures. It lacked an impact that the initial two books had.
So when this fifth book came around, I didn’t have very high expectations. Don’t get me wrong, I was still excited for another installment, as I’ve definitely grown attached to this series regardless of its narrative accomplishments and was looking forward to reentering this world. But boy oh boy, Nghi Vo has found her footing again and we are so back, baby.
Nghi Vo brings the gothic into this installment of The Singing Hills, paying homage to classic stories like Bluebeard.
Though the structure of the pacing was still reminiscent to the other stories in this series, the use of information and lack-there-of was much more precise and complex than in the stories we’ve seen so far. Utilizing a dream-like, unsettling atmosphere, the approach to this book was so well-done and really served the story at hand.
Vo also brilliantly called back to a narrative thread from one of the other tales (I won’t say which) with such tact. Though some readers may find that repetitive, I found it to be a really strong choice. It allowed the installments, though primarily standalones, to start holding some elemental conversations, without causing either story to lean on the other. It was exactly the right installment to start bridging the gaps between the stories at hand without rupturing their ability to function on their own. Regardless of which order you read these books in, this parallel will be an exciting and unexpected familiar face amidst these otherwise mostly unconnected narratives.
As I mentioned earlier, in the third installment, the narrative parallel felt more like “oh, we’ve seen this trick before.” It didn’t quite work. Whereas in this installment, it was precisely BECAUSE we had seen this trick before that it worked for the narrative. It felt like that thread had concluded, now resting off to the side, because of the way its presence functioned in the structure of that previous story. So of course we fell for the trick again, because we thought we had left it behind.
I think this is also the first time in The Singing Hills series that Vo has really made use of limited narration. We’ve, at this point, come to rely on Chih as a truthful and honest storyteller, whose sole purpose is to chronicle information, which allows us a consistent and trustworthy perspective in which to view the world. And wow, does Vo capitalize on this lens in this one.
I am so pleased to see something new and invigorating pumped into the lungs of this series. After the lull of the past few books, it was really exciting to read an installment that is definitely competing for my favorite of the books out so far.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
CW: dead body, drugging, blood & gore, decapitation (offscreen), alcohol, sexual content (implied)...more
If vampires, biblical/mythological creatures, an aroace neurodivergent MC, queer found family, and a dark academia setting sound like something you miIf vampires, biblical/mythological creatures, an aroace neurodivergent MC, queer found family, and a dark academia setting sound like something you might love, you should read FALLEN THORNS.
Arlo struggles to fit in. He's tall and awkward and nervous and doesn't really understand how to connect with people. The only person in his life who he can be himself with is his best friend Rani. But one day, he finds himself being asked on a date. And though he doesn't really get the whole relationship thing, he decides to give it a go. But branching out doesn't seem to work too well for Arlo, especially when his dating life meets a fatal end. Quite literally. Who knew one kiss could change someone so fundamentally?
After finding himself rescued and taken in by a family of vampires, Arlo has to learn how to live all over again. His body has changed, his appetite has changed, his perspective has changed, but most of all, his physical ability to support himself has changed. He finds himself needing to open up and rely on those around him, forcing him out of his shell and forcing him to confront parts of himself that he's been too scared to look at directly. But along with his unexpected rapid coming-of-age, Arlo finds something else growing inside of him. Another voice that's been a part of him for longer than he's known.
This is a book that sneaks up on you in more ways than one. The characters just worm their way into your heart, nestling themselves inside crevices when you're not looking. They were so easy to love and relate to, and I felt like I was just as wrapped up in the arms of this precious and ferocious found family as Arlo. And the pacing follows this path as well, as it eases you into a steady and consistent pace, the motions of the story gliding comfortably along until you're deep into the thick of it before you know it. I would definitely call the majority of this book leisurely-paced or quiet, until suddenly it’s not. Without even realizing, the stakes become suddenly high and you're screaming and crying and clutching your chest with anticipation.
There's so many fascinating moving parts to this world and to these characters and I'm left with the perfect amount of questions and confusion and desperation. I cannot WAIT to see where Harv takes us for book 2.
CW: blood & gore, death, murder, self-inflicted wounds, dismemberment (off-page), torture, mutilation, eye horror, character death, grief, suicide (mention), panic attacks, death of parents (past), death of sibling (past), sexual harrassment, alcohol consumption, emesis...more
I'm so glad to live in a world in which there's an 1800 sapphic vampire novel that predates Dracula.
Thoughts on Carmilla itself: I am having a hard timI'm so glad to live in a world in which there's an 1800 sapphic vampire novel that predates Dracula.
Thoughts on Carmilla itself: I am having a hard time pulling apart my thoughts on this story due to the edition I read (more on that below) but I can see why this story has such a cult following and why so many works were inspired by it. The intimacy and fragility of the love between these two women is beautiful, and something wonderfully and surprisingly queer for the era it was published in. Much of the story and world is left vague, which makes for a simultaneously disappointing and brilliantly enticing open-endedness. The Black woman in the carriage is left unknown. The large cat that appears to Laura is left unexplained. We never find out where Mademoiselle de Lafontaine goes after she leaves Carmilla. But it's almost more exciting to not know. It makes the story read as a bit of a riddle, a puzzle only partially put-together, with stray and missing pieces left behind for the reader to ponder over. The end is a bit anti-climactic, with the two women missing out on what would have been a riveting confrontational scene, and with the last chunk of the story being told through second-hand accounts. The end just felt more distanced and passive rather than mysterious, which was a bit disappointing. But I really enjoyed the story overall, and I am now really interested in engaging with retellings, reimaginings, scholarship, and debate all inspired by this fascinating tale. There's much to marinate on.
Thoughts on this edition: I started off loving this edition, but am left feeling VERY torn about it. Carmen Maria Machado is one of my favorite authors and I was really looking forward to experiencing this story for the first time with her edits as a guiding hand. The book opens with an introduction from CMM herself, explaining that this story was actually inspired by preexisting letters written by a woman named Veronika Hausle. Machado continues by citing a scholarly publication about the finding of these letters and criticizing Le Fanu's censorship of said letters in his publication of the story. She asks her readership to engage with the story ahead critically, to consider the way Le Fanu insults his own narrator through the limitations he places on her descriptors and experiences. And I've spent the past few days telling friends about this mysterious backstory to Carmilla, insisting that I couldn't possibly judge Carmilla as a story in its current form, as I'm missing so much of its original content and context. And then I went to go look up that source CMM cites in the introduction to learn more about these letters and their author... and reader, can you guess what I discovered? The source doesn't exist. Neither does Viktoria Hausle. The entire introduction was completely fictional and made up. And I have VERY mixed feelings about that.
As a storyteller and a fan of experimental writing, I find this so artistically thrilling. The idea of crafting a fictional backstory to a pre-existing work and presenting it in the format of an introduction to said work in a new publication is smart and fascinating. And this act of fictional expansion spread beyond the introduction and into the footnotes of the main text, where I found it most successful. These footnotes added entirely fictional anecdotes, Carmen Maria Machado sprinkling in additional world-building through her own silly little writings. And that worked SO well. There was no citation or real grounded-ness to these footnotes, so it was pretty clear that these were purely made-up additions. What a fun way to edit a book, by adding your own imaginative headcanons between the lines of the original text! I really appreciated the creative initiative and gall to craft an entirely new story and pitch it to your audience as fact. It was immersive and ground-breaking and so very Carmen Maria Machado.
But I also found it incredibly frustrating and somewhat morally irresponsible. See, the blurred line of fact and fiction amidst Carmen's additions to this work is cool in concept but inconsistent and unreliable in practice. I have three main issues with this introduction, so let me break it down: 1. "Censorship." The entire Point of CMM's introduction is to ask the audience to question this story's author via some made-up story of queer historical censorship. To craft an absence, a false negative space, around the text. And though, again, I artistically am obsessed with this choice to paint in the space untouched by a preexisting text, I found this a bit distracting. There are very true stories out in the world about queer censorship. It's a very real thing that happened. There are many authors who took the words of women around them and then painted those women as monsters (look no further than F. Scott Fitzgerald), and this introduction feels like it's looking to garner that misplaced sympathy. I would've found it more interesting and appropriate if CMM wrote an introduction about the history of censorship, or even maybe wrote an entire novel that creates this fictional backstory about Le Fanu in order to ask these questions about censorship on a larger stage (and one that would be more obviously fictional). But placing this story as the introduction to the actual text itself is just distracting and frankly, shadows the beauty of the fact that Carmilla IS a queer story that did survive historical censorship, misogyny, and lesbophobia. 2. A Betrayal of Trust. Now, one might disagree with me, but I find the editor of a text, especially the editor of a classic text, to be morally responsible in taking on the role of a sort of Virgil to the reader's Dante. Many readers, especially ones without prior experience with Carmilla (such as myself), will be looking to Carmen Maria Machado as a North Star to guide them through this unknown journey. I read classic literature fairly often, especially Shakespeare, and the editorial hand heavily shapes the reading experience. The introduction acts as a sort of guide, giving the reader a little spark of knowledge to help them take their first steps through the text's doorway with confidence. The reader is armed with the knowledge of metaphor or historical reception or scholarly debate or several of the many other gifts that are often granted via a work's introduction, then led along a path carved by footnotes that offer the reader stepping stones and road signs of translations or alternate meanings. So to me, it feels manipulative and academically dishonest to assert a misleading narrative onto your audience, who might be dipping their toes into this water for the first time, that will heavily affect their perspective on this text. I feel a bit like Red Riding Hood, tempted off the path by false promises. It felt almost predatory and malicious to use the introduction, which traditionally exists to serve the reader, as a way to toy with the reader instead. It caused me (and others, who I know had the same experience) to feel manipulated, humiliated, and honestly a little bit used. Now, I did say that I thought the footnotes were mostly successful and I do stand by that. But whereas the footnotes were clearly fictional (again, VERY anecdotal and without citation), the introduction was quite scholarly and contained (fake) sources. Even a reader with strong critical thinking skills would very easily fall for this trap until/unless they actually did the work of looking into these sources provided. Though again, this experiment of Machado's is wildly inconsistent, because there's an article referenced in one of the footnotes later on in the story that IS real. Why would readers expect a combination of true and false sources in a text? I think this inconsistency only heightens the manipulation. 3. A Lack Of. Like I mentioned earlier in this review, I really love Carmen Maria Machado. And I was really excited to read this story through her eyes. And just as disappointed as I am that I was misled, I'm also disappointed I never actually got the experience I was promised. CMM is clearly incredibly smart, incredibly well-researched, and is frankly an important figure in modern queer literature. I think her scholarly takes on Carmilla would have been profound and interesting on their own, without this warped narrative. The end result of this cool storytelling experiment is just a lack of. A lack of knowledge from CMM, a lack of certainty, a lack of understanding, and most importantly: a lack of a helpful introduction. And with this experience being my first with Carmilla, I'm feeling a bit disoriented, and am having a hard time separating the story itself from all the smoke and mirrors.
Overall, I'd call this edition a really cool artistic experiment but a cruel literary prank. I kind of loved it, and kind of hated it. I do recommend it, but with a heavy emphasis on the fact that Carmen's words are not to be trusted, and with a strong suggestion to read the original text elsewhere first. And of course the illustrations were an absolute joy. So sapphic. So gothic. Every time I read a book with interior illustrations I am reminded how much I wish every book had interior illustrations. It's certainly a pretty edition, even if its roses have hidden thorns.
CW: racism (the text itself), illness, death, blood, hallucinations, death of child, decapitation, car accident, death of mother (past), suicide (mention)...more
Thank you to the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
"...she understood Angharad on a level that was almost inarticulabThank you to the publisher for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
"...she understood Angharad on a level that was almost inarticulable: it was as primal and unconscious as her lungs pumping and her heart beating."
Swollen with atmosphere, A Study in Drowning is sure to sweep its readers off their feet and into a fantastical world of fairytale.
Ava has crafted THE YA gothic fantasy, complete with dark academic elements, fae realms, sharp commentary, and a heart-melting romance at its center.
We follow Effy Sayre, an architecture student at the University of Llyr. But despite being an architecture major, Effy is a literature fiend. Or at least a fiend about one piece of literature in particular: Angharad by Emrys Myrddin, a beloved fairytale of a young woman abducted who falls in love with–and ultimately destroys–the fairy king. And Effy WOULD be dedicating her studies to literature if she could, but unfortunately women are not allowed in the literature college.
So when the opportunity arises for Effy to redesign Myrddin’s estate, she jumps at the job. But upon her arrival, all is not as expected: Hiraeth Manor is literally crumbling into the sea, and it's filled with some mysterious and unsettling inhabitants. Effy finds herself living amongst Ianto Myrddin, Myrddin’s son and the head of the estate, Myrddin’s wife who is mysteriously absent and unavailable, and Preston, a fellow student at Effy’s university.
This book–like all Ava Reid books–is overflowing with metaphor, symbolism, and historical and literary references. It is a story inspired by and about Welsh folklore, history, and language. It is about sexism in academia and sexual harassment and exploitation. It is about ableism and classism and xenophobia in society and the fantastical lengths people will go to in order to justify those isms. It, like all of Ava’s works thus far, thematically explores the relationship between self and narrative. It’s about decay. It’s about nationalism. It’s about authorship, and the connection between writer and reader. But it’s mostly about holding a mirror to ancient falsehoods that uphold oppressive institutions.
Now, I’ve been dreading writing this review, as I am certain I need a reread to fully extract my thoughts on this book, because it has SO much to say and it feels hard to reflect upon the dazzling mosaic of its imagery after just one read. And... I won't lie, I’ve also kind of been dreading writing this review as this isn’t my favorite of Ava’s works, and though I LOVED it, I found this one a little bit harder to gush about. There’s a few narrative threads I felt weren’t incredibly strong, and I wish it had been a little longer, as some bits felt skimmed over or underutilized. I think perhaps this story would’ve worked better as a duology or an adult book. But on the other hand, this was some of Ava’s best writing. The quotes at the start of each chapter were especially enchanting, as I found myself poring over those words in an attempt to absorb them into my very being. At the end of the day, it is an Ava Reid book, and so it left me with some ineffable fullness and magic that cannot be pinned down or named in words. And that is something priceless and rare and more important to me than any small shortcomings.
I absolutely without a doubt, recommend this book. Effy's story is so emotional and meaningful and will touch the hearts of so many readers, and the text is adorned with such evocative atmosphere and prose. Ava Reid has been a force to be reckoned with since their first release, and I am oh so certain we’re going to be witnessing a glorious career.
CW: sexual harassment/assault, sexism, ableism, mental illness, abusive parent, death , parental death (past), bullying, classism, xenophobia, violence, gun violence, war, child abandonment, drowning, alcohol consumption, colonialism, animal death, grooming, blood/injury, trauma, PTSD, dismemberment, child sacrifice, hallucinations...more
Cemetery Boys meets Noah Kahan in this YA house book.
A really sweet and spooky YA story with a nuanced and unbelievably lovable trio of main characterCemetery Boys meets Noah Kahan in this YA house book.
A really sweet and spooky YA story with a nuanced and unbelievably lovable trio of main characters. Complete with a magical realism-style metaphorical magic system, a lovable achillean romance, and a house that represents the walls we build out of trauma.
CW: death of mother (past), grief, animal death, confinement, racism, child abandonment, blood, hospitalization, fire, electrocution...more
Thank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
“Please, do what she did to me and make it good. Make mThank you to the publisher for sending me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
“Please, do what she did to me and make it good. Make me weak and willing, and let it be good in the glow of you. Make me need and make me weep and get to the truth of me, the meat of me, and show me that it isn’t rotten.”
A Long Time Dead is an expansive gothic vampire romance about change: the kind that happens so fast you have to struggle to catch up with it, the kind that comes along with growth that feels like stretching into a new skin, as well as the kind that happens slowly over time so that one day you look back and are slapped in the face with the realization of how different things have become.
I have INCREDIBLY mixed thoughts over this book, and find myself unable to rate it, torn between bits that shine brightly and confidently in the best ways, and others that are muddy and sticky in the worst ways.
Poppy is such a unique main character for a gothic story. Not only is she a fat sex worker, she is jovial, lively, a bit crass, and not at all like the sullen, dark vampire archetype we’re used to. In fact, for a vampire, she feels incredibly human. Her heart bleeds more than her victims do.
And Poppy’s love leaks throughout the text, pulling forward tropes and themes uncharacteristic of the genre, such as found family and happy endings. Despite being a historical vampire story, this book is first and foremost a romance about two people finding each other and crafting a world that brings them peace and warmth.
Though of course, this book isn’t without its gothic moments. It handles large conversations about abuse–as a lot of vampire novels do–and quite well, in my opinion. You can tell that the themes of abuse are very personal to the author, and were very carefully represented.
I also think this book had a lot of interesting things to say about desire and self restraint, particularly on moderating your desires so as to find the balance between keeping yourself from happiness and over-indulging.
Samara Breger has a background in theater, and this is very apparent in her writing style. I felt very much like the chapters are written like scenes, which I think was both beneficial and detrimental to the book. Each individual scene on its own was an absolute masterpiece. Distance covered in plot and in characters, check. Beginning, middle, end, check. Established point, check. And some of these scenes have such incredible interpersonal dialogue that I think would work SO well for acting classes/showcases. But I felt the scenes were not edited together well, and frankly, a lot of the chapters felt like filler episodes. I felt a lot of the story struggled to stay on its path, and with that I found myself lacking a forward motion to grasp onto.
I did reach a point where I found myself racing against time, attempting to beat my own urge to DNF this book. And though I did win and finish this book before I was consumed by the need to put it down, the fact that I took on that race isn’t the best sign, and the urge to DNF was still definitely there.
I think the part for me that really failed was the pacing (which I know is subjective and hard to pin down, but bear with me). The emotional arc mapping was not done well, and the gothic tones were often in conflict with the romance which was often in conflict with the main action of the story. At times, it was meandering and dragging (especially in its dialogue or stretches of inner monologue), causing it to become repetitive and/or boring. I’m usually one who asks authors to milk their moments more than they do, and would rather scenes go on too long than too short. But I found myself skimming whole pages at times just to finish a scene that could’ve ended way earlier. And especially in the Gothic genre, where the reader expects to infer a lot of plot and messaging through subtext, it felt even more jarring when we did hit those overdone moments.
I mostly found this boiled down to the fact that the readers’ emotional journey through the book is uncertain, and could use with a few more rounds of editing to solidify.
Though Breger’s theatrical writing style gave me a mixed impression, I was really a fan of her Jewish perspective. There’s quite a lot of Jewish influence in this book, which was really exciting to see, especially in a vampire novel. There’s a large history of vampire archetypes being used to push antisemitic rhetoric, and it was delightful instead to have Jewishness unabashedly featured (however briefly and subtly) in a vampire story. All of the harmful archetypes were easily avoided, and there was even a conversation about Jewish morals and how they apply to a vampirical lifestyle. (I geeked out a little bit at this part for SURE.) But I do want to make it clear: there isn’t any actual Jewish representation in this book, though for all you Catholics out there, it’s filled to the brim with that Catholic guilt rep.
And lastly, this is a very neutral element for me, but it’s something I’d like to prepare other readers for: this book has a looot of sexual over- and undertones. Of course, it IS spicy (and WOW those were some delicious spicy scenes!! Honestly, I don’t have very formal words about the romance in this book other than AHHHHHH ), but as a former sex worker, the MC has a lot of sexual experience and is constantly thinking about it and using it to inform her life. Moreover, her sexual desires are very tied into her vampirical urges. I actually found it a fascinating literary addition to the canon of the vampire experience, but I know it might catch some folks off-guard. Especially because it really is quite crass.
Okay I will quickly mention: the romance really was all that. In fact, despite the bits that DID drag, I do wish some of the more romantic moments were dragged out further.
But Breger’s prose is the absolute star of the show in this book. It’s enchanting and gut-wrenching and undeniably show-stopping. Each time I felt dragged down in this book, I found myself renewed, vibrant with the life injected into me by a new gorgeous quote to fall deeply in love with. It shone the most in expressing the love between the main characters, and I was constantly squealing with delight and reading lines over and over in utter adoration.
Overall: I think this book was sexy, confident, and brilliant in the conversations it added to the gothic genre and featured some iconic sapphic vampires, but was held back by poor structure and editing, as it lacked a strong, intentional hand to guide our journey through this story.
This isn’t a book I will likely be going out of my way to recommend, but if you’ve read through this whole review and are intrigued by this story, I think it could be worth a read.
CW: sexual content, abusive relationship, blood & gore, violence, gun violence, mind control, animal death, drugging, confinement, forced institutionalization, dead bodies, fatphobia (mention), character death...more
Oh. Wow. Tunneling right into the heart of the ouroborotic nature of storytelling–from ancient myth to small town legend, Harrow achieves a gothic triOh. Wow. Tunneling right into the heart of the ouroborotic nature of storytelling–from ancient myth to small town legend, Harrow achieves a gothic triumph between these pages. Riddled with complex symbolism and allusions, featuring a meddling sentient house, and centering two unbelievably lovable characters who carry each of their worlds on their backs, STARLING HOUSE is absolutely a new favorite story of mine.
Thank you to TOR for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review! I'm sorry it took me so long!
Thank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
A Multitude of Dreams by Mara Rutherford reimagines TheThank you to the publisher for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
A Multitude of Dreams by Mara Rutherford reimagines The Masque of the Red Death in this Jewish YA gothic fantasy following Seraphina, a young Jewish girl who has been forced to abandon her community and disguise herself as a princess in a locked castle amidst the plague.
I LOVE The Masque of the Red Death and have been SO excited to see a modern (and Jewish!) take on it. I think Poe’s tale has so much potential to be retold with new perspectives, especially right now, as we ourselves have a very close and personal relationship to pandemics.
And this story sets up a lot in terms of what it has to say, primarily: 1. commentary on classism as a king has locked himself, his family, and wealthy nobles in a castle as the rest of the populous is left vulnerable to a fatal plague and 2. the history of Jewish people being blamed for plagues leading to violent pogroms.
But the thing I love about gothic stories is the way they employ allegory and nuance, and I think the themes of A Multitude of Dreams were addressed in too straight-forward of a manner. Especially considering The Masque of the Red Death itself is SO mysterious and abstract, I was hoping for some real thematic depth. But these themes just weren’t properly saturated into the characters and the plot lines, or tucked in-between the words. The bits of symbolism and metaphor that were utilized felt more sprinkled around as an afterthought for the sake of vibes rather than used as the core force of the narrative.
It was almost trying to execute a gothic tale but structured in the style of a fantasy adventure, and it was very much at conflict with itself. Because what happens when themes are confronted directly is that they end up being kind of one-and-done, so as to not feel too repetitive for readers. And the story ends up needing more content that isn’t related to the themes to keep it moving. But because this content isn’t related to the rest of the story’s themes, it ends up feeling tangential and frankly, distracting. And that’s what happened with this book. Particularly with the vampires.
I actually really liked the idea of vampires in this world. And I think these vampires COULD have added something allegorically to these conversations (I even expected them to! I thought they were going to be an allegory for greed or for the brutality of pandemics), but they just didn’t say anything (I mean you could kind of argue that they were some sort of punishment on the upper class for their sins but that’s not even consistently accurate). And that’s just the thing here. There were so many times I thought a certain plot line or story element would be Saying Something, just for it to turn out to be nothing.
This book was trying to do a lot. And I felt like it could have accomplished it with the right pushes. I think all of the elements were set up in the right places, and I really liked the writing and the characters. But it felt like it just struggled to be precise and lost its way. In attempting to solve one problem, it would mess up another. Reading this book almost felt like watching one of those clown sketches where someone sets up something and then turns around and sets up another thing just to turn back to the first thing having fallen and they just keep going back and forth with each object falling right when they fix the other. It struggled to juggle all its elements and frankly just wasn’t smart enough or precise enough to really accomplish what it set out to.
I wouldn’t say this is a bad book by any means. In fact, I do think YA audiences who aren’t too caught up in worrying about allegory could really enjoy it. It does indeed talk about Jewish people being blamed for plagues (though in a slightly messy way) and does have some cool atmospheric choices (I loved the clock!!) and a lovely romance. (Though considering the intimacy of the romance, I think this book was intended for an older YA crowd, who probably would prefer a little more finesse in its craft.) And I didn’t have a bad time reading it by any means! Again, I liked the characters and the writing quite a bit! But sadly A Multitude of Dreams did not reach the height of my hopes for it.
As a side note: I've seen some non-Jewish reviewers say that the problem with this book is its Jewishness and I'd like to respectfully ask that if you are not of a community, you don't get to decide which stories that community does and does not belong in. I will say: the Jewishness of this book was is highs and its lows. Highs: -Seraphina's love for her community and culture -The very real discussion of the fact that Jewish people and communities were forced to live in ghettos and then were mass murdered when their forced isolation kept them safe from disease. Lows: -the use of "anti-Semitism" instead of "antisemitism" which I hope was fixed in the final copy (Google it please) -“What were you expecting? A hooked nose? A foul odor? Cloven hooves?” the careless lumping in of an actual facial feature commonly occurring in Jewish and non-white people with horrific antisemitic myths -the lack of closure we got with the world's antisemitism considering the fact that Seraphina was a Jew disguised as a gentile princess–she never really reckoned with this at the end. But seriously, if you're not Jewish, you have no right to speak on this portrayal or the Jewish presence in this story in general.
CW: plague, antisemitism, forced confinement, loss of loved ones (past), dead bodies, violence, gun violence, blood & gore, beheading, animal death, death, poisoning, alcohol consumption, self-harm, death in childbirth (past), home invasion (past), emesis...more
To attempt to summarize my thoughts on this story is not unlike attempting to bottle a storm, leaving me no choice butO, full of scorpions is my mind.
To attempt to summarize my thoughts on this story is not unlike attempting to bottle a storm, leaving me no choice but to let the tempest rage on. Which is to say, I've wrote out my thoughts in a word document and they're 8 pages, single-spaced.
When I first read this book, I immediately foresaw it being unbelievably polarizing, and with the responses emerging since ARCs have gone out, I’m not surprised to see that prophecy fulfilled.
I'm a long time super fan of Ava Reid's work, as many of you know. But as many of you don't, I'm also a rising Shakespeare scholar with a specific interest in Macbeth and its depicted relationship between magic and the marginalized. So suffice to say: I was greatly anticipating this story, and I have a LOT of opinions on it.
Unfortunately, they do NOT fit in the Goodreads character limit, so I've made my review publicly available on my Patreon ! (I promise I would just put my review here if it would fit, but it won't.) If you want to read my thoughts on Lady Macbeth, including but not limited to: its relationship to Shakespearean scholarship and how it compares to Shrek, now you can! Enjoy!
“If you combed through enough fairy tales, untangled their roots, and shook out their branches, you would find that they are infested with oaths. Oath“If you combed through enough fairy tales, untangled their roots, and shook out their branches, you would find that they are infested with oaths. Oaths are brittle things, not unlike an egg. Though they go by different names depending on the myth–troths and gets, vows and tynged–there is one thing they all share: they must be broken for there to be a story. Only a shattered promise yields a rich, glittering yoke of a tale.”
This is a book to pore over. A book that makes you want to trace your fingers along each line, coaxing the words into your fingertips, just to bring your digits up to puckered lips and suck the ink dry, savoring each flavorful drop of meaning.
It holds a power in its pages, one of enchanting intoxication. If it’s possible to get drunk on words alone, this book is the god’s nectar to your everyday literary watered-down wine. It’s simultaneously luxurious like a rose and sharp like a thorn, its wit as enscorcelling and impressive as its characters.
By thematically weaving together tales such as Bluebeard, Eros and Psyche, Catskins, Beauty and the Beast, and more, Chokshi explores a liminal unease found between reality and fantasy, truth and lie, promises bound and broken. This book is a catalog of ghost and story through gothic prose, and in its own way, a thesis on the lessons of fairytales and the danger of the power they hold. Or rather the power we have to hold them. What is love if not fear? What is devotion if not sacrifice? What is a fairytale if not a weapon and a warning in one?
This book utters itself like a secret. And though like all secrets, it is inevitably spilled, its knowledge, also like with all secrets, comes with a sacrifice. It is not given freely, but earned through the effort of reading it. This story is to me: fragile, intangible, a whisper declared to the heart. And to attempt to clumsily summarize it in words or break its spell with the utterance of its particulars seems to me nothing short of blasphemous.
But I can say: THE LAST TALE OF THE FLOWER BRIDE is a brand new favorite of mine and its praises will be living on the tip of my tongue for a VERY long time. I was absolutely captivated by its purple prose and drawn in by its deconstruction of fairytale motifs. I fell in love with its gothic atmosphere and haunting cast of characters (including a hair-raising house), and felt a little too seen in its depiction of homoerotic codependent friendships between young girls (I didn’t know In A Week by Hozier could be known like this). But mostly, I left it believing in just a little more magic than I did when my journey into its pages began. And isn’t that what the goal of reading is? To emerge in a cloud of bibliosmia, stretching our limbs and rubbing our eyes and upon reacquainting ourselves with our reality, to find that when we weren’t looking, some unnameable thing from the depths of the story has nuzzled its way into our soul, leaving the world looking (or perhaps feeling) just a little bit different than it was before? To be inexplicably, indefinably, but undeniably changed?
CW: loss of sibling (past), blood and gore, animal death, abusive relationship, abusive parent, bullying, alcohol consumption, drugging, self-harm (for magic), parental death (past), character death, dead body, cannibalism, tooth horror (light), sexual content...more
She kissed me with a martyr's agonized desperation, like I was the only sword she ever wanted to fall on. I kissed her right back like the cutting edgShe kissed me with a martyr's agonized desperation, like I was the only sword she ever wanted to fall on. I kissed her right back like the cutting edge of a blade, trying to inflict as much damage as possible.
Thank you SO MUCH to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
IF WE WERE VILLAINS meets A DOWRY OF BLOOD in this scrumptious sapphic dark academia novel by S.T. Gibson.
This is less of a retelling of Carmilla and more a reincarnation. Gibson takes these beloved characters and pumps fresh blood into them so that they can live a life anew. And in this incarnation, Laura and Carmilla find themselves in New England as poetry students under the fierce hand of Professor De Lefontaine, a vicious academic force with a dark past. De Lefontaine doles out her praise selectively, setting students at each others' throats as they vy for her attention. But Laura and Carmilla can't tell which they want more of: attention from their elusive professor, or attention from the talented and ferocious girl they've been set at the throat of.
There's a specific type of romance dynamic—often reserved for the tragic achilleans—that always captures my heart. The Hamlet and Horatio kind of vibe. The king and the poet kind of vibe. And it's something I've NEVER been able to find in sapphic romances. They always fall short, lacking that chemistry and tension and absolute world-shifting passion. And I think this book has FINALLY done it. It has finally replicated that absolutely soul-crushing romance dynamic that I live for but with sapphics. Thank you S.T. Gibson for blessing us.
I gorged myself on this book, sucking the ink from its pages with fervor and reckless abandon. I constantly had to remind myself to slow down and luxuriate in its prose. In all honesty, reading this book almost began to stress me out with its richness. I was reading it faster than I could process it, and I have a laundry list of scenes I want to illustrate burning a hole in my notes app. It's absolutely ripe with gorgeous prose, a rich dark academic atmosphere, sexual delicacies, and heart-wrenching romance.
My only issue with the book is with the second half, where that I found that a lot of the stakes were told rather than shown. It made the climax of the story feel a bit out of nowhere and unearned despite the time spent building up to it. I think the story deserved to be even longer (I think this could've easily been an absolutely tome) and that would've given more space to build that plot up.
But I'm absolutely OBSESSED with this book and its incredible characters, and will not be shutting up about it for quite some time. It contains so many literary rarities, some I knew I was starving for and others I didn't even know I was craving. S.T Gibson is out for blood with this story and she can have mine by the gallon.
CW: blood & gore, murder, sexual content, alcohol consumption, dead body, decapitation, death of mother (past)...more
Thank you to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
They must have convinced themselves they would never rot in the same dirt we doThank you to the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
They must have convinced themselves they would never rot in the same dirt we do.
The Spirit Bares Its Teeth has carved me wide open and laid me bare, leaving me to gather up the pieces and stitch myself back together.
I can't remember the last time I read a book with this much ferocity but perhaps it would have been disrespectful to approach reading such a ferocious book in any other way. Through a gothic historical medical horror, White cleanly dissects the topic of “female hysteria,” making an incision right at the intersection of ableism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia in the body of capitalist patriarchy. This book is bleeding with precise commentary, certain to leave its readers with the scars of its haunting prose and unflinching rage.
I wouldn't say I'm usually one for medical horror, and upon hearing that the level of this book's gore includes a graphic, on-page, at-home Cesarian abortion, I wasn't sure that this story would be for me. But amidst all the guts and gore, this book has a beautiful beating heart. One filled with hope and solidarity. And it feels weird to say I found safety and comfort in this story–that it felt like a huge hug and that it held me in its blood-soaked arms and said: "I see you, and you've never been alone," but it did. Though I guess that's the point of this tale: that no matter what the world tries to tell you, you are perfect and whole and worthy of love, even if you've spent your whole life trying to amputate parts of yourself in order to fit an image the world has told you to be. And that sometimes, you'll find the truest reflection of yourself in the most unlikely places.
This book is for the rabbit-hearted kids who are sick of either having to tear themselves down or tear down the people around them in order to survive. For the kids who are sick of walking on broken glass, but are ready to rip those shards out of their feet and wield them like a knife instead. And for the kids who never got the chance to.
If Andrew Joseph White wasn't a favorite author of mine before this, he certainly is now.
CW: extensive medical gore, medical experimentation, eye horror, sexual assault/rape (implied, on-page), sexual harassment, abortion, forced institutionalization, confinement, conversion therapy, sexism, transphobia, deadnaming/misgendering, pedophilia, forced marriage character death, dead body, death of mother (past), death of father, abusive parents emesis, miscarriage (mention)...more
an eerie, twisty, mind-fuck of a gothic tale that you'll struggle to wrap your head around.
CW/TW: medical content, blood & gore, body horror, death, nan eerie, twisty, mind-fuck of a gothic tale that you'll struggle to wrap your head around.
CW/TW: medical content, blood & gore, body horror, death, needles, drug use, hallucination, drugging, emesis, miscarriage, parental death (past), war, PTSD, alcohol consumption, sexual content (minor)...more
A brutal and unflinching dive into eugenics and its role in colonialism.
MEXICAN GOTHIC dissects the cyclical nature of oppressive institutions, the vA brutal and unflinching dive into eugenics and its role in colonialism.
MEXICAN GOTHIC dissects the cyclical nature of oppressive institutions, the vile way that the death of one becomes the life force for another, and endless loop of fear and hope that befalls those consumed by these systems.
And it - as a good gothic should - features a spooky, claustrophobic house that will make you want to sprint up your stairs after turning off the lights at night, and raises weighty questions about what it means to be haunted.
Inspired by Shirley Jackson and her husband's own experiences with antisemitism in their town, this book explores th4.5
Odd, provoking, bone-chilling.
Inspired by Shirley Jackson and her husband's own experiences with antisemitism in their town, this book explores the origins of "otherness," how local lore can stem from bigotry, and the cruel way that one person's trauma might be another's entertainment. Jackson's writing is horrifyingly subtle, quietly creeping its way under your skin, until you're properly unsettled. At one point while reading, I read a line so unnerving that my body convulsed, and I think I threw out my back in the process. (It still hurts.)
A true masterpiece of the gothic genre.
CW/TW: fire, trauma, bullying, bigotry, misogyny, murder, poison, death of family member (past and present, offscreen), intrusive thoughts, violence (mention), suicide (mention), spider (mention)...more
CW: animal death, dead body, animal gore, blood & gore, drowning, medical content, character Hares and fungi and lakes, oh my!
Poe would've loved this.
CW: animal death, dead body, animal gore, blood & gore, drowning, medical content, character death, amputation (mention), suicide (past), PTSD, illness, mental illness, hallucinations, alcohol, fire, death of father (past), war (past), misgendering, emesis (offphage)...more
Thank you endlessly to Harper Voyager for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Just a note on the CW/TWs as well as the book as a whole:Thank you endlessly to Harper Voyager for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
Just a note on the CW/TWs as well as the book as a whole: Juniper & Thorn vividly portrays intense topics such as abuse, sexualization, intrusive thoughts, eating disorders, and much more. This book is about living with trauma. It is about memory. It is about dehumanization. And it challenges not only the main character, but the audience to digest these topics while viewing the characters and the story as whole and complex and utterly human. Look after yourself while reading this book and please read, review, and recommend with care and nuance. Here is the author's wonderful commentary on this.
Ava Reid's writing only gets richer and more enjoyable with time, and my thoughts are only beginning to marinate and shift as I write this review. I'm sure this is a book that will change meaning many time sover the course of my life.
The curse of the sophomore novel comes nowhere near Ava Reid, as she gracefully and carefully molds her writing into a new and brilliant narrative voice. Where The Wolf and The Woodsman echoed classic epic high fantasy writing, Juniper & Thorn reflects the canon of gothic literature, most closely recalling the work of Shirley Jackson.
Juniper & Thorn - set in a fantastical version of Odessa, Ukraine - explores the lengths people will go to in search for a meaning or a larger message in our own tragedies.
And we experience this world through the lens of a young witch who uses stories as a vehicle to move about her life and who learns to ask: who is the one telling these stories?
When we're children, we are given a map of this world that teaches us right from wrong. We are taught, often through story and metaphor, who are the heroes and who are the monsters. And it affects our perspective every single day for the rest of our lives. It affects who we trust. It affects our prejudices and our privileges. It affects who we allow to dictate our own experiences. But most importantly, it affects the narratives we tell to ourselves and to others. And for Marlinchen, these stories have affected her more than most.
Folkloric themes and the history of storytelling are neatly folded and baked into every ounce of this text. From the theme of hunger and insatiability used as a metaphor for control, to the plentiful (near overflowing) use of the rule of threes, Ava Reid does not allow us to forget the limited and particular perspective of our story-obsessed main character.
The gothic genre has always been a tool in which to navigate the difficult to describe, utilizing themes such as cannibalism, isolation, incest, violence, and abuse in portraying otherness. And Reid comfortably adds Marlinchen's voice to the canon, a character who represents the traumatized craving for familiarity over safety, but who learns to break down her beliefs and rewrite the stories she'd been given to define the world.
A large part of this narrative journey occurs through Marlinchen's interpersonal relationships. Her sisters - reminiscent of Cinderella's stepsisters - and her father build cages for her, then scold and shame her for her own forced obedience. As the youngest of the family, she is treated as precious and innocent, yet chastened for her ignorance. She is kept so sheltered and passive, it's easy for the reader to forget her age of 23. But when her little world expands one night at the ballet, she finally finds a way to bite off more than she's been fed.
Marlinchen begins to notice the cracks in the stories she's been told upon meeting Sevas, the ballet's ingenue. Through Marlinchen's limited scope of archetypes, she struggles to find a way to categorize her love interest. He's Jewish, so therefore she should view him as monstrous and greedy - the way she's been taught to view Jews. But he's strong and elegant, so she should view him as a hero. And so she has to learn to break down these archetypes between them and view him as what he is: a boy with a complicated and very human life. A life, in fact, that mirrors her own in several ways.
In contrast to Ava's first novel, this book takes place mostly in one location, is severely slow-paced, and is almost entirely character-driven. It’s a brilliant display of Ava Reid’s versatility, able to shift the writing style and approach to serve the story being told. It’s truly the sign of a masterful storyteller and has solidified Ava’s place as my favorite author.
But personally, I think my favorite thing about this book, and about Ava Reid’s writing, is their protagonists. Ava writes real people. Marlinchen is morally grey in the way in the way that navigating the world is inherently a gray experience, especially when you’re raised within such a limited scope of understanding, especially when you’re taught corrupt and bigoted perspectives, and especially when you’re living with trauma. Ava Reid’s protagonists move about the world doing the best they can to protect themselves and their happiness. Marlinchen is no exception to this. She is the perfect portrayal of a survivor of CSA and abuse by not being perfect. By showing that there is no right way to handle trauma. By showing that every single day is different, but every single day she is alive and doing her best to live for herself. And isn’t that what we’re all doing?
I truly do not have the words to unpack the many well-crafted layers of this book, but I do have the words to tell you that I adored it. And that I hope you will too.
CW/TW: eating disorder (graphic), emesis, physical/emotional/sexual abuse/child abuse (graphic), SA*, sexual harassment, pedophilia, misogyny, antisemitism, xenophobia, scientific racism/eugenics, animal death (graphic), death, childbirth (mention), gore, blood, body horror, violence, cannibalism, incest, self-harm ideation, suicidal ideation, character death, murder, drug use (nonconsensual), alcoholism *the worst of it is skippable: p. 167-175 (start of chapter to paragraph break)...more
UNCOMMON CHARM is a really unique story. A queer, Jewish, gothic, historical fantasy, this novella features a subtle, slice-of-life style narrative seUNCOMMON CHARM is a really unique story. A queer, Jewish, gothic, historical fantasy, this novella features a subtle, slice-of-life style narrative set amidst 1920's London.
I really enjoyed all the elements of this book: ghostly seances, Jewish magical philosophy, mlm/wlw solidarity, family politics, and even a positive portrayal of protective mothers.
Though the edges of this tale at times struggled against the confines of its structure, its elements and themes sometimes fighting for dominance in a way that muddied the chronicling of timelines and train of thought. As I'm finding quite often nowadays, I think the folly of this story is perhaps its need for a stronger editorial hand.
But it did indeed contain an uncommon charm.
(A quick aside to scream about this gorgeous cover by Marlowe Lune, my favorite cover illustrator! This alone made this book's purchase more than worth it.)
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