Juniper & Thorn: A Novel

£13.995
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Juniper & Thorn: A Novel

Juniper & Thorn: A Novel

RRP: £27.99
Price: £13.995
£13.995 FREE Shipping

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Description

The last thing I want to do is cause serious psychological harm to readers whose traumatic experiences mirror those depicted in the book. The main character is a young witch named Marlinchen, who is the youngest of three sisters and also, she doesn't let us forget, the ugliest, except her ugliness seems to boil down to her just having really chaotic hair? We follow Marlinchen, youngest of three daughters of the last wizard in Oblya, a city sprung up from the steppe, obliterating the magic that lingered there before. I do think it could have been cleaned up in places, however - I definitely noticed certain tics and repetitions and similes of dubious quality.

I can tell you that it is a horror novel and it does have a plenty of violence, gore, and disturbing themes in it. It's something I wrote about in the Elf Books That Like 10 People Have Read To Conclusion and I personally appreciate that Reid is willing to go places like that. I also knew the author wanted to explore trauma and abuse, specially in family relationships, so I was pretty sure I'd love this story.Marlinchen has grown up with this worldview, and it is part of why her life is so restricted, to keep her away from the evil, encroaching, destructive, immoral city and all its problems and horrors. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. One of the purposes of the horror genre is to leave readers unsettled and if you feel that way after finishing this book, all I can say is: Good! Still, I can appreciate that Reid has crafted a deeply twisted, deeply frightening, and deeply compelling dark fairy tale that is packed to the brim with meaning.

At what point does darkness in a book become less about realism, or stakes, or a sense of danger, and more about having all the horrible things simply for their own sakes? The bulk of this book focuses on traumatic family abuse, both physical and psychological, mentions of sexual assault of adults and minors and heavily features anti-Semitic views.I’m updating this review a bit now that I’ve had some time for the book to settle - and to see some other reactions to it. That being said, it definitely earns the distinction of being quite unlike most other fairytale retellings, and that it attempts at several points a critique of the genre is definitely a plus. Back before, when I read the book (july 31, 2022), I criticized some of Marlinchen's thoughts, which I found very weird and couldn't understand the point. At the ballet, Marlinchen sees a beautiful dancer with whom she is smitten, and everything begins to spiral out from there.

This depiction definitely stayed with me and I still think about it sometimes even as I’m revising this review a year-ish later. Marlinchen is total deconstruction of the typical fairy-tale protagonist, and I was blown away by the nuanced portrayal of her actions and reactions as a learned consequence of trauma, and became highly invested in her struggle for freedom on her own terms. Like taking a bite of fruit with a rotten core, the atmosphere is in turns gorgeous and enticing, then shocking and disgusting, and back again.

There is a sinister undercurrent slivering it’s way throughout, which you’ll absolutely adore if that’s your thing. Between The Wolf and the Woodsman and this book, Reid has found themselves solidly in my favorite fantasy authors and I’m looking forward to everything that comes from them in the future! 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. 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. Marlinchen’s relationship with her sisters was messy, was awful, set them apart, showed what they all had to do to themselves and to each other to survive living under their father, regardless if that meant throwing someone else to their father’s rage.



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
  • Sold by: Fruugo

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