Juniper & Thorn: A Novel

Product Information

I absolutely ADORE THIS BOOK, which is haunting and whimsical and brimming with monsters both human and fantastical. There were moments throughout this book of genuine horror, startling morbidity, drop-dead "what the fuck? And I get that that's a super icky thing to read or think about but I also think depicting it can be really powerful for people who do experience it - or for someone who doesn't experience it to think about what it might be like to deal with that. And while Oblya flourishes with culture and bustles with enterprise, a monster lurks in its midst, borne of intolerance and resentment and suffused with old-world power.

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As for the matter of how Reid handled the dark content/if it was “too much,” I get that everyone is going to feel differently about this - as I’ve made clear, my feeling was mainly that I wanted more depth and exploration of what was present. The moments of awareness by Marlinchen of being in a story, and what that means for her, were particularly interesting, and if anything could have been developed further into something more concrete. i was shocked at how descriptive some of the scenes were, because i wasn’t aware that this was an adult book before reading, but i was really impressed with it. This novel was a realistic (but horrible) example of how it can feel to live under the abuse from a parent. One of the biggest things that brings them together is both being survivors of abuse, and I think that’s always a really beautiful idea that I often enjoy seeing executed ( The Mirror Season, Heart’s Blood and Empire of Sand are all examples of this that I’ve liked).

One final note: I’ve never read The Juniper Tree so any love or distaste in that aspect of it is completely lost on me.

I think a lot of this has to do with the writing style, which I generally found to be beautiful, immersive and effective in creating a sense of a dreadful fairy tale with lots of interesting/charming little details, especially about the stories that Marlinchen loves. there are a couple really powerful moments of them protecting and supporting each other, but my overall feeling (as with the romance in general) is just that I wish there could have been more of this because I think it could have gone a lot deeper.

It's about all the ways an abuser exerts control over their victims in an effort to feel fulfilled in a way that will ultimately never be enough. Her words are darkly atmospheric; they snake around you with all the slithering seduction of vines and drag you headfirst into her gritty and sepulchral world. Thank you for that, Rachel, your bullying has done its work, but I'm not going to back down or delete this review and I hold YOU responsible for the trolling and aggressive messages I've gotten recently. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. I'd advise that if you are easily disturbed or concerned about your mental health, you should avoid it.

But it isn't just him - Sevas is Yehuli, and his handler Derkach takes every opportunity to remind him that he is "only" a Yehuli boy pulled from the slums. None of the characters who espouse these views are people we are meant to like or trust, but at the same time, we see almost nothing of the Yehuli from the mouth of someone positive or even neutral towards them, let alone a Yehuli themself. Fairytales and their retellings so often gloss over the nastiness, surprisingly so when many of the stories upon which they're based contain murders, cannibalism, gruesome transformations and more. The author explained on her instagram account that those scenes were descriptions of intrusive thoughts, something that people in real life who deal with PSTD might have. And while I found some parts of it refreshingly original, others strayed too much into darkness that felt like it served neither character development nor plot, and simply existed to be able to say just how dark a book it was.

But what I admire most about this book is how cleverly Ava uses fairytale conventions to underscore the horrors her protagonists experience: stories root themselves deeply and begin to sprout thorns the more and more they're repeated. At the ballet, Marlinchen sees a beautiful dancer with whom she is smitten, and everything begins to spiral out from there. I was incredibly excited to be able to continue to support them and read more of their work… and a fantasy-horror retelling of Grimm’s darkest fairytale? There was a twist that I sort of saw coming, because duh, but also didn't, because the threads of this story were so lazily tied together during the denouement that a light breeze could have blown them apart.

Content warnings: gore / body horror, child sexual abuse, physical and psychological family abuse, bulimia and graphic depictions of vomiting, animal death, cannibalism, self-harm and suicidal ideation, antisemitism and xenophobia. This is a dark and bloody tale, full of magic both otherworldly and familiar, and despite its monsters, it reads like comfort. When I heard that Ava Reid had written a gothic horror retelling of The Juniper Tree, there was nothing I wouldn't do to read it at the soonest possible chance. And with that, I hope to clarify that I'm criticizing ONLY a character building, and not people in real life who endure the kind of traumas that Marlinchen goes through.