Reviews with content warning for Hate crime - Thistlefoot

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Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

38 reviews

rorikae's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

'Thistlefoot' by GennaRose Nethercott is a wonderful folklore filled novel that touches on the power of stories, memory, and community.
Bellatine and Isaac Yaga have been forging their own lives. Bellatine finds comfort in creating things out of wood while Isaac uses his ability to slip into other people's mannerisms to busk. They are brought back together when a package arrives, an inheritance from one of their family members. The inheritance in question, a house with legs. As the house starts to bring them together, it also has an enemy who has followed it to America and wishes to see it destroyed. The Yaga siblings will have to band together, pull from their family's history, and believe in one another to take down this threat.
This book is absolutely fantastic. Nethercott has created a collection of complex characters that are both easy to care for and ones that are easily frustrating in ways that feel uniquely human. This is also a story stuffed to the brim with folklore. It is told not only through the eyes of Bellatine and Isaac but also from the point of view of the house, which I absolutely loved. At the heart of this story are so many important lessons. How violence creates a lasting memory. The power and resilience of community. How stories live on. Between beautiful prose, folklore and fantastical elements, and complex characters, this is a special story. I'll definitely be checking out what Nethercott writes next because they brought something unique and magical to this story.

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thehobbitbarbie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

If you'd told me a week before I read Thistlefoot that an Americana horror novel was going to be my new favorite book, I'd have thought you were out of your mind. But here we are, almost 450 pages later, and this book is all I've thought about since I first opened it.

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ehrycyna's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective tense

4.75

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emfo5777's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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therainbowshelf's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A friend recommended this delight of a book to me and I loved it. It explores myths and legends, cultural destruction, Russian Jewish heritage, and the role that stories play in both culture and heritage, all wrapped up in a fantasy-horror book with a fun cast of characters. I saw one reviewer characterized it as culturally apropriative to have non-religious characters with Jewish heritage as the main characters, but I enjoyed having characters like this because that’s my experience as well. I am not religious, but have Jewish heritage.

As an odd coincidence, the same day I started reading this book, a journalist I was working with told me about his family heritage. One side of his family came to the U.S. to escape the pogroms in the early 1900s. It was the first time I’d heard of the pogroms in Russia, and then this book centers them.

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ebb_and_flow's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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kelecoo's review against another edition

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adventurous dark inspiring mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I think I'll be thinking about it for a long time. It's super different than anything I've ever read. The kind of story that doesn't really come together until the very end? And it makes every page before then worth it.

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