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gothnailcare's review against another edition
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
Declining to give this a star rating, but it didn't resonate with me.
- "The Briar and the Rose" was the absolute gem here in my opinion, and its length and pacing worked for it and not against it.
- "Call Her Savage" felt like bits excerpted from a novel where the rest of the text was missing and sorely needed...
- Similarly, "After the Blood" was conceptually interesting but ended on a note that seemed to set it up as a prequel to... something? Again, was structurally not a successful short story to me.
- “The Last Dignity of Man”: while I really liked it, it was a stark departure from the rest of the stuff in it was collected with and I get why it's polarizing.
The other stories were inoffensive to me but also felt like fairly safe re-tellings or re-interpretations of folktales or fairytales. I understand from reading the reviews that other editions of this book included the author's notes on the inspiration for each story, but the audiobook I listened to — a nine hour audiobook by Recorded Books, Inc, narrated by Catherine Ho — did not include any such notes, either between stories or at the end. I'm not sure what the case is — whether no audiobook editions of this collection have these notes, or whether the author's notes were recorded but cut out of the recording for library copies, as publishers sometimes purposely strip errata from media licensed to libraries. Whatever the case is, I will have to seek them out elsewhere.
I also did not enjoy the narration of this book, which also diminished my experience. I found that the narrator had a habit of not enunciating vowels when doing a "spooky" or "scary" or "growly" voice, which led to me repeatedly rewinding in order to understand what was being said, especially if I was dealing with noise like buses or trains outside my headphones.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Fire/Fire injury, Murder, Body horror, Emotional abuse, Confinement, and Gore
Moderate: War, Kidnapping, Animal cruelty, Blood, Physical abuse, and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Miscarriage, Rape, and Xenophobia
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