Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

46 reviews

nisaak's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

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

4.25

This book went places I totally didn't expect it to go. If you pick it up because it's a Baba Yaga story, you won't be disappointed. But it's more than that. It's the story of her descendants, who inherit her house. Bellatine and Isaac are magical in their own right. I found it both very challenging and very rewarding to read. At times I thought, "Where is this going?" but I was never bored. I look forward to reading more by Nethercott.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Violence, Genocide, Antisemitism, Child death, Religious bigotry, and Murder

thehobbitbarbie's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Antisemitism, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Murder, War, Blood, Genocide, Vomit, Suicidal thoughts, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Gore, Hate crime, Death, Car accident, Xenophobia, Child death, Violence, and Racial slurs

Minor: Medical content, Abandonment, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, and Sexual content

megold12's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Nethercott is a masterful storyteller in this book. I always love books about storytelling or the power of myths, legends, history, and folklore. This book was a masterful combination of history and mystic. It’s been a while since one book has made me so utterly sad in one moment and so hopeful and joyous in another. There is a lot of very dark and difficult topics covered, but I feel Nethercott weaves these important aspects of the story in with the magic and myth well. I still felt the full weight of the painful and horrific history. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Child death, Genocide, Antisemitism, and Murder

Moderate: Violence, Xenophobia, and Rape

sneaky_snake22's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective fast-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? It's complicated

5.0

This is a beautiful tale. It weaves together the past, present, magic and reality in a way that draws the reader in further and further. You learn and grow with the characters and understand how a past that seems so far removed from ourselves is connected and ingrained. It's a story that inspires you to connect and remember those that are struggling today. The main takeaway is that storytelling ensures those that are physically lost to us are never forgotten, that no matter the atrocities that occur, by remembering and telling the stories of those that lived, we can beat the hatred and darkness. And that by remembering the past, we can heal ourselves. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Death, Self harm, Child death, Genocide, and Murder

Moderate: Vomit and War

Minor: Death of parent

ehrycyna's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective tense

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Child death, Murder, Hate crime, Genocide, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, War, and Torture

sashahc's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad 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

So, “Thistlefoot” by GennaRose Nethercott is one of my favorite books of the last year.  It speaks so deeply to me, growing up culturally Jewish with a semi-communist family and a backpack of generational trauma.  It’s the cultural memory of Yiddish theatre and magical folk tales and a couple of family heirlooms rescued from Pogroms and carried from the Pale of Settlement to the boats.  Bellatine and Isaac Yaga are Baba Yaga’s descendants, living in a modern America just a little different from this one.  Estranged, they come together to inherit her chicken legged, unruly, personable, Yiddish-understanding house that they name Thistlefoot.  They take the house on a last cross country tour with the family’s traveling puppet show, but they are tracked by destruction.   It’s a #book about trauma and the power of memory and story.  It’s about guilt and fear and love and hope and what we owe each other.  And it’s beautifully lyrical and dark but somehow charming.  And yes, it’s queer.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Antisemitism, and Murder

uniquelymace's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Grief, Genocide, Police brutality, and War

emfo5777's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Hate crime, Child death, Death, Religious bigotry, Antisemitism, Murder, Genocide, and Xenophobia

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Fire/Fire injury, and Violence

Minor: Grief

therainbowshelf's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Xenophobia, Transphobia, Violence, Alcohol, Body horror, Grief, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Antisemitism, Blood, Hate crime, Murder, War, Death, Terminal illness, Genocide, Gore, Racism, Child death, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment

Death of baby, death of family member, graphic Reanimation of dead animal

ebb_and_flow's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Self harm, Genocide, Antisemitism, Violence, Death, Gore, Grief, Hate crime, and Suicidal thoughts