Reviews with content warning for Incest - Juniper & Thorn

The writing is lush and equal parts horrific and melancholic. Some would consider Marlinchen a weak protagonist, but I think Reid does a decent job in showing how the years of abuse and lies have wounded Marlinchen mentally and emotionally. Admittedly, I was only aware of the warning regarding the cannibalism content and didn't make any attempt to check out the other content warnings needed for this book. I was able to stomach it well enough but I would rethink picking this if darker themes aren't something a reader may be able to handle.

That said, It was an interesting read and different from what I normally go for. But I think it's helped me step into the gothic horror/horror genre a little more. The sex scenes and what got some of the characters off were a little "aha what???" And though I adored Sevas, the instant romance was a little much given everything else.

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ginnymay's review against another edition

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dark fast-paced

2.0

Major CW missing from this one, please check the warnings before reading this review.

I love new and original fairy tale retellings, dark fantasy, and gothic horror. By that metric, this should have been my new favorite book. It is decidedly not.

When we had a monster murderer introduced I was hoping for something like Carnival Row, but this story seems to have lacked an outline or plan of any sort as it forgets about the mysterious murders for large swathes of time to the point where, when a victim is discovered at the theater, I genuinely had the thought “Oh yeah that’s a thing” because I had genuinely forgotten about the MURDER MONSTER.

The bulk of the meandering narration for 75% of the novel can be summarized as: Marlinchen’s sisters are pretty and she’s ugly, her dad is abusive and they hate him, her mother is dead, she makes food, she thinks the dancer is sexy, she is called stupid and mindless, she is depressed and fantasizes about cutting off her nipples. It makes Marlinchen one of the most tedious narrators, as the first new information unveiled in her POV isn’t until after several hundred pages of this when it’s suddenly revealed that she was repeatedly SA’d as a minor by a medical professional while her father watched and was paid for it.

Then Reid tried to tie it all together with an insta-love trauma-bond romance and then reveals an answer to the murders that required some rewriting of history to make it work.

And all this just left me with more questions than answers. How did Marlinchen never notice that her Father’s powers had waned? How did she not notice for SEVEN years that her sisters were being trafficked? How, if she and her magically imbued sisters all had power and violently hated their father, did they never find a way to overthrow him or at least rebel against him? How did Marlinchen not put together that she was missing huge chunks of time when murders were taking place? How did she not question where the hearts and livers she served to her father came from? How did they have sex on the floor covered in broken glass and not need insane amounts of medical attention?

All in all, a bewildering, poorly written, deeply upsetting, and just bad book.

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hannah_lynch24's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious 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

4.75

Warning for those who want to pick up this book cold turkey: READ THE TRIGGER WARNINGS!

Drinking game that could accompany this review: take a shot every time I say the word TRAUMA.

It’s taken a lot of self reflection for me to fully admit how much I loved this book to myself. On the surface, I didn’t want to love it. When my sister-in-law asked me about the story, how could I put all these horrific and off putting topics that make up the entire plot into words while also saying “it’s amazing” and NOT come across slightly sadistic? In the end though, it was all these contradicting things; gory and beautiful, distasteful and yet I craved more of the story, cringe-worthy and yet I willingly faced each new sentence headfirst without remorse.

Ava Reid has penned one of the most lyrically provocative stories I’ve ever read in my life. Marlinchen and her sisters embody some of the most relatable abuse victims I’ve ever read about. Starting with Marlinchen, it may come across to some like she is a weak character who is whiny, but I found her powerfully relatable in a demure sort of way. She made excuses for her abusers and trusted even when she had every reason to hate and blame everyone in her household. It takes a lot for her to realize how wrongly she’s been treated and it’s only after discovering what actual love feels like that she does so and her character evolves. Rose is sweet on the outside but calloused on the inside. She goes on to get along and plays her cards carefully in order to ensure she survives. She has an idea of what she wants, but nothing is worth risking her own safety, even the ones she loves. Undine is bitter and angry, and her hate stems from her own unjust treatment. She hates everyone and everything because in her warped view nothing good is going to last before it’s ruined. Each sister embodies a different reaction to their shared trauma, and I think that any reader who has been through a time where they weren’t treated appropriately will find a shared mindset with one of these women.

Trauma reactions aside, the trauma itself that manifests between these pages is absolutely gut wrenching. Sexual assault of children and adults, mutilations of people and creatures described in detail, eating disorders and the overall relationships with food some of these characters have will make you sick, such is the point of the book. The book is VERY sexually charged, and I’m not the type of reader who enjoys normal smut scenes, let alone some of these off putting couplings. However, that stated, the reason it works for me is because of the characters themselves and how real they felt. When I got to the end of the first chapter and Marlinchen started touching herself, I was genuinely unsure if this would be a book I could continue. However, as the story progressed and insight into the characters backgrounds emerged, it all made sense. This is a girl who has survived off her idolization of stories she has read growing up. Throw in a pinch of sexual assault (involving breasts) from a young age that was condoned and encouraged by her own father and a pint of emotional abuse from every person around her and you have a recipe that makes a women who has a very warped sense of love and arousal and how it all connects. This also affects both of her sisters and their own perceptions of how to act upon their impulses as evidenced when Undine is intimate with the half goat half man creature and the realization that Rose has been intimate with a large portion of her clients. The shift that Marlinchen takes from the need to act and then discovering what true love feels like through the form of sex versus what the other girls experience from pure frustration, rebellion and self discovery is what further separates the mindsets these young women have and the distinctions between their character traits stemming from their abuse. I wouldn’t describe the sex scenes between Sevas and Marlinchen as romantic or ideal in any way, sort or form, however it is a moment that these two characters have set aside from their own trauma bonding where they discover with each other what love could feel like when it’s freely given versus something that’s always just been taken.

Marlinchen has a fixation on nipples and breasts. Hers were cut into and abused as a child, so obviously this will be a hangup for her. Do I like it, no, it’s cringey to read about. Do I understand it and appreciate what it’s trying to convey, yes.

The ending isn’t entirely happy. The characters that have been shackled their whole lives are set free, and that’s about as happy as it gets. The characters still have their own mental hurdles to overcome and severe PTSD to work through the rest of their lives. However, again that’s a very realistic aspect of this book. No one coming from the horror filled world Ava Reid has created should be happy go lucky and live out “happily ever after” after everything they have endured. To do so would take away the mirror to our own world we live in and place an unreal expectation for the fantasy’s we ourselves might find ourselves creating and trying to romanticize that never could come to fruition.

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tahsintries's review against another edition

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4.75

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lian_rose's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful 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

5.0

So atmospheric, such a lovely read (which is weird to say about an horror book ik). I love the way Ava writes, no sentence is wasted. There were some gut wrenching and nauseating, as was expected- check TW before reading!
It is a slow paced and mainly character driven story, also my Jewish heart just love the Jewish ballet dancer love interest ( but don’t go into this book expecting a romance! It’s not the main focus!)

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legs_n_chins's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.25

The funny thing is that, in my heart, this is a 5⭐️ book. Reading it was immersive and compelling and thoroughly enjoyable. The writing style flows easily but retains so much beauty and vividness. The story is complex and the characters interesting and the world very stable and grounded in its magic system. I want to come back to it again already. However, objectively, I also did find a few cracks that made me bump my rating down.

I felt that the two main storylines, that being the romance and the mystery, ended up taking away from each other. Each on their own was compelling and I wanted more of it, but there simply didn’t seem to be quite enough room for either. On one side, I felt like Marlinchen and Sevas could’ve been better developed and there were points where I wasn’t fully convinced of their love for each other, but I wanted to see them grow more into their relationship and make me feel how tangibly they cared about each other. On the other side, I lost the thread of the mystery plot somewhere in the middle and it felt a bit like it lost its teeth, but I really wanted to be able to sink further into that and feel the stakes of the looming threat more fully. Unfortunately, I think neither storyline was able to live up to its full potential, though they still did manage to keep me reading and pull me in.

I also wasn’t sure that the climax was satisfying. As I read it, I was going back and forth as to whether I liked it or not, whether it felt like a strong conclusion to me. It was thrilling and it gave the story closure in both the metaphorical line of the story of Ivan in the codex and the literal line of the narrative itself, tying up loose ends of the mystery and revealing the remaining answers. But at the same time, I was much more interested in the way each of Marlinchen’s relationships reached their individual climaxes, particularly with her sisters, so the monster fight just felt a little pale in comparison. Like I said, though, it made for a very solid conclusion and worked with the story, the world, and the magic system.

I had a few other personal gripes with one or two small things, but not enough to ruin my feelings about the book or my enjoyment when reading it. I felt the tone was very consistent, I loved the different creatures and magical elements woven in, and the imagery and motifs throughout really fit the magic system and the story. Overall, very well written, strong world building, heavy topics handled with care and respect, and a very compelling dark fantasy story.

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