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3rdeyeopen's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Blood, Medical trauma, Murder, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism
iconicavocado's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Book đ: 4/5 stars
I've been dying to read this book! I've heard nothing but good things and for the most part it delivered!
I really enjoyed the reimagining of The Juniper Tree with such poetic melancholy writing and exploration of dark themes. I wasn't entirely sure how large the scope would go but I found the ending quite satisfying.
Going into this I knew there are content warnings, but I still found some parts to be hard to stomach. I don't demerit the book for it because the uncomfortableness was what the author was going for. I did find the pacing to be quite slow and wish it picked up its third act just a bit quicker.
This is not a book for everyone. It's incredibly dark and definitely in the realm of horror. But I loved it's unique writing and haunting take of an already twisted fairytale. I'm excited to read more of Ava Reid's work!
I've been dying to read this book! I've heard nothing but good things and for the most part it delivered!
I really enjoyed the reimagining of The Juniper Tree with such poetic melancholy writing and exploration of dark themes. I wasn't entirely sure how large the scope would go but I found the ending quite satisfying.
Going into this I knew there are content warnings, but I still found some parts to be hard to stomach. I don't demerit the book for it because the uncomfortableness was what the author was going for. I did find the pacing to be quite slow and wish it picked up its third act just a bit quicker.
This is not a book for everyone. It's incredibly dark and definitely in the realm of horror. But I loved it's unique writing and haunting take of an already twisted fairytale. I'm excited to read more of Ava Reid's work!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Toxic relationship, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Cannibalism
lorie266's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Blood, Cannibalism, Murder, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Animal death, Confinement, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Vomit, Grief, and Classism
terrywho's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
âBeautifully written fucked up thingsâ is probably my favorite genre of novels, and this is a great example of one. Itâs never overindulging or voyeuristic of the pain the characters go though and the beautiful la gauge transports you in the world of the novel from the very first pages. A grown up fairy tales in the spirit of the original brothers Grim stories where Cinderellaâs stepsisters cut off their toes to fit in the slippers, Rapunzelâs prince falls on thorn bushes that blind him? and sleeping beauty isnât woken up by a kiss but my the pain of childbirth.
(Please note: if you have some string and/or common triggers you really need to check the trigger warnings before reading this novel)
(Please note: if you have some string and/or common triggers you really need to check the trigger warnings before reading this novel)
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Child abuse, Death, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, and Death of parent
Moderate: Alcoholism
emviolet's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Blood, Death of parent, and Murder
forever_undone_fables's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
I read A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid in November and really enjoyed it. Reid is a smart author who dabbles in darkness. I have the rest of her works in my TBR already.
.
Juniper & Thorn is a standalone gothic horror fantasy based off Slavic folklore. It was scary, it was gruesome. Not in a way where big bad things were always happening on page, but the tension. The way the FMCs father eats his dinner set me on edge.
.
Marlenchen is a witch, who lives with her two fairly wretched sisters and nightmare of father who keeps them under lock and key, isolating and harming them after turning their mother into a bird. The story itself had many metaphors for abuse. The way those causing harm canât truly be satiated, their desperation for escalation, control, and the way survivors adapt, ultimately trying to overcome.
.
Marlens upbringing has made her naive and meek. The story unfolds as she tries to be brave and secretly rebel to experience what a normal 23 year old might, such as infatuation for a man on stage. Neither of which end up being much more than one or two town characters.
.
The actual monsters in this book remind me somewhat of Holly Blacks world building, which I love. The scaley, red eyed creature under the bed was less fearsome than the human men in this story. The âbeast of manâ seems to be a theme in Reidâs writings.
.
Now up until this point, I would have said this book is around 3 stars for all of the above.. but allow me to continue..
.
My biggest suggestion is to MIND THE TRIGGERS! There is CSA, gore, death, cannibalism, and EDs to name a few. Overall, I could could handle all of that. Despite these ghastly things, what actually teetered this into a truly âweirdâ zone for me was the overly frequent mentionings and freakish descriptions of nipples..in graphic, violent, and odd waysâŠ
.
Seriously, I would have rated this 1-2 stars MORE if it werenât for all the weird boobie stuff. This book mentions breast and nipples an insufferable amount of times. It became a joke, I was so frustrated by it that I wanted to rip the book apart then and there, which never happens. I would have DNF usually I donât hate read something but I had to see it through, and I had to take a week long break before I got past the last 15%.
.
I started counting at one point.. 6 âbreastsâ in a chapter. The next chapter? 11. . And thatâs just breast, doesnât include nipple, which were alternated between sometimes multiple times per page. For WHAT REASON!?
.
A vague excerpt from one PARAGRAPH:
âMy nipples knotted with cold.. âŠ.it circled my breast.. âŠand latched itself onto my nippleâ then you turn the page and itâs literally just more breastnipplebreastnipple. In moments where it literally doesnât have to be mentioned at all. I canât stress this enough đ
.
I think three times does she mention cutting nips.. âI imagine cutting my nipples with garden shearsâ and then goes on to say something like âand watch the skin unfold like the petals of a flowerâ or âbloomâ or âthe skin crawling back and blood covering like a gloveâ or some WEIRD SHIT LIKE THAT. It was SO MUCH, ALL THE TIME.
.
âHer breast swinging like a pendulumâ âI wanted to hide him in my breastâ (I feel like that was said twice) âmy heavy breastsâ please, stop.. Iâm actually begging đ©đ
.
Following THAT would be the overusage of âplain faced, and maidenheadâ.
.
All of these ridiculous redundancies completely took you out of the story, which would have been rather good otherwise!.. aside from the weird codependency instalove like mutual trauma attachment with the love interest, who is literally stupid (sweet, but dumb) for fucking around with her like I donât see that appeal other than she ~sees~ him.. idk. That would have been my biggest complaint had it not been for the boob stuff.. oh my god.. so much boooooob stufffff!!! The actual sex scenes were really whatever, generally, I mean one was kind of weird, but I still could have just moved on from it.. however I canât move on from the nipple-breast infatuation. Like if I punched myself in the face every time she brought up the titty-region for no reason I would be in a padded room, which honestly sounds peaceful after reading this.
.
Reid does have a lyrical way of going about such themes- but it is still a grim tale. But no amount of deep prose or atmosphere could cure me from the irreparable ick of all the above though! It started to read very much like a pretentious college student trying to be dark and poetic over and over without even realizing they were using the same strange metaphor they clung to and made the whole personality of the piece, to be different and tortured/edgy. I respect artsy, but this was so overdone, and rancid to the point of being straight up fetishization of those darker things. Her bulimia was just there, and borderline romanticized. She touched upon xenophobia and cultural shifts/classism.. and as a reader Iâm like âthats and interesting thing ti fold into the foundation of the bad guy- these things are badâ but in the story they just float around.
.
And I literally hate to say any of this because I thought A Study in Drowning was beautiful, and as I mentioned, I have her other works in the queue. I do think sheâs clever.. I seeeee what sheâs trying to do in general with what I have read. I was excited for this read and gearing up for her to be a favorite author. I will still go into them with hopes I donât run into anything like this again and that this was just⊠something she was trying out, *maybe* she didnât have an editor when Juniper and Thorn came out.. because I just donât see how no one else would be like.. hey, can we talk about this? Like, are you okay? Whatâs going on here.. letâs reeeeeeel it in a pinch, itâs taking away from your work and the seriousness of this story.
.
At the end of the day, I signed up to read a gothic, fairytellesque, adult horror fantasy.. thatâs what I wanted, and there were some aspects of that in there! But I feel like I read some studiously written kink-fic. I feel like other reviews were vague like âit was overly sexual, graphicâ no, no no.. it was freakish. Iâm here telling you itâs not JUST sexual, one person said the fmc and mmc were âscurrying away to bang all the timeâ which isnât true⊠thereâs not that much intercourse.. itâs just a CONCERNING amount of TIT-shit, amongst other extremely dark and odd things that kind of get sexualized/romanticized for nothing.
.
Iâm so glad I read ASID first otherwise I would be so reluctant to try her other work but I KNOW sheâs good and hope that it just shows how she has evolved since.
.
Juniper & Thorn is a standalone gothic horror fantasy based off Slavic folklore. It was scary, it was gruesome. Not in a way where big bad things were always happening on page, but the tension. The way the FMCs father eats his dinner set me on edge.
.
Marlenchen is a witch, who lives with her two fairly wretched sisters and nightmare of father who keeps them under lock and key, isolating and harming them after turning their mother into a bird. The story itself had many metaphors for abuse. The way those causing harm canât truly be satiated, their desperation for escalation, control, and the way survivors adapt, ultimately trying to overcome.
.
Marlens upbringing has made her naive and meek. The story unfolds as she tries to be brave and secretly rebel to experience what a normal 23 year old might, such as infatuation for a man on stage. Neither of which end up being much more than one or two town characters.
.
The actual monsters in this book remind me somewhat of Holly Blacks world building, which I love. The scaley, red eyed creature under the bed was less fearsome than the human men in this story. The âbeast of manâ seems to be a theme in Reidâs writings.
.
Now up until this point, I would have said this book is around 3 stars for all of the above.. but allow me to continue..
.
My biggest suggestion is to MIND THE TRIGGERS! There is CSA, gore, death, cannibalism, and EDs to name a few. Overall, I could could handle all of that. Despite these ghastly things, what actually teetered this into a truly âweirdâ zone for me was the overly frequent mentionings and freakish descriptions of nipples..in graphic, violent, and odd waysâŠ
.
Seriously, I would have rated this 1-2 stars MORE if it werenât for all the weird boobie stuff. This book mentions breast and nipples an insufferable amount of times. It became a joke, I was so frustrated by it that I wanted to rip the book apart then and there, which never happens. I would have DNF usually I donât hate read something but I had to see it through, and I had to take a week long break before I got past the last 15%.
.
I started counting at one point.. 6 âbreastsâ in a chapter. The next chapter? 11. . And thatâs just breast, doesnât include nipple, which were alternated between sometimes multiple times per page. For WHAT REASON!?
.
A vague excerpt from one PARAGRAPH:
âMy nipples knotted with cold.. âŠ.it circled my breast.. âŠand latched itself onto my nippleâ then you turn the page and itâs literally just more breastnipplebreastnipple. In moments where it literally doesnât have to be mentioned at all. I canât stress this enough đ
.
I think three times does she mention cutting nips.. âI imagine cutting my nipples with garden shearsâ and then goes on to say something like âand watch the skin unfold like the petals of a flowerâ or âbloomâ or âthe skin crawling back and blood covering like a gloveâ or some WEIRD SHIT LIKE THAT. It was SO MUCH, ALL THE TIME.
.
âHer breast swinging like a pendulumâ âI wanted to hide him in my breastâ (I feel like that was said twice) âmy heavy breastsâ please, stop.. Iâm actually begging đ©đ
.
Following THAT would be the overusage of âplain faced, and maidenheadâ.
.
All of these ridiculous redundancies completely took you out of the story, which would have been rather good otherwise!.. aside from the weird codependency instalove like mutual trauma attachment with the love interest, who is literally stupid (sweet, but dumb) for fucking around with her like I donât see that appeal other than she ~sees~ him.. idk. That would have been my biggest complaint had it not been for the boob stuff.. oh my god.. so much boooooob stufffff!!! The actual sex scenes were really whatever, generally, I mean one was kind of weird, but I still could have just moved on from it.. however I canât move on from the nipple-breast infatuation. Like if I punched myself in the face every time she brought up the titty-region for no reason I would be in a padded room, which honestly sounds peaceful after reading this.
.
Reid does have a lyrical way of going about such themes- but it is still a grim tale. But no amount of deep prose or atmosphere could cure me from the irreparable ick of all the above though! It started to read very much like a pretentious college student trying to be dark and poetic over and over without even realizing they were using the same strange metaphor they clung to and made the whole personality of the piece, to be different and tortured/edgy. I respect artsy, but this was so overdone, and rancid to the point of being straight up fetishization of those darker things. Her bulimia was just there, and borderline romanticized. She touched upon xenophobia and cultural shifts/classism.. and as a reader Iâm like âthats and interesting thing ti fold into the foundation of the bad guy- these things are badâ but in the story they just float around.
.
And I literally hate to say any of this because I thought A Study in Drowning was beautiful, and as I mentioned, I have her other works in the queue. I do think sheâs clever.. I seeeee what sheâs trying to do in general with what I have read. I was excited for this read and gearing up for her to be a favorite author. I will still go into them with hopes I donât run into anything like this again and that this was just⊠something she was trying out, *maybe* she didnât have an editor when Juniper and Thorn came out.. because I just donât see how no one else would be like.. hey, can we talk about this? Like, are you okay? Whatâs going on here.. letâs reeeeeeel it in a pinch, itâs taking away from your work and the seriousness of this story.
.
At the end of the day, I signed up to read a gothic, fairytellesque, adult horror fantasy.. thatâs what I wanted, and there were some aspects of that in there! But I feel like I read some studiously written kink-fic. I feel like other reviews were vague like âit was overly sexual, graphicâ no, no no.. it was freakish. Iâm here telling you itâs not JUST sexual, one person said the fmc and mmc were âscurrying away to bang all the timeâ which isnât true⊠thereâs not that much intercourse.. itâs just a CONCERNING amount of TIT-shit, amongst other extremely dark and odd things that kind of get sexualized/romanticized for nothing.
.
Iâm so glad I read ASID first otherwise I would be so reluctant to try her other work but I KNOW sheâs good and hope that it just shows how she has evolved since.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Confinement, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Blood, and Gaslighting
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Vomit, Death of parent, and Murder
alarara94's review against another edition
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Vomit
Moderate: Body horror, Death, and Sexual content
Minor: Animal death, Eating disorder, Sexual assault, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, and Alcohol
thehobbitbarbie's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Death, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Misogyny, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Blood, Vomit, Abortion, Pregnancy, Gaslighting, Alcohol, and Sexual harassment
paloma_sanchezh's review against another edition
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Body horror, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Incest, Misogyny, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Blood, Vomit, Cannibalism, and Death of parent
rilakkumas's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Cursing, Death, Eating disorder, Gore, Incest, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Cannibalism, Murder, and Alcohol