Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by junejunejulyjuly
Hellions by Julia Elliott
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
*I was given an Advance Reader Copy of this book by the publisher & Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
Hellions builds a liminal space, layer by layer: verdant, feral, and populous, with half-wild children, and her world’s folkloric creatures, tangley, clawed, and perhaps divine. Julia Elliot’s writing is captivating. Each story presents a world, humid and hung with kudzu vines, deep-forested and double-sided, each turn the stories take could lead you back to the most normal and average of scenarios, or an ecstatic, meandering, path to a magical world, dark and unpredictable.
Reading Hellions felt like an escape into a swamp, or a fairy tale, or like walking in the woods as a child world-building something lurking and magical in dense landscape. I would expect nothing less from Tin House. Utterly escapist. A perfect Spring / Summer vibe for the Winter blues. A beach reach for melancholy girls.
I have trouble with collections of short stories holding my attention, but this kept me engaged all the way through. I feel Hellions would be an excellent read for the Baba Yaga women, the lovers of the hidden wonders of the woods, for those with pareidolia, for the folkloric and feral, for those who run with their inner child, and anyone who loves a great read.
Elliot has an understanding of the magical natural world as perceived by the primal self, and the inner child, that was transporting and lovely. I feel she is a writer to watch, and I will be looking for more from her backlog, and from her in the future.
Hellions builds a liminal space, layer by layer: verdant, feral, and populous, with half-wild children, and her world’s folkloric creatures, tangley, clawed, and perhaps divine. Julia Elliot’s writing is captivating. Each story presents a world, humid and hung with kudzu vines, deep-forested and double-sided, each turn the stories take could lead you back to the most normal and average of scenarios, or an ecstatic, meandering, path to a magical world, dark and unpredictable.
Reading Hellions felt like an escape into a swamp, or a fairy tale, or like walking in the woods as a child world-building something lurking and magical in dense landscape. I would expect nothing less from Tin House. Utterly escapist. A perfect Spring / Summer vibe for the Winter blues. A beach reach for melancholy girls.
I have trouble with collections of short stories holding my attention, but this kept me engaged all the way through. I feel Hellions would be an excellent read for the Baba Yaga women, the lovers of the hidden wonders of the woods, for those with pareidolia, for the folkloric and feral, for those who run with their inner child, and anyone who loves a great read.
Elliot has an understanding of the magical natural world as perceived by the primal self, and the inner child, that was transporting and lovely. I feel she is a writer to watch, and I will be looking for more from her backlog, and from her in the future.