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A review by beforeviolets
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott
5.0
“We are never afraid of a thing on its own, as it is. We are afraid of something intruding in a context in which it doesn’t belong. What is a monster? It’s a contradiction. A creature who houses two dissonant aspects… Am I a monster? Yes, love, I am. I am a monster because I contain too much.”
GennaRose Nethercott has trapped the essence of fairytales in a glass cage, pinning its wings open to examine and pluck each individual feather. She's coaxed its darkness, its whimsy, its beautiful and monstrous nature from its lips and onto these pages. And these fairytales, like all good ones, exist in the lingering. The lingering that will, over time, mold itself into whatever shape best fits the audience's perspective. Maybe that of a lover, of an ex, of a mother, or perhaps even ourselves. Exploring grief, passion, obsession, love, and self-identity or lack thereof in relationships, Nethercott weaves the threads of life and death into complex and beautiful tapestries that so many will find themselves in. These stories' simultaneous singularity and universiality are exactly what make them so brilliant.
If you like dark fairytales, bizarre queer fiction, house books, stories that primarily function as metaphor, weird little guys, or even Welcome to Night Vale, I highly recommend FIFTY BEASTS TO BREAK YOUR HEART.
CW:
Eternal Staircase: drug use
A Diviner's Abecedarian: child death, drowning
The Thread Boy: --
Fox Jaw: animal death (mention), insects, dead bodies
The War of Fog: war, grief, child abuse, emesis, death of mother (past), gore (brief)
Drowning Lessons: drowning, drug use, alcohol
The Autumn Kill: blood & gore, animal death, body horror
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: --
Dear Henrietta: infidelity
Possessions: animal sacrifice, grief, alcohol consumption
Homebody: toxic relationship, infidelity, alcohol consumption, body horror (ish)
The Plums at the End of the World: self-harm, bestiality, animal death, religious bigotry, decapitation, death
GennaRose Nethercott has trapped the essence of fairytales in a glass cage, pinning its wings open to examine and pluck each individual feather. She's coaxed its darkness, its whimsy, its beautiful and monstrous nature from its lips and onto these pages. And these fairytales, like all good ones, exist in the lingering. The lingering that will, over time, mold itself into whatever shape best fits the audience's perspective. Maybe that of a lover, of an ex, of a mother, or perhaps even ourselves. Exploring grief, passion, obsession, love, and self-identity or lack thereof in relationships, Nethercott weaves the threads of life and death into complex and beautiful tapestries that so many will find themselves in. These stories' simultaneous singularity and universiality are exactly what make them so brilliant.
If you like dark fairytales, bizarre queer fiction, house books, stories that primarily function as metaphor, weird little guys, or even Welcome to Night Vale, I highly recommend FIFTY BEASTS TO BREAK YOUR HEART.
CW:
Eternal Staircase: drug use
A Diviner's Abecedarian: child death, drowning
The Thread Boy: --
Fox Jaw: animal death (mention), insects, dead bodies
The War of Fog: war, grief, child abuse, emesis, death of mother (past), gore (brief)
Drowning Lessons: drowning, drug use, alcohol
The Autumn Kill: blood & gore, animal death, body horror
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: --
Dear Henrietta: infidelity
Possessions: animal sacrifice, grief, alcohol consumption
Homebody: toxic relationship, infidelity, alcohol consumption, body horror (ish)
The Plums at the End of the World: self-harm, bestiality, animal death, religious bigotry, decapitation, death