A review by nightmarebees
Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid

challenging dark mysterious tense medium-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

4.25

NOT for the faint of heart, not a book for everyone, but wowie. this was hard to read at many points, and i still couldn’t put it down. the language is vivid and unsettling, the tastes and smells of this world are loud in your mind even when you wish they weren’t. reid writes about trauma and coping mechanisms in ways that don’t feel gratuitous or exploitative. it’s uncomfortable, certainly, but so is experiencing a major trauma. marlinchen and sevas are not made to suffer for the glorification of those traumas, but rather they choose to live on in spite of them. i’m gonna be thinking about this one for a while 
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