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A review by nataliestorozhenko
Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid
2.0
It was not a bad read, but it was not the best. The writing and the gothic horror aesthetics are horrifyingly beautiful. Would I want to revisit this story? Definitely no.
There is a charm to this story as I certainly enjoy gothic romances. But I guess I am more of a classic gothic stories lover, more subtle in their horrors and with a healthy dose of disturbing topics. This book has it all and too much - sexual abuse, cannibalism, rape, pedophilia, self-harm, emotional and physical abuse by family members, bulimia, gruesome deaths, and so much more. As you can see, the author wanted to put it all in. So at some point, I noticed that it was not so much for the sake of the plot but to impress a reader with disturbing images as much as possible. And for me, it doesn't speak of a great craft. It is much more compelling to read something so ghastly only if it's important to the plot and character development. But there is no real meaning. We meet broken characters, and they're constantly traumatized just for the sake of being traumatized.
The romance in this book is very mid. I find it difficult to see such devotion from a ballet dancer who constantly talked about other women and how fast he fell in love with Marlinchen just because she offered him help when he was vomiting and being drunk as a skunk. It was not bad, and maybe someone finds their relationship charming, especially in the epilogue when they knew how to comfort each other. But I didn't have enough time with them within the pages to believe it.
The chaotic and indescribable magic system hooked me in this book. It reminded me of some of my favorite Ghibli movies. You can not grasp logic of it, and you're just curious how it will work out.
Although based on Grimm's tale "The Juniper Tree," there's no doubt that the whole premise and all the names of the streets, food, and so on are borrowed from one famous imperialistic sadistic country - russia. I can see how the story of Bogatyr Ivan has inspired the story and all the logic behind the street names and stuff. But what disturbed me as Ukrainian - is that some of the names like "mlyntsi", "titka" and so on are borrowed from the Ukrainian language. It may not be a big deal, but it was irritating. I imagine that the foreign reader would deem all of these references russian. But in fact, please know that "mlyntsi" is a Ukrainian dish, well, "varenyky" too. But that's a whole another topic on cultural appropriation and thievery. And if the author wanted to put a russian-inspired twist to the story, a simple check using Google Translate could have omitted these faults.
Overall, it is just fair to answer this simple question - did I enjoy the book? I don't think so. I guess this approach of violence for the sake of violence is not my cup of tea. Would I recommend it to anyone who loves horror? Also no. Because there's horror, and there's just pure abuse.
There is a charm to this story as I certainly enjoy gothic romances. But I guess I am more of a classic gothic stories lover, more subtle in their horrors and with a healthy dose of disturbing topics. This book has it all and too much - sexual abuse, cannibalism, rape, pedophilia, self-harm, emotional and physical abuse by family members, bulimia, gruesome deaths, and so much more. As you can see, the author wanted to put it all in. So at some point, I noticed that it was not so much for the sake of the plot but to impress a reader with disturbing images as much as possible. And for me, it doesn't speak of a great craft. It is much more compelling to read something so ghastly only if it's important to the plot and character development. But there is no real meaning. We meet broken characters, and they're constantly traumatized just for the sake of being traumatized.
The romance in this book is very mid. I find it difficult to see such devotion from a ballet dancer who constantly talked about other women and how fast he fell in love with Marlinchen just because she offered him help when he was vomiting and being drunk as a skunk. It was not bad, and maybe someone finds their relationship charming, especially in the epilogue when they knew how to comfort each other. But I didn't have enough time with them within the pages to believe it.
The chaotic and indescribable magic system hooked me in this book. It reminded me of some of my favorite Ghibli movies. You can not grasp logic of it, and you're just curious how it will work out.
Although based on Grimm's tale "The Juniper Tree," there's no doubt that the whole premise and all the names of the streets, food, and so on are borrowed from one famous imperialistic sadistic country - russia. I can see how the story of Bogatyr Ivan has inspired the story and all the logic behind the street names and stuff. But what disturbed me as Ukrainian - is that some of the names like "mlyntsi", "titka" and so on are borrowed from the Ukrainian language. It may not be a big deal, but it was irritating. I imagine that the foreign reader would deem all of these references russian. But in fact, please know that "mlyntsi" is a Ukrainian dish, well, "varenyky" too. But that's a whole another topic on cultural appropriation and thievery. And if the author wanted to put a russian-inspired twist to the story, a simple check using Google Translate could have omitted these faults.
Overall, it is just fair to answer this simple question - did I enjoy the book? I don't think so. I guess this approach of violence for the sake of violence is not my cup of tea. Would I recommend it to anyone who loves horror? Also no. Because there's horror, and there's just pure abuse.