Scan barcode
A review by ginnymay
Juniper & Thorn by Ava Reid
dark
fast-paced
2.0
Major CW missing from this one, please check the warnings before reading this review.
I love new and original fairy tale retellings, dark fantasy, and gothic horror. By that metric, this should have been my new favorite book. It is decidedly not.
When we had a monster murderer introduced I was hoping for something like Carnival Row, but this story seems to have lacked an outline or plan of any sort as it forgets about the mysterious murders for large swathes of time to the point where, when a victim is discovered at the theater, I genuinely had the thought “Oh yeah that’s a thing” because I had genuinely forgotten about the MURDER MONSTER.
The bulk of the meandering narration for 75% of the novel can be summarized as: Marlinchen’s sisters are pretty and she’s ugly, her dad is abusive and they hate him, her mother is dead, she makes food, she thinks the dancer is sexy, she is called stupid and mindless, she is depressed and fantasizes about cutting off her nipples. It makes Marlinchen one of the most tedious narrators, as the first new information unveiled in her POV isn’t until after several hundred pages of this when it’s suddenly revealed that she was repeatedly SA’d as a minor by a medical professional while her father watched and was paid for it.
Then Reid tried to tie it all together with an insta-love trauma-bond romance and then reveals an answer to the murders that required some rewriting of history to make it work.
And all this just left me with more questions than answers. How did Marlinchen never notice that her Father’s powers had waned? How did she not notice for SEVEN years that her sisters were being trafficked? How, if she and her magically imbued sisters all had power and violently hated their father, did they never find a way to overthrow him or at least rebel against him? How did Marlinchen not put together that she was missing huge chunks of time when murders were taking place? How did she not question where the hearts and livers she served to her father came from? How did they have sex on the floor covered in broken glass and not need insane amounts of medical attention?
All in all, a bewildering, poorly written, deeply upsetting, and just bad book.
I love new and original fairy tale retellings, dark fantasy, and gothic horror. By that metric, this should have been my new favorite book. It is decidedly not.
When we had a monster murderer introduced I was hoping for something like Carnival Row, but this story seems to have lacked an outline or plan of any sort as it forgets about the mysterious murders for large swathes of time to the point where, when a victim is discovered at the theater, I genuinely had the thought “Oh yeah that’s a thing” because I had genuinely forgotten about the MURDER MONSTER.
The bulk of the meandering narration for 75% of the novel can be summarized as: Marlinchen’s sisters are pretty and she’s ugly, her dad is abusive and they hate him, her mother is dead, she makes food, she thinks the dancer is sexy, she is called stupid and mindless, she is depressed and fantasizes about cutting off her nipples. It makes Marlinchen one of the most tedious narrators, as the first new information unveiled in her POV isn’t until after several hundred pages of this when it’s suddenly revealed that she was repeatedly SA’d as a minor by a medical professional while her father watched and was paid for it.
Then Reid tried to tie it all together with an insta-love trauma-bond romance and then reveals an answer to the murders that required some rewriting of history to make it work.
And all this just left me with more questions than answers. How did Marlinchen never notice that her Father’s powers had waned? How did she not notice for SEVEN years that her sisters were being trafficked? How, if she and her magically imbued sisters all had power and violently hated their father, did they never find a way to overthrow him or at least rebel against him? How did Marlinchen not put together that she was missing huge chunks of time when murders were taking place? How did she not question where the hearts and livers she served to her father came from? How did they have sex on the floor covered in broken glass and not need insane amounts of medical attention?
All in all, a bewildering, poorly written, deeply upsetting, and just bad book.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Sexism, Body horror, Alcohol, Animal cruelty, Cursing, Death, Self harm, Sexual violence, Animal death, Body shaming, Cannibalism, Child abuse, Death of parent, Vomit, Misogyny, Trafficking, Bullying, Incest, Mental illness, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Gore, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Pedophilia, Rape, Gaslighting, Murder, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual harassment, and Xenophobia