A review by catlion27
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories by GennaRose Nethercott

dark mysterious reflective medium-paced

4.5

Beautifully strange and rich stories about love, death, longing, and hunger. Definitely recommend. I don't know that I have a standout favorite, but the themes were so tightly woven through all the stories that they felt "connected" despite not  having narrative connections to each other. 

The prose is excellent. You can tell Nethercott is a poet, but its poetry doesn't make it hard to read; instead it draws you in. The stories are all very *visceral*. I appreciate how tangibly she deals with bodies, and the way she takes metaphorical or abstract concepts, and spins out a "what if" that grounds them in the real, physical world. There were a few stories that finished with too open of an ending for me, but that didn't detract from the vibes, which I really loved.

I would not call these stories horror but a dark magical realism - they are typically set in a normal setting with some element of the uncanny, the darkness of which varies. 

I enjoyed the format of A Diviner's Abecedarian and Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart because the "story" is peaking out through the background progressively more and more as the story goes. The style reminds me of some creative nonfiction I've read, and I liked this use of it.