It is giving me all the feels and I am ready to get lost within the dark halls and brambles of this book. And while their city flourishes, a monster lurks in its midst, borne of intolerance and resentment and suffused with old-world power.

This is a dark and bloody tale, full of magic both otherworldly and familiar, and despite its monsters, it reads like comfort. In addition, I know Reid herself stated that the book was intended to continue along in exploring The Wolf and the Woodsman’s theme of nation-building/empire/identity in an emerging industrial context this time, but I would personally say that this was mentioned with only the lightest of touches. A dark reimagining of a fairytale that tries to show the real impact living in a folktale might have on those who experience it.More importantly, it has my sweet children, Marlinchen and Sevas, both of whom I would lay down my life for without question. Fed up of his restrictions, the sisters sneak out to attend the theatre and hear of two men found dead, rumoured to have been brutally ripped apart. CW for bulimia and sexual abuse mentioned in this review; there are a lot more potential triggers in the book. Marlinchen's father Zmiy is profligate with his hatreds; nearly anyone involved in or related to the city is likely to be the subject of his ire.

And it doesn't stop there, everything from sexual assault to paedophilia to incest is thrown at us without warning from there on, and whilst I'm not a stickler for trigger warnings, the excessive amount of triggering this book can set off merits saying that there should've been better warning for readers. Marlinchen is resigned to her fate, caring for a father who scarcely notices her except when it benefits him to do so, servicing the men whose money her family relies upon but in whose eyes she is merely an object, when, during a late-night jaunt to the ballet with her sisters, she crosses paths with Sevastyan, a dancer who is hiding some dark secrets of his own. I also knew the author wanted to explore trauma and abuse, specially in family relationships, so I was pretty sure I'd love this story. When taken with so many other scenes in the book - which is generally quite concerned with the physical and bodily reactions to events - it is easy to be uncertain. Folkloric themes and the history of storytelling are neatly folded and baked into every ounce of this text.I saw a couple criticisms that it was a bit insta-lovey and too full of lust without enough development. The last thing I want to do is cause serious psychological harm to readers whose traumatic experiences mirror those depicted in the book. I don’t want to get spoilery, but Marlinchin has bulimia and severe body dysmorphia as a result of the trauma she faced and continues to face. I do think it could have been cleaned up in places, however - I definitely noticed certain tics and repetitions and similes of dubious quality. That eventually ends up harming her stories, because pretty words and on-point mood can only do so much for a book.

We learn about the abuses she suffered as a child from her father and from others that he knew about but didn't stop, some of it sexual in nature. Undine (Marlinchen's older sister) was always despicted as beautiful and mean, Rose (the middle sister) was always clever and cold/distant, Marlinchen's father was mean and cruel, and Sevas (which I liked a lot, despite his lack of character development) was reduced as being beautiful and enamored by Marlinchen. Ava Reid’s beautiful prose felt oddly out of place in this horror b As a fairy tale retelling, I think this book generally does a good job of taking the roots of The Juniper Tree and transforming it into something interesting and new that still stays true to the bloody heart of the original (extremely grim and grisly) tale. Like taking a bite of fruit with a rotten core, the atmosphere is in turns gorgeous and enticing, then shocking and disgusting, and back again.

there are some lighter moments between her and those she loves, but overall this is a very gruesome novel, and i recommend checking trigger warnings before reading. Sequestered within the walls of their home, Marlinchen spends much of her free time placating the unending appetites of their authoritative father and utilizing her gifts to discern the truth from her clientele.