Reviews tagging 'Animal death'

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

35 reviews

tangleroot_eli's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

What an absolute joy of a book this is. History; heartbreak; magic; theater; folklore; queerness; complex family relationships; Jews kicking ass; a creepy, creepy villain <spoilers>who's really just a manifestation of the terrible things human beings do to each other; and the most adorable version ever of Baba Yaga's chicken-legged house. It's pretty great.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Stalking, Murder, and Abandonment

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Self harm, Transphobia, Blood, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Addiction, Racial slurs, Vomit, and Cannibalism

Graphic: Mind control Moderate: Nonconsensual drug use

trin_16's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This book was a wonderful blend of history, folklore, and fiction. I loved how the author weaved the stories of the Russian pogroms with the traditional stories of baba yaga. The ending was fantastic, and my only complaint was that this story has some half-baked plot points, and the pace was a bit slow in the beginning/middle but overall... so so good. Wonderful book and so different from most stories I've read before. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Violence, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and War

starlitpage's review against another edition

dark medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

This is a powerful book about folklore and stories, about generational trauma, and about a house that doesn't stop running until it does. I didn't enjoy reading this book, but I'm glad I read it. I found the take on fear behind xenophobia particularly interesting. Would probably hold up well to rereads, but I don't intend to try.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Violence, Xenophobia, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Grief, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Drug use

Drug use = smoking cigarettes often, mention of other drugs in passing

caebrown's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Self harm, Violence, Antisemitism, and Murder

social_eyes's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional tense

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death

cleot's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Engaging and devastating with a unique narrative style. I wept. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Genocide, Antisemitism, Fire/Fire injury, and War

Moderate: Animal death, Racism, Xenophobia, and Murder

hey_al's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

This story took me a while to get into, but it is worth the trek to the end. If you love spooky folktales and history of eastern European Jews, this one's for you. I don't reread books ever but I might reread this one. The way Nethercott writes about trauma is so beautiful and heartbreaking.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death and Antisemitism

Moderate: Child death

Minor: Death, Genocide, Grief, Alcohol, and Colonisation

liv_easton's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix

3.75

This book was one I've been meaning to read for a couple of years now, and I can confidently say I'm glad I did. The payoff was incredibly satisfying, and just what I would want from a book of folklore. That being said, I genuinely did not know how I was going to finish this book for about the first half. For me, there was just too much time spent on the set-up of the book, and it felt like Nethercrott was trying to build up a suspense around the magic system of the book that wasn't quite necessary, since the magic system either went mostly unexplained to make time for the other story elements (at worst) or was meant to be shrouded in mystery as part of the folklore/storytelling core (at best, and what I believe was the actual intention. 

In either case, halfway through the story was a bit long to finally drop the curtain on what we needed to know about magic in the novel. Couple that with a POV that is often unappealing to read and also refuses to give the reader any information for a couple hundred pages (I'm looking mostly at you, Isaac, but occasionally at Bellatine), and I didn't think that this book would ever become a novel I was actually invested in. However, I'm happy to say that I was wrong on that count—once Bellatine's magic was revealed, the story and characters seemed to open up and get me invested in the story enough that I would have given the story a 3.5 stars (the last .25 coming from my affection for the type of ending the story ends up having).

The major highlight that kept me reading was every chapter the house told, as the house was by far and away the most compelling character and also the best storyteller of the lot by far. On the whole, I think this is a super worthwhile book to read, and if you need to skim some of the first 20 or so chapters to get through it, I get it.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Violence, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment

Moderate: Blood

thehobbitbarbie's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

If you'd told me a week before I read Thistlefoot that an Americana horror novel was going to be my new favorite book, I'd have thought you were out of your mind. But here we are, almost 450 pages later, and this book is all I've thought about since I first opened it. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Antisemitism, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Panic attacks/disorders, Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Grief, Car accident, Murder, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Sexual content, Medical content, Suicide attempt, Abandonment, and Alcohol

therainbowshelf's review

challenging dark emotional funny informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A friend recommended this delight of a book to me and I loved it. It explores myths and legends, cultural destruction, Russian Jewish heritage, and the role that stories play in both culture and heritage, all wrapped up in a fantasy-horror book with a fun cast of characters. I saw one reviewer characterized it as culturally apropriative to have non-religious characters with Jewish heritage as the main characters, but I enjoyed having characters like this because that’s my experience as well. I am not religious, but have Jewish heritage.

As an odd coincidence, the same day I started reading this book, a journalist I was working with told me about his family heritage. One side of his family came to the U.S. to escape the pogroms in the early 1900s. It was the first time I’d heard of the pogroms in Russia, and then this book centers them.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Homophobia, Racism, Terminal illness, Transphobia, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Alcohol, War, and Injury/Injury detail

Death of baby, death of family member, graphic Reanimation of dead animal