Reviews tagging 'Abandonment'

Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott

23 reviews

bubbeleh's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious 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

This book reaffirmed my sense of Jewishness. I feel changed. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, Mental illness, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Religious bigotry, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal cruelty, Child death, and Deportation

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

yellowbinge's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional 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: Child death, Genocide, and Antisemitism

Moderate: Violence, Xenophobia, and War

Minor: Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, and Alcohol

uranaishi's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious reflective 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? No

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Body horror, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Car accident, Fire/Fire injury, Gaslighting, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Animal cruelty, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexual content, Torture, Xenophobia, Vomit, Suicide attempt, Pregnancy, Abandonment, Alcohol, and War

abscott's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious 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? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Genocide, Gore, Self harm, Violence, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Abandonment, and Injury/Injury detail

lancemama's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective 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? It's complicated

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Cursing, Death, Genocide, Hate crime, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Grief, Religious bigotry, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Abandonment, Colonisation, and War

ashtheaudiomancer's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-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? No

4.75

I could swear this book was on my To Read list for longer than just two years. It feels like something that has existed for generations. Maybe that's the time dilation we're all experiencing with the pandemic, but in any case, this modern fable is well worth your time.

I've been intrigued by the Baba Yaga myth for as long as I can remember. Pieces of the story came to me in disarray, but I kept coming back, wanting to know more. Considering one of the themes here is the power of stories, especially how they evolve in the telling over the years, I find that interesting.

It's also the second book in as many years that to some degree is about the family puppeteering business, and the way it affects the adult children. (The other being "How To Sell A Haunted House" by Grady Hendix; this was much better.)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Antisemitism, and War

Moderate: Abandonment

The backstory is about the pogram in Russia, so the content warnings are also central to the overarching theme.

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

imds's review against another edition

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

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child death, Death, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment