A review by whatdotheyknowaboutfriends
Your House Is on Fire, Your Children All Gone, by Stefan Kiesbye

2.0

Creeeeeepy. Overly so. The basic idea is that this tiny, remote German town has a lot of violence, adultery, incest, cannibalism, etc. In the beginning, it seems like witches and the curse of the Devil's Moor are responsible, but these are quickly revealed to be the imaginings of the townsfolk who are either superstitious, or seek a cover for the sin that seems to touch every household. The heaping of sin on sin gets a little much after a while. There was something interesting in the tension of "are these ghost sightings real, did the Black Miller really take that boy, and why do we never learn where he got lost to?" But it becomes clear too early that this is really the hand of man here, and so the latter half assumes a tone of "oh hey, this guy is jealous because the narrator said so, well I'm pretty sure he'll get revenge, and yep, here it is, 10 pages later". Ultimately, the violence gets boring and gross and it's hard to feel much for the characters. I did like how there is a larger town nearby that characters visit, and new people come from, and certain characters even travel around the world- I liked the contrast between this strange, medieval place, and a world around it that seemed abruptly but temporarily suspended within its bounds.