GennaRose Nethercott

"What is a monster if not someone, some thing, caught between?”

GennaRose Nethercott has proven to be a master of dark fairytales. I loved Thistlefoot so I jumped on the chance to read her new collection of short stories.

These are all unique and horror filled twists on the fairytales we all know. The one that really stuck out to me and still lingers is Homebody but they were all good.

I definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys dark fairytales.

Thank you Vintage Anchor for giving me an advanced review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (more)

As the cover of this genre-defying novel suggests, Thistlefoot is about a house with chicken feet and a garden on its roof. But it is much more than that: it is about preserving the memories of those history has erased, a fairy tale, modern folklore woven with old Russian-Jewish folklore, family. The modern day, American siblings at the center of this tale are descendants of Russian Jews who escaped the pogrom that wiped their shtetl from the map, carrying the genetic memory of the unspeakable things done to people they knew or that they did themselves in the face of so much evil. The novel is inspired by the Baba Yaga tale: a witch who lives in the woods of Eastern Europe in a house that stands on chicken legs – that tale is woven through the novel told from the house, Thistlefoot’s, perspective. But it is also revealed through the modern-day Yaga siblings, through the memory of suffering passed down in their genes, which animate extraordinary abilities, or curses.

Ms. Nethercott’s writing is beautiful and she crafted many memorable passages containing astute observations about life. I felt some characters were a little puzzling in the way they were manifested, but overall, this strange, tragic, wonderful book was compelling from the first page to the last.
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