Slice of Cherry

The premise of this novel really intrigued me. The daughters of a serial killer? I'm in. Even better, they are kinda twisted themselves, rather than hate and shy away from what their father did, they are sort of like him. They like to kill as well. Sounds awesomely fucked up right? It could have been. The thing that I think ruined it for me was the town and the happy place. The town these girls live in is like a weird fantasy place. Monsters coming around to kill people is normal, casually mentioned from time to time and Fancy can see things in reflections. She can transport herself and her sister into what she calls The Happy Place. A paradise world where she can basically make anything she wants happen. For me, the fantasy portion show more ruined it. Not to the point where I disliked the book, but it could have been a supremely fucked up great mess of a novel that would have blew my mind, instead, it became a fantasy, which somehow lessened the kills. It made them seem like a fantasy as well. I still enjoyed the novel, but for a book about two killers, it wasn't very dark, in fact, it was hardly dark at all, and thats how I went into it thinking it would be. I was slightly disappointed I guess, but it was still interesting and worth a read. A quick read as well, despite its 500ish pages. show less

Kit and Fancy Cordelle are more than simply sisters: they’re practically the same person. The daughters of an infamous killer, the girls keep to themselves, yet are always aware that their father’s tendencies may manifest in them as well. So when they begin to kill—only those who deserve it, of course—the sisters are not all that surprised.

What shocks Fancy, however, is when Kit begins to want to branch out beyond their close relationship. The more Fancy kills, the more she tries to hold on to the way things were, the more things change. Turns out there are some things more horrifying than killing, and that may be acknowledging the real world.

Dia Reeves is like a bucket of cold water on YA lit’s face…and I mean that in the show more best way. Her debut novel, Bleeding Violet, turned paranormal inside out and made it fascinating, in a sexy and gruesome sort of way. Her sophomore novel, SLICE OF CHERRY, is like a twisted childhood fantasy come true. Which is to say that I LOVED it.

As she did in Bleeding Violet, Dia kind of simply throws readers to the wolves and makes you fight to understand and be sympathetic to what’s going on in the story. In a world where some YA writers seem to “baby” their readers, this is a refreshing challenge. Things are not outright explained to us, but rather allowed to unfold gradually over the course of the book’s many pages. SLICE OF CHERRY focuses greatly on the horrors of the human psyche. I mean, Portero is weird enough on its own, but Kit and Fancy’s sociopathic behavior could technically happen in any normal American town, which is the truly creepy part of this novel.

The characters in SLICE OF CHERRY are fantastically messed up, definitely out there in a caricature-like but still completely understandable way. Little time is wasted on backstory, on explanations of what made the girls the way they are. Instead, they—especially Fancy—believe so thoroughly in their oddness that they leave us no room to question how they came to be that way…and that was totally fine with me. We don’t need complicated psychiatric explanations because they are so fully realized, their bizarreness so beyond our comprehension of typical human behavior that they successfully straddle the line between the real and the macabre.

SLICE OF CHERRY is in a genre all its own. If Bleeding Violet didn’t convince me that Dia is a genius, then this book most definitely did. This book will appeal to anyone who has even a pinch of darkness to them, who ever felt like they were weird and enjoyed things that no one else seems to. show less

Wow. Dia Reeves' twitter bio says she writes books that make people feel squicky, and while that may have been true from time to time in this dark and bizarre story of one of the creepiest towns I've ever fictionally experienced, this book made me feel much more than squick. The characters are seriously flawed--I mean...they're fascinated by slicing people up!--but I could still deeply empathize with them and become deeply engrossed in their very human, very universal coming-of-age. I absolutely love the eerie, magical-realistic setting of Portero, and I can't wait to read Bleeding Violet.

This was a really unexpected read, and by unexpected, I mean surprisingly good. Really good. I’ve flip-flopped back and forth on it (actually recc’d it to a friend—“It’s about two sisters who become fledging serial killers, I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard it’s good!”), and yeah, I’m glad that I finally read this.

It’s very unexpected—the plot twists in ways that I didn’t expect it to, the atmosphere and setting where completely creepy, and the character dynamics kept shifting throughout the book. The book’s chiefly told from Fancy’s perspective, and the way her character ends up is through a slow, twisted path through a literal heart of codependent darkness. She’s very childlike, not only in how she show more dresses and acts, but the way Reeves describes events through her eyes. It makes Kit’s growing distance feel more like a betrayal, and really gets into Fancy’s darker side. There’s some good moments of her stronger nature—like the chase through the dark park—and you can see that Fancy has much of a chance of being the strong one instead of Kit. Slice of Cherry really feels more like Fancy’s story and her coming-of-age. (With more murder and evisceration.) Because of this, I felt like we really didn’t get to know Kit as well. She’s very obviously the more assertive of the two girls, but we get to see her jealous nature as Fancy takes more control of their murders. I would have like more of her perspective, but at the same time, I don’t think the book would have worked as well if it were narrated by both sisters. (Follow-up? Maybe?)

The Turner brothers create for an interesting foil to the girls, if only because they seem to have similar predatory natures. Both Ilan and Gabriel hit my creep radars (especially Gabriel); while they start off as the now-standard “Mysterious bad boys who want to kill/hurt/maim the main character,” Fancy and Kit are just as dangerous and bad. It’s very much an anti-hero story—technically the sisters are avenging serial killers, but their glee at what they’ve discovered is deeply unsettling. It’s almost hypnotic to read as the two sibling sets spiral deeper into this.

One of the things Reeves pulls off is her subtly in setting up Portero and its culture. There’s already a layer of Southern Gothic with the East Texas setting, and the fledging serial killer plot. And then the townspeople just casually mention that there are regular monster attacks, and to avoid wearing bright clothing, unless if you’re a part of a special forces group. A lot of this is thrown in to normal conversations—the first monster attack, I basically said, “Wait, what?” (I know there’s the prequel/companion, Bleeding Violet, which now I’m interested in reading.) But the smaller details, like how the townspeople ward off the monsters and even the fact that creatures just lurk around on the street are given much detail, they’re just there. This subtlety also extends to the African-American culture described in the book—you’re not beaten over the head with the fact that the Cordelles are black. Aside from the importance of the Juneteenth celebration, more focus is on Fancy’s deteriorating mental state and relationship with her sister. I wish Reeves would have gotten more into how doors open into other worlds (aside from Fancy’s ‘happy place’), but again, need to read the first book.

My one issue with the book is that it just ends on the reveal of who killed the Turners’ father and with Fancy and Kit’s mother finding out about the new murders. It’s extremely abrupt and barely ties up all of the loose ends with little conflict. Honestly, on reading the last line, I was all “What the hell just happened?” I’m sorta split on how I would have liked it to have ended—obviously, this isn’t the kind of book that ties up everything nice and neat, but more closure would have probably worked for me.

Otherwise, immensely creepy and strangely hypnotic. Very disappointed in myself that I didn’t pick this up earlier. show less

Kit and Fancy Cordelle aren't like other girls their age. They are the only offspring of the infamous Bonesaw Killer, who is currently on death row. Ostracized by their classmates and neighbors, Kit and Fancy don't let this ruin their fun as they spend most of their time together committing horrific acts of violence. Kit fully embraces her dark side, but Fancy is more reluctant because she doesn't want to end up like her father. When she is guided to a way where evidence won't be a problem by one of her ancestors, Fancy and her sister are free to indulge in whatever dark fantasies they choose. Instead of going around killing people randomly, they put the word out that they want to kill people who deserve it and they get quite a few show more offers. Things seem to be going wonderfully until Kit falls in love with Gabriel Turner. She now wants to spend all her time with him and continually rejects Fancy. Fancy wants everything to stay the same and resists any sort of change vehemently, especially when Gabriel's brother, Ilan, starts to show interest in her. Can she get Kit to see the error of her ways or will she just have to be used to being alone?

I was first introduced to Dia Reeves' work with Bleeding Violet and I unexpectedly loved it. I've been wanting to read Slice of Cherry since I heard about it and I devoured it in about a day. I would rank it just a little below its predecessor. I absolutely love the town Portero and its odd, quirky inhabitants. They see strange things every day, from monsters to dismembered people in the street. Needless to say, it takes a lot to shock a Porterene. Dia Reeves creates a world unlike any other I have ever seen. The mixture of horror and fantasy is both seamless and utterly harmonious. There are real life horrors, like serial killers and sociopaths, juxtaposed with fantastical ones and they blend very well together. The horrific actions of the sisters don't really seem out of place in a world where people on a regular basis get lost behind magic doors or eaten and tortured by monsters. When word gets out about their twisted good deeds, their neighbors actually start treating them as heroes rather than ostracizing them as they had before. Each chapter is followed by an entry from Fancy's dream diary, which inevitably contains something more twisted and dark than happens in reality. This adds an extra layer of psychological horror and gives the reader a peek into Fancy's psyche.

Although there are two main characters, Fancy is the most prominently featured one. At the beginning of the novel, I had trouble differentiating between the two sisters because they were so much alike. As the novel goes on, Kit starts to create her own identity, with her own hobbies and activities, and embraces her journey to adulthood. This angers Fancy and she tries as hard as she can to create a stasis around her, including wearing her outgrown, childish clothes to resist her growth into a woman. I related to both Fancy and Kit at different points in the novel. I find it a great feat of writing that Dia Reeves can make two such unapologetic murderers into relatable, sympathetic characters. Fancy's frustrations and her relationship with her sister remind me of the horror film Ginger Snaps, where Ginger is developing into a woman and Brigitte tries to stop her sister's seemingly horrific change into an unrecognizable monster. Fancy feels a void inside of herself, which she tries to fill with murder and mayhem, but she still feels empty and despondent. The emptiness stems from her resisting the flow of time, life, and love and the loss of her sister.

Slice of Cherry is a wonderful novel chock full of dark and twisted goodness. Be warned that there is graphic violence and torture throughout. If you are sickened easily or have a weak constitution, this book is definitely not for you. For all of you others that revel in such madness, enjoy. show less

As the Bonesaw Killer's daughters and with their daddy on deathrow, sisters Kit and Fancy Cordelle are shunned by the people of their small town Portero, Texas and that's the way they like it. When a young man breaks into their home, they capture him and tie him up in their father's basement. What begins as a game of cutting the young man open and stitching back together, soon becomes a satisfying killing spree as the girls take out their desire for bloodshed on those they think deserve it. Things get really interesting when Fancy finds a door into a doorway into another world, opening onto her happy place, where anything is possible and the girls can kill without getting caught.

I was looking for a YA novel with strong horror themes, show more something unsettling and frightening but with kids in high school or younger. Fantasy romances, like Twilight or Shiver, though they contain vampires and werewolves, creatures born from horror, don't count as their point is the love story, not to frighten. My searching lead me to Dia Reeves and her Portero novels, and when I saw Slice of Cherry on the library bookshelf, I couldn't resist picking it up.

Bloody and unsettling from page one, it seemed like just the book for me, one clearly comfortable in the realm of horror. This love of gore and splatter was combined with the story of two sisters, learning to have lives of their own after having only each other, also firmly settling the story in YA. I read through this book quickly, and at some points had trouble putting it down to eat or sleep.

Portero is a fascinating little town with all its invisible doorways for people to stumble through and never return, not to mention the monsters that make it through into the town and tend to leave a string of corpses and pools of blood in the downtown center. The cacklers in the woods are a particularly creepy creature, which laugh as they hunt and have large smiling mouths with lots and lots of teeth.

I'd say this biggest flaw is that I had a hard time connecting with the characters. Perhaps it's because it's from the point of view of two killers, who see other human beings as worthless and just waiting to be victims. It's hard to pull off sympathy for the ruthless and I'm not sure Reeves entirely managed it.

Also, it seemed that almost everyone in the story was far too accepting of the murders. Yes, the girls were getting rid of bad people (mostly), but it was still a kind of slaughter and everyone in town seemed to be okay with it, even cheering them on (of course, these are Porterenes and it's a very strange town and the people are kind of used to seeing blood and body parts). It seems a little variation in the reactions would have been better, so that it didn't come off as one note personalities. I may be grateful to someone who got rid of someone beating on me, but I'd also be wary and frightened, too, especially if they came back splattered with blood. So, I don't think sending the message that murder is hunky-dory as long as you're killing bad people is a good thing.

That said, it was an entertaining story and I'm curious to read more by Reeves. So I'll probably go ahead and pick up the first book in the series (Slice of Cherry is book two). show less

This book has a lot going on. But I mean that in a very good way. I really enjoyed this book. It's a sort of horrific tale of two sisters learning what it means to grow up and to be ok with that and each other. This book is easily one of my favorites. I enjoyed all the magic, paranormal, horror, and plain teen girl issues. It was a very interesting read that went by too quickly; but only because it ended at all. I could have read this book for ages. As another plus the book is well written, well paced, the characters are well developed, and the story just flows so well. I can't say enough how good this cringe worthy book is.