Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by ominousspectre
Thistlefoot by GennaRose Nethercott
1.5
Prose: purple
Themes: heavy handed
I very much wanted to like this. If you showed the blurb to any of my friends, they'd immediately be like oh! This is so on brand for you, almost to a way that's borderline spooky. However, I hated the execution of this.
It's unfortunate because this is a very personal story to her as one side of her family is Jewish Ukrainian. She helps run the Lore podcast. Clearly she's done her research. There are good pieces in here (I loved the line from the villain that said, "I am not a what, I'm a when). But overall, I have a lot of issues with it.
The Longshadow man isn't even really an allegory for bigotry/white supremacy, because he just walks up to people and says alt right talking points at them for a few minutes until they commit a hate crime. I'm not kidding. It's very on the nose. Though the pipeline moves fast, it doesn't work THAT fast, so those scenes felt disingenuous.
What irked me the most was Baba Yaga reimagined as a Jewish Ukrainian in 1919. Nothing inherently wrong with that, I love folklore retellings or generally inspired things. But the connection of Baba Yaga basically stops at the name. She's just a woman who is sort of made fun of in town and given that nickname, and she thenexperiences horrible violence very common of the Jewish experience during that time period. No explanation needed.
Nothing inherently wrong with that either, but otherwise, there's no tie in to any of the actual themes of Baba Yaga the original myth. I was expecting some sort of reclamation of the name and how she's a social outcast, a villain arc, SOMETHING, but there's nothing there.
I would've even accepted if we didn't know her name from the start, and it was revealed as the story went on as a sort of OH! That's why they inherited the chicken leg house! But as with the rest of the themes, it must be heavy handed.
As a less serious aside: crazy how Isaac is a tit for tat self insert character I would've written in middle school. Not even kidding, younger me feels so called out. It's honestly very funny
Themes: heavy handed
I very much wanted to like this. If you showed the blurb to any of my friends, they'd immediately be like oh! This is so on brand for you, almost to a way that's borderline spooky. However, I hated the execution of this.
It's unfortunate because this is a very personal story to her as one side of her family is Jewish Ukrainian. She helps run the Lore podcast. Clearly she's done her research. There are good pieces in here (I loved the line from the villain that said, "I am not a what, I'm a when). But overall, I have a lot of issues with it.
The Longshadow man isn't even really an allegory for bigotry/white supremacy, because he just walks up to people and says alt right talking points at them for a few minutes until they commit a hate crime. I'm not kidding. It's very on the nose. Though the pipeline moves fast, it doesn't work THAT fast, so those scenes felt disingenuous.
What irked me the most was Baba Yaga reimagined as a Jewish Ukrainian in 1919. Nothing inherently wrong with that, I love folklore retellings or generally inspired things. But the connection of Baba Yaga basically stops at the name. She's just a woman who is sort of made fun of in town and given that nickname, and she then
Nothing inherently wrong with that either, but otherwise, there's no tie in to any of the actual themes of Baba Yaga the original myth. I was expecting some sort of reclamation of the name and how she's a social outcast, a villain arc, SOMETHING, but there's nothing there.
I would've even accepted if we didn't know her name from the start, and it was revealed as the story went on as a sort of OH! That's why they inherited the chicken leg house! But as with the rest of the themes, it must be heavy handed.
As a less serious aside: crazy how Isaac is a tit for tat self insert character I would've written in middle school. Not even kidding, younger me feels so called out. It's honestly very funny
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Racism, and Antisemitism