Comfort Me With Apples
Ratings166
Average rating3.5
Bluebeard elements with twisted Adam & Eve? (Well, Adam before Eve, sorta.) Excellent. This was interesting and unsettling.
Well, that was disturbing. I had a good idea where the book would go subject wise, based on the title alone, but it was much more macabre than I anticipated. This is EXCELLENT and very accurate commentary on religion.
I think I would've liked this a bit better if i hadn't gone into it thinking about how much the name and synopsis gave off garden of eden / Adam and eve vibes.
As the year nearly ends I am trying to mark down all the books that I have completed this year so this is why my review isn't long or detailed.
Okay I'll be honest... there were some moments when I was reading this book that I sat there and thought “what am i reading?”
I could say many things but I think I'm going to end this by saying I hate men
The whole time I was just going “what the fuck”. The ending was also so disappointing. I know it was a short book already, but it honestly felt like it could have been cut down even more. The choice of words was so strange, so the writing didn't feel like it flowed. I'm also so tired of having to see how much women are abused and how much suffering they go through to see that misogyny is wrong.
i like the idea behind the story and the way it was told/written but this is hardly a horror in my opinion and also after i realized what was going on i was kinda just like oh okay. cool. its an interesting read and a unique one for sure but thats kinda it for me
I don't get the biblical references, that's probably why i didn't like it much. Still a fun time tho, it was well written and weird to piece together.
“Sophia is enveloped by the herd of everyone she loves and there is a waterfall of ice cream and everyone has a spoonful for her to try, a hundred colors, as sweet as cold kisses.”
some of the prose here is very pretty in its simplicity, yet it also got a bit pretentious for me at times with its metaphors and clichéd phrasing. i also did not particularly enjoy the “twist” of incorporating the Garden of Eden into the story, it didn't really fit and was an unsatisfying resolution to me.
i enjoyed some plotpoints and how they were written (the finger-bone, the heron and the window, the play written about Sophia) but ultimately although they successfully evoked a foreboding sort of atmosphere, they didn't really end up clicking together for me.
actually a 2.5
pros: read it in about 1.5 hours, love a good biblical allusion, there were some genuinely unsettling parts
cons: literally everything else plot wise, ending was very rushed, i kept waiting for something... else
Wow. Didn't see that coming. The atmosphere of creeping dread, and of something being “a little off” made this a thrilling read.
Note: I went into this blind - and highly recommend it. It would ruin the experience if you know what the twist is.
This was a neat little story and well written but I personally am so bored and irritated with the “‘it's a mystery and what's going on and things are strange' buildup that leads to the ‘ohhh it was just Christianity all along' reveal” trope. It feels like such a cop-out to me to build and create a whole new world that has so many possibilities and then have the explanation behind it be “oh right, Christianity.” I really liked the writing and would read other things by this author, I'm just always so let down when a book relies on the most pervasive and tired occult force in the world whose supremacy is already integrated into everything in existence as a way to explain an otherwise inventive plotline away.
What a fun, weird, spooky book. I did not see the ending coming and was delighted.
read for horror novellas reading vlog
i was spoiled for this and knew the turn but i kinda liked the direction it went in but i wouldn't consider this a horror. it wasn't scary objectively i think it was just weird. i also thought it was kinda giving black mirror in the beginning which i liked but overall it was pretty forgettable
2.5, for the plot
90% of the book was overly descriptive, i forced myself not to dnf it because of the plot but damn it was not a pleasant experience
the reveal was very predictable, still i wanted to see how it would actually play out & was def expecting something better than what we got
i really liked the portayal of denial & how we lie to ourselves when confronted to traumatic situations, the switch that happened in her mind when she finally accepted reality
very unsatisfactory ending but i get it
très bonne idée une bible fiction like this mais ça garde un goût d'inachevé
2.5, for the plot
90% of the book was overly descriptive, i forced myself not to dnf it because of the plot but damn it was not a pleasant experience
the reveal was very predictable, still i wanted to see how it would actually play out & was def expecting something better than what we got
i really liked the portayal of denial & how we lie to ourselves when confronted to traumatic situations, the switch that happened in her mind when she finally accepted reality
very unsatisfactory ending but i get it
très bonne idée une bible fiction like this mais ça garde un goût d'inachevé
I was so confused for most of the book until the twist hit. But even then, I was just hoping for more. Also the writing style just didn't click with me at all
Old review - I loved this short story. It was like a weird, creepy fairy tale. It's made me want to read every Valente.
