Juniper & Thorn

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Thank you to Netgalley and Avon Books for providing an ARC copy of this novel.

WARNING: This is not a light-hearted fairy tale. This is the old, gruesome type of story. There is cannibalism. Kind of a lot of cannibalism, actually. There are mentions of rape and sexual assault. There is body horror. If any of these bother you, then do not read this book.

I'm not sure what I thought Juniper & Thorn was going to be about, but it isn't what I read, that's for sure. If I remember right, when I originally requested this ARC, maybe an adventure or possibly a strict retelling of a piece of folklore. It is a retelling, but damn it's dark. To be fair, the original story that Juniper & Thorn is borrowing from is pretty dang dark, too.

Juniper & Thorn is about three witch-daughters of a great wizard. The eldest daughter is cruel, mean, and beautiful. The middle daughter is clever, and beautiful. The youngest daughter is plain, and meek. The wizard is (you guessed it) cruel and mean to his daughters, but powerful enough that they fear disobeying him. Each daughter has their own power that their father sells to the local townspeople so they can have money to eat. The father was cursed long ago to never be satisfied by anything – no food will fill his belly, no sleep will get him rested, and his daughters will never be good enough, etc, etc.

They live just on the outskirts of town, and are not allowed to leave the grounds of their estate. Of course, the very first thing they do in the novel is...leave the estate to go to town to see a ballet. This kicks off everything that happens — the youngest daughter is finally exposed to the real world, and falls in love with the main ballet dancer. While there, the three daughters overhear a conversation about men being found dead with their eyes, liver, and heart missing. This is important later. They return home, are eventually found out, and...well. The rest of the story happens, obviously.

I'm not entirely sure I enjoyed this book. The ending was extremely satisfying — it ends happily, surprisingly enough. It is written phenomenally, the story is told well, I just think the subject matter is not one that really vibes with me. Cannibalism is one of my extreme yucks, and there was... a lot of it in this book. However, if you're into dark, gruesome fairy tales, I can quite easily recommend this book.