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The Unmagical Life of Briar Jones
Lex Croucher
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The Franchise
Thomas Elrod
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This was a puzzle of a horror book, and ultimately I enjoyed unraveling it greatly.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces is deeply steeped in history, but a slightly AU version of history where ghosts are accepted to be visible and a larger part of society. At first, I wasn't sure if this was just cultural, but the events definitely go beyond ghost stories and into a slightly AU realm. The ghosts in this story, as in most ghost stories, are stuck on injustices that they suffered in life. They hunt their killers, or those who have done them wrong, and in doing so sometimes lose parts of themselves until they are only capable of fulfilling their purpose. Other ghosts are able to direct their rage towards more long-term goals.
It's hard to describe the plot of this book without giving away spoilers, and this should definitely be read as a mystery to be figured out. I will say that I think it's for fans of Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker, and maybe Queen of Faces by Petra Lord as well. There is an aspect of horror to this, absolutely, with not only violence directly on page but also the casual violence of war and occupation occurring in the background, no less horrific. But there's also a lot of sadness, of understanding why characters who do awful things would do those things, of not knowing who is in the right and who is in the wrong.
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted copy.
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The Girl With A Thousand Faces
Sunyi Dean
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Princeweaver
Elian J Morgan
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