This book was so highly anticipated for me, I adore Juniper and Thorn & Ava had likened this book to that one so frequently in the months leading up to its publication. What works for me about Juniper and Thorn is that while reading it, I felt as if a part of Ava’s soul was speaking directly to mine. While Ava deals with a lot of similar themes in this novel, I felt none of the emotional anchoring.

Technically speaking, this is a gorgeously executed book. Ava’s prose is stunning, her allusions are clever, her knowledge of history is impressive, & in general, her scholarly nature shines through. But this further gives the novel a remote quality. There is distance put between the readers & the characters because they are just that, characters. They do not read as individuals, they are devices to uphold the plot, they do not feel inhabited. I do not feel their pain or their joy, I never came to understand them. They were merely, the people I was reading about.

I am crestfallen to have not enjoyed this book & struggle to even put it like that, but I found many elements of this book mildly traumatic to read. I understand the incest as a common feature of gothic literature (one I often advocate for, as those of you who have heard my thoughts on adaptations of The Fall of the House of Usher well know), I even thought it was well executed in its subtlety. I understood the function of the near ceaseless violence in (almost) all its forms. I understand the importance of the symbolism that cannibalism, particularly amongst family members, holds. I saw the barbarity of Offal-Eater & began to be perplexed. I understood the complicated relationships with pregnancy that the women of the book had. I could have been on board with so much of this. I however full shifted my feelings into ones of horror when Liuprand was made to rape his dead wife’s body with the threat of having her raped further by dogs. The ending is inexcusable to me.

I will not be reading the second to see if the reasoning behind Agnes needing to be dead to become pregnant is justified.

Primarily I enjoyed the world building, I thought the House system & history of the country was fascinating!

I applaud Ava for publishing a book that was her soul as she has called it & for getting her House of the Dragon inspired book published.