Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart

November 13, 2023
Nethercott (Thistlefoot) collects 14 delectable dark fairy tales which tend to start in worlds that feel almost comfortable—until the shadows thicken and all at once everything has teeth. Some of the beastly creatures featured here are literal monsters, as in the title tale, which is presented as a bestiary (with splendid illustrations by Bobby DiTrani) assembled by three florists who create strange bouquets of creatures. Others are much more human, like the sixth graders in “A Diviner’s Abecedarian.” Girls playing fortune-telling games in the schoolyard and during sleepovers is a familiar motif—but what if they could tell exactly how the new girl in class would die? Nethercott’s supremely confident prose assists—and indeed demands—the suspension of disbelief; of course a woman can become a house, if she wishes (“Homebody”). Naturally, water might leap from lakes and bottles and clouds to drown a girl where she stands (“Drowning Lessons”). And why shouldn’t a reality-bending, mind-shattering staircase also be a slightly tacky local tourist attraction (“Sundown at the Eternal Staircase”)? That’s simply how the world is. By the end of this grimly fantastic collection, readers will have bought in entirely. Agent: Paul Lucas, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc.

Starred review from December 1, 2023

In this collection, each whimsical yet unsettling tale drags readers into a painful memory. It may be unrequited love, a best friend's betrayal, a lost dream, a callous ex, or simply moving away or growing up, but each story touches on a different universal hurt. And yet, it is a pleasant sort of sorrow, like listening to favorite sad songs and knowing that someone understands and has felt this before. Each story contains a folkloric beauty that somehow feels more solid because of the fantasy elements. Nethercott (Thistlefoot) seems to love playing with language and structure. One story is a bestiary--with illustrations--and another is composed of dictionary entries, but both tuck intriguing narratives inside the format. There's also a calendar and a letter and a handful of fairy tales. Interspersed between these are dream fragments of teeth and foxes and thread. The language may feel too strange for some readers, yet it will likely make them ache wistfully all the same. VERDICT Sometimes a bit Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge, sometimes When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill, but consistently reminiscent of the lush language of Patricia A. McKillip.--Matthew Galloway

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2023
Folklorist Nethercott's collection of original spooky stories is hauntingly familiar. Workers at a sinister tourist trap become trapped in their own patterns in "Sundown at the Eternal Staircase." In "A Diviner's Abecedarian," a tight-knit group of girls has a sinister way of welcoming new friends. A boy tries to protect his older sister from near-constant drowning in "Drowning Lessons." In the title story, a group of florists include details of their doomed romances alongside descriptions of mythical creatures. Women lose themselves, sometimes by becoming a house ("Homebody") and sometimes by becoming a ghost of themselves ("A Lily Is a Lily"), all for men who would happily reduce them to nothing. Nethercott's writing takes on the tone of timeless folklore, from fairy tales to urban legends to ghost stories. But what makes these stories read as true and familiar isn't a trick of syntax. Instead, it's Nethercott's insightful exploration of the universal themes that classic stories are meant to capture. Teenage (and adult) heartbreak, class anxiety, societal cruelty against those who are different, and the everyday losses of women trying desperately to conform to patriarchal standards are all explored here with great sensitivity and almost always a surprising twist. Nethercott winkingly thanks her exes in the acknowledgments, saying, "If you think it's about you, it probably is," but luckily for readers, she has a great talent for taking personal pains and making them universal. A memorable story collection that makes the supernatural personal.

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January 1, 2024
In these folkloric short stories, characters are either hungry for magic or magic hungers for them. In ""Sundown at the Eternal Staircase"" visitors to an ominous tourist attraction become obsessed with the lurid secrets of an Annihilation-esque staircase, while in ""Drowning Lessons"" water stalks a twentysomething girl. In "A Diviner's Abecedarian," vignettes depict toxic, increasingly violent friendships among middle-school girls who sacrifice any semblance of individuality to their coven. (Instead of names, the narrators eerily say, "the one of us with the big hoop earrings," or "the one of us with the weird mole on her neck.") The titular story dedicates pages to illustrations and descriptions of 50 different creatures, treating them as d�cor that can be added to a floral bouquet. Nethercott's (Thistlefoot, 2022) prose is transfixing and poetic yet tonally detached, even disembodied, as if one of the supernatural phenomena featured here is whispering these tales to us from another plane. Recommend this to readers who enjoy cerebral and unsettling fairy tales.

COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.