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Totally okay book, not bad or annoying, just cozy and okay.

So it is not a tightly wound intricate world, and it falls short of being a fantasy masterpiece, but nonetheless twas a damn fun book. The characters and atmosphere are riveting. The first page is hook- line- sinker -read -this- book -in- a -day good. Dust wives? YES. Bone dogs? Gothtastic! Our lady of the Grackles? How do I join, hell yes!
I liked the Twisted Ones as well, and was impressed with how easily she slipped into the fantasy genre. What works is the grip, the imagination, the lovely horror that casts shadows without banging your head against a wall of horrific violence. I feel like she could go deeper, more back stories, maybe a 700 pager, but perhaps this is not the mode in publishing now. However, I am definitely a fan now.

One of my favorite books of the year. The writing is stunning, brave with empathy and humor-

Such a delightful, original, hilarious, clever and empathic book. Heavy sigh. Just loved it. I heard that the movie is only McCandless's POV and omits Bella's corrections. Not sure if that is true as I have not seen the movie, but the Bella perspective is absolutely essential, grounds the narrative and gives the book depth. The last section of extended fictional footnotes gets too fragmented and I was not so engaged, but even so it cannot take away the little masterpiece of a work that this is.

Easy to read and hard to put down, our very likable heroine battles misogyny, poverty and exploitation in Nigeria.

Such a weird tale. A gay man finds a baby troll being beaten by ruffians, rescues him and grows obsessed with caring for his wild charge. And then things became uncomfortable to me as paternal love morphs into something else. I like the dawning wtf horror this book gave me, and it stuck in my head as a unique piece of unmagical realism. I think it might be a criticism of pedophilia, which makes me uncomfortable because the characters are mostly gay men, though the juxtaposition of the mail order bride in the story seems to suggest a more general critique of any exploitation. Lets just hope that trolls stay hidden.