comfort me with apples catherynne valente

After all, the description was mysterious, with hints of Bluebeard and suburban horror, and I figured that all those things combined would make for an interesting tale. But when Serena asked if I’d be interested in joint reviewing Valente’s new horror/dark fantasy novella “Comfort Me With Apples”, I was totally game. I know that fantasy readers really love her stories, and I recognize the talent there, though the content itself hasn’t ever wowed me. I will be the first to admit that, unlike Serena, I haven’t really found myself connecting with the works I’ve read by Catherynne M.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this novella! And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can’t quite meet her gaze…īut everything is perfect. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. The look on her husband’s face when he comes back from a long business trip.

He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.īut sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Where Did We Get This Book: Received an eARC from NetGalley.īook Description: Sophia was made for him. The main character is the wife Adam had before Eve, because in this scenario Adam is also Bluebeard, keeping bits of his other wives in his basement END SPOILERS.Book: “Comfort Me With Apples” by Catherynne M. I don’t think anybody disliked it, and there were a lot of people there.įor those wanting some spoilers to light their way: SPOILERS This is essentially a creation story reimagining bent into a satire. But ultimately, I did like this, and I really enjoyed the book club discussion we had afterwards. I also historically have a hard time with allegory, and there’s a lot of that going on here. There was so much stuff shoved into this hundred page book it took me a day or so to form opinions about it beyond that it was weird, and that I felt disturbed in my brain. This was marketed as SPOILERS a Bluebeard retelling END SPOILERS (at least that’s how I first heard about it) and the synopsis makes it seem like some sort of semi-fantastical suburban satire, and it sort of is that also, but those two things are really only side dishes to the main event, which I won’t talk about except in the spoiler tags below. Especially if you go in thinking you know what the main premise is, but you really don’t as it turns out, like I did. My initial reaction upon finishing Comfort Me With Apples was “wtf was this.” I’m not sure what I was going to rate it or say about it before my book club meeting, but something one of the other members said during the meeting sort of flipped a little switch in my brain and clarified my feelings and thoughts about it.

Comfort me with apples catherynne valente