Follow Me to Ground by Sue Rainsford is difficult to describe because all I keep saying is “it’s like nothing else I’ve ever read.” It was so different that I’m struggling to find a single other book to offer as a comparison. Honestly, I was pretty lost at the beginning. Elements of mythology, Native American trickster tales, folk tales, fairy tales, creation stories, and magic realism are intertwined in this coming of age story where bodies along with concepts of morality and mortality are stretched, suspended, and reshaped. I couldn’t figure out what exactly was happening but I was intrigued, which kept me reading. At just over 200 pages this novel should have been a quick read but my mind would constantly wander off to think about different scenes. Truly like nothing else I’ve ever read and I loved it!

Hauntingly beautiful story of a girl, Ada, and her father who are from a different world, the Ground. Ada and her father have the ability to heal sick townspeople, aka the "Cures," using the power they draw from the ground. After Ada falls into an affair with a local, Samson, her longing to be with him and her fear of being forever lonely leads her to commit the ultimate betrayal and changes the course of life for everyone involved. Mythology and folklore are not my typical genre, but I just happened to be reading this alongside Circe, and couldn't help but be entranced by the poetic and colorful writing style found in both stories. I could see every word Sue Rainsford wrote so vibrantly in my imagination and finished the book in two sittings in less than a 12 hour time period. Follow Me to Ground is not a cheap thrill but a work of literary art that deserves your attention and appreciation.

I am not really sure about about this book. I was able to read it all in one sitting, and beside "disturbing", I am not quite sure how else to describe it. Definitely not at all what I had expected, and the ending left me scratching my head and feeling a bit unsatisfied, which might have been the point.

The publisher and Netgalley provided me with an ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

This book is raw and compelling. It is a story about occult rites, and creatures that live at the fringe of the world.

Ada's story emerges in lyrical, disjointed memories and observations. The first person narrative is a stark reflection of Ada's own otherness. Her love for a boy blinds her to his sins, and she makes forever choices to transform him into something she can hold in her life.

Ahoy there me mateys!  I received a copy of this fantasy eArc from the publisher in exchange for me honest musings . . .

follow me to ground (Sue Rainsford)

Title: follow me to ground

Authors: Sue Rainsford

Publisher: Simon & Schuster / Scribner

Publication Date: TOMORROW!! (hardcover / e-book)

ISBN: 978-0857526779

Source: NetGalley & Edelweiss

This book is strange, wonderful, otherworldly, and hard to categorize.  Literary fiction?  Fantasy?  Magical realism?  Horror?  Depends on the reader.  I don't know who  to recommend this book to but I loved it.  The basic premise is that there is a person, Ada, who isn't completely human.  She lives with her father who isn't human either.  Both of them are from the Ground.  They partially make their living by curing the humans, Cures, of their illnesses and seemingly have a well structured life.  But Ada meets a man from the village and starts a relationship.  Upheaval begins.

That description doesn't really begin to explain the book and that's okay.  This is a book that has to be experienced not described.  It is unsettling, evocative, and certainly doesn't have clear answers about anything.  And it be compelling, haunting, and just plain fascinating.  I am still not sure if this book horrifies or delights me or both.  But much like the vegetarian, I know that I will be thinking about this for a long time to come.  Arrrr!

Much thanks to Matey Sarah @ hamlets&hyperspace whose review led me to this delight.  As she says:

"This book is so weird.  I mean that in the best way possible.  I don’t even know how to go about describing it, because it’s just that weird.  Witchy healer does witchy things?  Witchy healer starts an affair with a guy who might not be so upstanding himself and chaos ensues?  Is she good?  Is she not so good?  No one knows.  Certainly not this reader. . ."

Thanks to Netgalley for the free ebook to review!

What an odd and interesting story. I’m not entirely sure what I think of the book because I’m not completely sure what happened. The writing style captures my attention and was almost poetic at times. This book was an easy read and wrote in such a compelling way, but I’m having a hard time getting all my thoughts together on what actually happened

Ada and her father live a self-contained existence and run a highly unusual healing practice. While they may appear human they are not as Ada was born from the Ground and at night her father shifts into a wild carnivorous animal who hunts on all fours. Since she is not biologically a female when Ada takes a local man as a lover she literally must grow genitals in order to consummate their relationship. “Follow Me To Ground” could be described as a book of magical realism or a debut novel which creatively incorporates elements of folklore, but I get uncomfortable categorising new works of fiction in this way. It feels too easy to group together literature which bends reality and writes its own laws of nature. Rather than describe it as part of any particular tradition in writing, I’d rather call it a highly original novel written in a voice which is fiercely its own.

There’s a haunting and unsettling quality to it which lingers in my mind like a dream I can’t quite remember. While the text is no doubt layered with symbolism and contains references to different mythologies or religions, I enjoyed letting the story simply wash over me with all its weirdness and gradually unfolding internal logic. I feel both attracted to and repulsed by Ada who feels desire sharply and also possesses a disturbing lack of sentimentality about the people she treats by opening up their bodies to burrow inside. To heal them she sings in a way which causes their ailments to depart. She loves so fiercely she’s determined to entirely possess the man she wants no matter the cost to him or anyone else. Like all witches, the local villagers respect and fear her. She’s like a divinity not to be trusted, yet she’s also the one people turn to when they are in desperate need. It’s touching how Rainsford conveys a sense of loneliness about her while also showing how she feels no self-pity.

The story is also cleverly constructed. Ada’s narration is interspersed with testimonies from different locals who have either been treated by her or heard vicious rumours about her. Only near the end of the book is it revealed why these statements are being made. The way the domestic harmony of this strange setting unravels has a moving tragedy to it. It’s the kind of book which makes me eager to discuss it with someone else - not only to try to piece together what happened, but to share in the wickedly surprising experience of it. This is a novel I’m going to enjoy puzzling over for some time.

Strange and weirdly haunting.
Depression has taken over me and I refuse to leave my bed unless it’s to reheat the same cup of tea I’ve been nursing for hours.
I wanted a book to reflect my dismal mood and mother of god is this it.
Disturbing and poetically lilting, Follow Me to Ground is a gothic Grey’s Anatomy sprinkled with a fairy tale.
Ada and her father are healers who quite literally put Cures into the ground to heal them.
The descriptions of what ails the patient can get very graphic which I absolutely love.
This was different and interesting and although it was a little confusing to follow at times the end result is very satisfying and I am STILL reeling at it.
This is one of the most unique books I’ve ever read and I feel it was executed perfectly.

Thanks very much to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy of my ARC.

I have a wide and varied interest as a reader, but this one was just too strange for me. I couldn’t really get into the story and found the writing a bit confusing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to finish this one.

This read was quite different from most of the reads I’m used to. The storyline was a bit difficult to follow in the beginning but as the story progressed, the characters and story became more clear. I enjoyed this one more than I thought I would.

Power through the beginning of this and you'll be rewarded with a most interesting short novel. Yes there's magical realism but there's also a horror story aspect that makes some of it just plain creepy. Ada and Father aren't human but they are able to heal humans by taking them apart and sometimes burying them. Once the humans are healed, they are referred to as Cures. Things are sort of ok until Ada falls in love with Samson, who was a Cure. It's impossible to write a synopsis of this but know that it can be both frustrating and thought provoking. It merges folklore and Biblical themes and you might find yourself pulling old stories up from your memory. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. For fans of literary fiction.

This was so weird and grimy and disturbing. I think I loved it but also feel like I need time to sit with this story. For now, I’m leaving it with a disoriented five stars.

I received an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

The artiness almost saves it from the weirdness. Almost.
I wanted to like this girl more than I did but I never felt invested in her struggle. It felt more like an exercise than a story

I never thought I would read a non-gardening book that opened with the main character, Ada, talking about her hatred of slugs. Ada and I have that in common, though that is where our similarities end. I was riveted to this story from that first page, and I am still not sure what I just read. One of my resolutions for this year was not to start another book until I reviewed the one finished. It has been three days; I've written and discarded numerous reviews, and I want to read again, so I am going to try this one more time! A few key thoughts: surreal, cringe-worthy, heartbreaking, and have I fallen down the rabbit hole.
Ada and her father have a gift....or a curse...or magical powers. The locals, known to them as the Cures, come to see them when they are ill. Without any traditional medical tools, they can open a body, see inside, and remove the disease, illness, or bad gunky. Some of the Cures need a little help from the ground and they bury them until they are ready to come out and return home.
When Ada falls in lust or love with Samson, everything changes. Her father is not happy, as he knows something is wrong with Samson, something neither he or Ada can cure. But Ada wants more than just to live with her father and heal, and she sees Samson as her way out. What good is being a healer if Ada can't fix Samson? Now Ada must make a choice. Stay with what she knows or risk it all for the chance of a better future. Ada's decision will change everything, and I was left stunned by the ending.
Follow Me To Ground could be interpreted in many ways, but I think it would be entering into spoiler territory to tell you my thoughts. At only 208 pages, this was a quick read, though I found myself going back more than once to read parts that made me think perhaps I was dreaming or hallucinating. Nope, all good with me, but this is a very strange tale and one that will lead to some interesting conversations.

What a twisted nightmare near perfect in its haunting overtones. A fairy tale you'd never want to meet.

Writing: ★★★★★
Concept: ★★★★
Pacing: ★★★★★
Warnings?: Very graphic in the medical sense

I almost hesitated to rate this the full 5 stars because it's such a twisted speculative novella, but at the same time I think it's one of the most singular things I've ever read, so sue me. I loved it.

Follow Me to Ground is witchy, spooky, medically graphic, and disturbing. It follows the life of two non-humans, a father and a daughter, who live in a fairy tale-type scenario where they are the mystical healers that the town goes to when they're desperate. Ada and her father bury people in The Ground behind their cottage and heal their insides by scooping out the illness (literally).

Ada and her father aren't human, and they don't pretend to be.

Enter Samson, a local boy/man who captures Ada's ageless young girl/woman attention. (The hyphens are because the ages in this story are described in both ways...it highlights the overall fluidity of this story.) Samson and Ada begin an affair.

What started out off-kilter and uncomfortable gets even more so when Ada and Samson's love affair begins to fracture at the edges, and all is not what it seems. Is Samson a good man? What's up with his pregnant sister, who lives with him alone? What will Ada do when confronted with Samson's attentions vs. her nonhuman ties to The Ground?

Written in with a one-of-a-kind narration and crackling tension-filled sentences, this is the kind of story that stays with you. If you liked Wilder Girls for its unflinching acceptance of body horror and its lack of explanations, you'll like this. If you like Seanan McGuire's short stories on fairy tales best left alone, you'll love this.

I don't know what it says about me that I appreciated this story, but damn this was weird and awesome.

What did I just read?
Should I burn the book? Probably not because my version is an ebook and we don't burn books in this day and age (at least I don't).

Wowzah, I chose this book from Netgalley because I saw a review from someone I follow on Goodreads and I thought, "I want that kind of baffled, scared sort of feeling myself."
I don't get scared reading books, (or watching movies), but this one I did need to read in small increments, perhaps not because of the scared factor, but there was a major ick thing going on.

Ada and her father don't waste words, and so they talk in shorter sentences, which is actually a bit lyrical. This isn't a conventional book, it isn't an easy read because Samson is just *insert awful adjective here*, but it is a very vivid read. Ada's "birth story" so to speak, it's very telling, the lore involved in this is well-researched. Someone else wrote that this was an "unsettling novel" and I readily agree with that. I think this is going to be a hit or miss book for others, but I've loved reading all of the reviews.

DNF @ 29%

This is one of those books that’s going to be amazing for a certain kind of reader. I am not that certain kind of reader. This was magical realism with a dash of weirdness but the more you keep reading you realize that the lid must’ve come off and the whole bottle of weirdness ended up in there. The utter strangeness of this reminded me a lot of The Library at Mount Char, so if you were a fan of that, definitely pick this one up. (That one also didn’t work for me. lol) Here’s a quick summary of the weirdness: this girl and her father were both “born from the dirt” or something, her father transforms into a beast at night and eats the local wildlife, they take out the yucky stuff from people that causes them pain/sickness, etc. The writing is lyrical and the only reason I got to 29% but the story is extremely weird. Take this scene for instance:

“First time I tried to lie down with a boy, I didn’t know what I was doing. I lay down and he lay down over me and I held on tight. He went to put it in and there was nowhere for it to go and he got scared and bit me. […] By the time I took Samson inside, I’d grown myself an opening that I’d a dozen names for.”

“For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return”—so says the Book of Genesis. But in Follow Me to Ground, by Sue Rainsford, people have a habit of returning from the dust after they’ve been to see a pair of mysterious healers. Ada and her father have been around so long that they’ve entered local folklore for their miraculous cures and the strange things that happen around them. In this imaginative and sometimes disturbing novel, we learn that even these beings that can heal just about any ailment, don’t know everything.

Ada is well along on her apprenticeship to the creature she calls father when we meet her at the beginning of Follow Me to Ground. As such, she is more than confident about curing injuries to pregnant women, cancers, and more. In fact, she’s dangerously confident when it comes to her ability to cure things that her father says are impossible. The only things they cannot cure are diseases of the mind; they can’t excise depression…or the kind of unacceptable desires that are only obliquely referenced in this novel.

Ada is not entirely arrogant when we meet her, however. She is curious about the world around her and the sensations that lead her to begin a sexual relationship with a local young man who isn’t put off by her strangeness. Not is she put off by the rumors about Samson, that he might be attracted to her because she doesn’t look like a full-grown woman. Ada, no matter whether or not she is human, behaves a lot like a teenaged human girl: she is firmly convinced that she is in love and that love is more important than any warnings her father delivered.

Follow Me to Ground is a brief novel. Readers who want more world-building may be disappointed by how little attention is paid to the Ground, the healing dirt that Ada and her father use, or what they are and where their powers come from. Still, this novel contains plenty of drama, mystery, and tension to keep readers entertained, even if readers will be left with questions unanswered.

A lyrical and masterfully emotional novel, Follow Me to Ground follows the lives of Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, as well as the people in the small village who depend on them. When the time comes to make decisions that will not only affect her own life but also the lives of those she loves, Ada is torn between what is and what could be. With vivid world building and sympathetic characters, this book will make you want to devour it in one reading!

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I received this from Netgalley.com for a review.

"Ada and her father, touched by the power to heal illness, live on the edge of a village where they help sick locals—or “Cures”—by cracking open their damaged bodies or temporarily burying them in the reviving, dangerous Ground nearby. "

Fantastical, off-beat, just plain weird. Be ready to extend your concept of reality.