Scary good scary stories

I first became aware of GennaRose Nethercott through her debut novel Thistlefoot, which was just SO good! So of course when I heard about this book of stories, I got my hands on it as soon as I could. It does not disappoint. The first thing that struck me about her writing was the vividness of her prose. Hers are words to light bonfires by, words to set off rockets, words to move undead spirits to dance.

I don't know quite what to call these stories. They are eerie, but I can't call them horror stories or ghost stories. There are, in fact, some ghosts in Fifty Beasts, but only a few, and they are by and large more benign than scary. In The Fuller Memorandum Charles Stross describes how I feel about most horror fiction

"It’s the sort of tactic that might stand a chance of working if I was a little less cynical, or if they had enough imagination to make it, oh, you know, horrifying, or something. Luckily for me they don’t seem to have grasped the difference between a Sam Raimi movie and standing by your dad’s hospital bed trying to work up the nerve to switch off the ventilator."

Nethercott DOES have the imagination. And she demands that you do, too.

From what I've written so far, you are probably getting the impression that Nethercott's writing is flagrantly over-the-top. It is not. In fact, she has at times an extraordinarily economical story-telling style, reminiscent of those "Tell a story in a sentence" exercises. Often the story just sneaks up on you. My two favorite stories are "A Diviner's Abecedarian" and the book's title story, "Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart". Each of these stories purports to be a reference work, the first an alphabetical list of divination methods, the second an illustrated reference to a collection of fabulous beasts. It is not at all obvious when you begin one of these that the story actually has a story. It just seems to be a list. But as you move along you encounter just a sentence or two in each reference entry that connect up. By the end, the story has slipped into you, like a knife between the ribs.

I don't want to give the wrong impression. Fifty Beasts is not for everyone. I think it's spectacular and Nethercott a unique talent. But it's demanding. You have to have what it demands inside you and be willing to work at it.

I always read the Acknowledgements. One near-universal feature of Acknowledgements is the affecting thanks to the writer's spouse. Even in this, Nethercott is distinctive.

"AS ALWAYS, MY FIRST gratitude goes to my parents, Michael and Helen, and my brother Rustin. I love you— thank you for loving me back. It’s really as simple as that, isn’t it?

...

"Last, let’s give it up for my exes. If you think it’s about you, it probably is. ; )"*

Although many of the stories deal with romantic relationships, readers will notice a pronounced dearth of Happily-Ever-Afters. Hmm...

I thank NetGalley and Vintage Anchor for an advance reader copy of Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories. This review expresses my honest opinions. Release date 6-Feb-2024.

*This quote is from an advance reader copy, whose text may change before publication. It will be corrected if necessary on the release date.

This is a book of short stories. They’re dark stories. One is about a never ending staircase, one about a. Aspire and goat woman, one about a ghost girl and others. I thought these were interesting, they have you make your own conclusions to the story which I enjoyed.

I absolutely adore Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart by GennaRose Nethercott! These stories are as witty as they are wonderful, and I'll be thinking about these characters and creatures for a long, long time.

Thank you to the publisher and to NetGalley for the ARC!

This book was such a disappointment. It was not at all what I was expecting. That being said I am not a huge fan of surrealism or prose and these stories were so vague and open ended. I was too busy trying to understand what was happening to feel any sort of way about the stories.

This was a surprisingly delightful short story collection. I requested this because I loved the idea of Nethercott's "Thistlefoot" novel, and while that book didn't quite work for me, I was intrigued enough to want to try something else by her. This collection of short stories was absolutely perfect for that.

It's hard to review a collection because every story is vastly different and some are inevitably better or worse than others, but I really enjoyed most of these. There are some really interesting worlds within these pages and I liked the tease of being in them for such a short time before being whisked away to the next.

The title story "Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart" reminds me of the Law and Order short story "Especially Heinous" in Her Bodies and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado. It has smart, punky prose in short bursts, but this story is accompanied by horrifying drawings of creatures which makes it all the more enjoyable.

Overall very beautiful writing and I would definitely recommend this collection for people who like a little (or a lot of) weirdness.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Anthologies are always hard to review. Some of the short stories are great, and some are okay. Giving just a single overarching score is hard.
There were some stories I really liked. The very first short story was really fascinating and I liked it quite a lot and the story the whole anthology was named after was also quite good. However, those were the only two that really stood out to me. Everything else was fine. I was hoping the stories would be more queer, but besides the first short story, there really wasn't any others.
I was whelmed.

I fell in love with GennaRose Nethercott’s writing after reading her thrilling novel, Thistlefoot. As an avid reader of weird short stories, I grabbed Nethercott’s debut collection, Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart, as soon as I could. Here are my favorites:

Sundown at the Eternal Staircase - The opening story establishes the tone of this collection perfectly. Two teenage girls explore their relationship while working at a weird roadside attraction.

A Diviner's Abecedarian - Fans of The Craft will love this story of female power.

The Thread Boy - This was so moving, with gorgeous imagery. A witch makes his son out of thread, and the son leaves a thread connected to every meaningful person he meets.

The War of Fog - Oh man, this was amazing. If you love stories that play with timelines, this is for you. A war out of time, a daughter trying to make sense of her father’s notes.

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart - This is a beautifully illustrated collection of mythical beasts, intertwined with a story of love gone awry.

Dear Henrietta - I love epistolary stories, and this one was fantastic. The narrator is writing to an old friend, recalling a previous visit, and a strange fleece. So unnerving.

Homebody - A woman molds her life around her new boyfriend in horrifying ways.This made me so sad, and made me think about the various ways women can lose parts of themselves to those we love.

A wonderful collection, and more evidence that Nethercott is a singular, exciting writer.

I am absolutely the target audience for these kinds of surreal short stories, and I loved them so much. Some hit harder than others but they were all so unique and perfectly-crafted. They’re definitely not for readers who want a clear, linear story and defined conclusion. Each one is a little like a puzzle, requiring the reader to find the meaning among the whimsical yet slightly unsettling storytelling. This is my favorite kind of story and I highly enjoyed almost all of them, even the ones I didn’t quite get. The only mark on an otherwise near-perfect collection of weirdly charming short stories is the brief instance of a cat being harmed in the story “Dear Henrietta”. Unnecessary animal cruelty is a huge pet peeve for me personally and it’s so superfluous in the context of that particular story. There are other instances in other stories, but those felt like the crux of the plot or at least a contributing event. It might be nitpicky, but I loved everything else so much that the cat incident really stood out to me and detracted slightly from my reading experience.

Huge thanks to Netgalley, the publisher, and author for this Advanced Reader Copy! This review is my honest opinion and offered voluntarily!

Eh, wasn't the worst thing I read but also not the best. Eh, wasn't the worst thing I read but also not the best.

This collection is ideal for readers who enjoy dark fairytale retellings, horror folklore, and spooky stories. I love the feminist twist that several of the stories in this collection had, such as the shapeshifter woman story. This collection is perfect for fans of Silvia Moreno Garcia, Carmen Maria Machado and Melissa Albert. Each story is a fast-paced, all-consuming escape into make believe worlds. Think Grimm's fairytales with modern implications.

I like dark fairytales, but need more structure than these provided. I’m just not a fan of this sort of very abstract story. They were well written, to be sure, but not to my personal taste. People who enjoy a more atmospheric experience may feel differently.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this eARC!

It’s difficult for me to give this book an overall rating, as my ratings for each individual story within vary so widely. There were some I loved, some I felt meh about, and some that I skipped entirely after a few pages of trying. They’re all abstract unsettledness - some more than others felt no plot just vibes.

Overall, the vibes were spooky and perfect for the end of October. There are some stories I would reread and others that I’m fine letting my first read be the last.

Great book for the spooky season! Each stories takes place in a modern day with creepy and supernatural aspects. I loved trying to make sense of what the different stories represent. It was very atmospheric and immersive.

This book was so unexpected in the best way! I loved the folklore of it. This was beautiful, sad, and cozy. Perfect for spooky season.

I wanted to love this book because I thought Thistlefoot was great. However it just didn’t do it for me. The stories were very abstract and sometimes hard to follow or understand.

An unnerving, odd, delightful menagerie of stories is housed in GennaRose Nethercott's Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart. Don't expect to find a collection of retreaded fairy tales or myths with a modern twist; Nethercott has cultivated a collection of otherworldly tales all of her own.

Often the individual stories feel like an unsettling dream after waking–confusing without a clear lesson or resolution–but they'll linger in the back of your mind for days afterward. From the titular bestiary composed by overeager florists to the fortune-telling definitions which lead a group of girls to a ghastly end, the individual stories in Fifty Beasts are as memorable as they are strange.

I've read Nethercott's previous novel, a modern reexamination of the lesser-known lore of Baba Yaga in Thistlefoot. The witch with the chicken house might be familiar fairytale iconography, but not a story I was familiar with myself. To move from the altogether comfortable nature of that novel to this perplexing collection is like moving from a cottage to a lean-to in the wilderness, yet the difficulty of the stories is part of the charm.

Like dreams, there isn't one sole lesson or idea to pull from any individual story–and Nethercott's brilliant prose will make even the trickiest puzzling plot worthwhile. This book won't be for every reader who wants a homey collection of short stories for a rainy afternoon, but the strange, befuddling tales are well worth the endeavour.

From the first page of GennaRose Nethercott's Thistlefoot, I was enraptured by her writing style. When I heard about this collection, I absolutely could not wait to get my hands on it. It did not disappoint! So many of these stories are eerie and off-putting and beautiful, and I completely devoured it.

My one gripe is just that this collection feels like parts of two different collections mashed together. There are the stories that take place in complete fantasy otherworlds, and there are those that take place in our world or something very similar to it, threaded through with speculative aspects. It was a little jarring going from one to the other. This collection is also very much for a specific kind of reader: if you don't like stories with abstract plots and vague, open endings, you will not enjoy this. If you love folklore and things being left up to the reader's interpretation, pick this up immediately.

What a fun read! And the cover is so beautiful! If you love fairytales and anthologies this is honestly the perfect book for you. I happen to love both, a lot.

It’s been what one might call a tough reading month. I’ve DNFed 3 books already and I’m not sure if it’s just all the social things I have going on or if I’m just picking up the wrong kind of books but I needed a win book wise. Luckily (or unluckily) NetGalley gently reminded me of what was on my shelf and an anthology series seamed like the perfect answer to my cries.

It is incredibly hard to describe this book. Parts of it feel like Welcome to Nightvale, others like Douglas Adams has a spooky new writing style. All of these stories conjure this sense of yearning that feels like it’s gnawing at your bones. Like being at a buffet and stopping once you are full you almost wished you hadn’t but you know you’ll feel better the next day because of it. It doesn't stop you from wanting now. I am in utter adoration and my only lamentation is it doesn’t come out till next year.

I love how meaty this book is - a short story horror book set in various, anonymous American small towns, the story coaches beautiful, heartbreaking love stories in the weird and creepy. Even the title story, essentially a bestiary of fantastical creatures that Nescott has invented, has a failed love story coached into its pages. What I appreciate even more in this collection of stories is that not all of them are about romantic love - there's also familial love and platonic love that hit just as hard (if not harder) than the romantic love stories. While, of course, I didn't like all the stories equally - "Sundown at the Eternal Staircase," "A Lily is a Lily," and "Homebody" were my favorites - I think they all contributed to the unique atmosphere of this book.

I'm looking forward to the publication of this book to get my own physical copy.