A Lean-In Beautiful Creep

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From the first page I was intrigued. There is something so soft and subtle about the way the characters and world are portrayed, where it's initially unclear what is real vs imagined. It feels beautiful. Insidious. Absolutely obsessively captivating.

From the start of the book, I can feel different stories and mythologies knotting and unwinding. It doesn't feel like a direct fairy tale adaptation, but it feels familiar and grotesque and rich and confounding.

The voice is unmistakably feminine. The imagery is detailed and rich. And the characters, even in the first few chapters, really come to life on the page, with the feeling of so much past and future, ancestry and destinies, and maybe heartache and betrayals.

I've read the Perrault Little Red in its original French, along with the English-language Grimm versions....it's fascinating how the origin story can vary so dramatically, even in short form. I can't wait to see how the girl and the forest and the grandmother and the wolves and other monsters weave together in this book!