Oh, how I loved this wickedly smart, gothic reimagining of Cinderella! In which Ella *IS* the house (or, rather, the house’s ghost), her stepmother is her murderer, and her stepsister is her torturer, and the prince is — well, I won’t spoil it.

This is an incredibly researched, empathetically rendered, deeply poignant book. I learned so much, and I am about to shove this book into everyone’s hands. (I also listened to the vast majority of it on audio, and I think it worked great.)

I almost — almost — let this one slip through the cracks of my TBR. Reader, that would have been a grave mistake. What an incredible firecracker of a standalone fantasy novel!!

Well, I did not expect this novel — about a (female) blob monster who falls in love with a (human) woman and decides she wants to lay her eggs in her body, after which her offspring would devour her from the inside out — to be one of my favorite reads of the year. And yet! What fun this was!

What a moving exploration of youth, love, desire, and recovery from trauma. I’m intrigued to see what the sequel holds for these characters!