Bitterthorn

This book broke me apart and put me back together again in the space of 36 hours. Will I ever recover? Probably not. 🥲

5 stars is not enough for this - a stunning, gothic fairytale!

Bitterthorn is brilliant! Powerful and emotional, near overwhelming, this is a book that left me broken and deeply affected. It's just gorgeous.

Bitterthorn is a fairy tale, and draws on elements from a large number of classic fairy tales, weaving them into its story so effectively that, while elements are familiar and recognisable, it's far from being a retelling of any particular story. The girl trapped in a castle with an uncaring monster, but left free to roam its halls feels very Beauty and the Beast, with some aspects of Bluebeard in the commands to avoid particular rooms and the dangerous curiosity about her predecessors. The negligent stepmother and the stepsisters taking priority once they move into the castle feels drawn from Cinderella, and there are definitely aspects of Sleeping Beauty and possibly Rumpelstiltskin in the weaving and some aspects of the magical curse. But all of these different story elements are taken and made into something that feels new and different, with just an edge of comfortable familiarity.

That's about all that's comfortable about it though. From the very beginning, Bitterthorn is a story that has its secrets, deadly secrets too, and it does its very best to create an air of unease, suspicion and fear. It's quite amazing how unsettling it all is as, like Mina, we have no idea what she's walking into, what she's there for or what fate will befall her. The castle she is forced to call home reflects that unease, with its winding, ever changing corridors and rooms and some quite incredible but really quite disturbing chambers. I particularly loved the room where it is always last Tuesday!

More than anything else though, Bitterthorn is a book about loneliness.

Sure, it's about how being all alone can change you, darken you, turn you bitter and spiky, but it's about more than that. It's about how being rejected, being made to feel unwanted, in the way, a problem can force you to retreat into loneliness. It's about how the despair of loneliness can be easier to bear than trying to make those connections and seeing them getting closed off. It's about that comfort of being alone, whether quietly reading in your room or walking out through the woods learning ab0ut the trees and the rocks, and not risking your heart in anybody else's hands. It's about losing the people you love, and coming to realise that you never really knew them after all and they never really took the time to know you. It's about the distance that can grow within families. And it's about what happens when you do take that risk, and open yourself up to the prospect and possibility of love and all of the potential pain it can cause.

I've never read anything that gets all of that and expresses it so clearly, so lyrically, so beautifully.

Bitterthorn is an exceptionally beautiful and moving modern fairy story.

A dark sapphic fantasy retelling which tore my emotions to pieces.
This isn't an action filled adventure or epic fantasy and is far more about personal relationships, mental wounds, and dealing with trauma, but that isn't to say it doesn't it lacks for plot. The romance was the main focus for me, and the sapphic love story is wonderful and beautiful. The characters all have their own flaws, history, and trauma and I loved every dark and twisted bit of it.
4.5 star story but 5 stars for the excellent sapphic content!
Thank you to NetGalley and Andersen Press for this free eARC in exchange for an honest review

Thank you Andersen Press and Netgalley for the arc of Bitterthorn by Kat Dunn in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

“And to the lonely: I hope you see me, and I see you.”

I have just finished this book and I am sat here with the salty warmth of tears tracking down my cheeks. Emotionally, I am torn between joy, sadness, longing and do, so much more. This book is truly captivating. I can’t sum up how I feel, because I don’t quite know but Kat Dun has created a story and world that like the briar and thorns that surround Sleeping Beauty’s castle, has totally entwined my heart.

This is not an action packed epic of adventure, fantasy, monsters and demons, in the expected sense but, it is a tale of a journey, of a monster, in the eyes of some, of righting a wrong, and so much more. It’s roots are set in the emotional depths of loss, loneliness, and being broken, and love. Definitely not Insta love but, the true sort of love that comes from recognition, understanding, friendship, the truth of love that burrows down to the core of your bones.

This book is stunning, heart-breakingly beautiful, and it captured me from start to end, and will stay with me for a long time to come. Please do pick this book up, Kat Dunn’s voice shines through with such a haunting depth of emotion that you will be captivated.

I have so many emotions flowing through my mind and body after finishing this beautifully written and completely emotionally captivating book. I don’t know whether I want to cry, laugh, re-read the entire book, or simply bask in the emotions that the wonderful writing of Kat and the world she has created embodied me with.

From the very first page I was gripped to this story and wow was it beautiful. A true romance but not the typical type of romance you would expect but one of both in my opinion a platonic love as well as a romantic love. A love that is so deep it integrates into your very bones. One that chases away loneliness and creates a path to mend what was once assumed broken or lost.
Kat you have outdone yourself on this one and I have to say this is your best writing and story yet, I don’t know whether at this point I want to cry or track you down in London and hug you. This is just beautiful!

And last but not least Kat I see you for the amazing writer and person you are and you are totally amazing! Never doubt yourself.

Absolutely spectacular - we’re only in January and I know this will be among my top books of the year. A gloriously gothic, sapphic retelling of classic fairy tales - Beauty and The Beast (but with shades of Sleeping Beauty and even a touch of Cinderella).

A story about love, loss, sacrifice, loneliness and trying to find your place in the world. About breaking down barriers and realising who you really are.

Can’t wait to own it in book format. Great for fans of A Curse So Dark and Lonely, but much more serious. Beautifully written. Lovely use of nature throughout. Gorgeous. It’s not out till April, but well worth a pre-order.

LISTEN UP AND READ THIS BOOK OKAY
Okay, I'll stop shouting but WOW I adored this book. There are a lot of fairytale retellings out there, but this one managed to stand out and utterly win me over. It was evocative and beautiful and gothic and managed to convey the main character's grief and loneliness in a way that was both gorgeously written and incredibly moving. I could not put it down, and cannot wait to get a physical copy and lose myself in Kat Dunn's stunningly rendered world once more.

Mina is the daughter of the ruler of Blumwald, a small German state that's about to be swept up with Bismarck's unification of Germany. Blumwald has a secret though, every 50 years the Witch comes and takes one of the young men, and her time is coming. Mina is lonely, unvalued and over-looked - her mother is dead and her stepmother uninterested in the child of her husband's first wife, while her father always has too many other things to do. So when the Witch comes, it's Mina that goes.

This is a fairytale with echoes of Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast, and includes the "wicked stepmother". But it's also charming in its own right, with characters who are not always easy to like, and a mystery at its heart. I think I worked out what the Witch was doing before Mina did, but that didn't take away from the story at all, and the ending was cleverly done.

I really enjoyed it!