And I thought Darkly She Goes was dark. This one is dark. Not sensual at all, but very macabre. It’s like Lord of the Flies with a slight fantasy twist and also weirdly reminded me of those Little Horse books I just read- simply because it was about miniature people. I won’t tell what happens eight pages in, it gave me quite a start and a jolt of remembering that book I very much did not understand, Pincher Martin. Enough of all the comparisons, but there was a lot swarming in my head after reading this one. Can’t get it out of my mind, keep mulling over what it must all mean, what it says about human nature and decay. That’s why I give this one four stars: it’s not a nice book, it’s quite disturbing but it really sticks in your head. Can’t stop thinking about it, or picturing it. Some of which I don’t want to!

A girl is chatting coyly with this prince she likes, when suddenly strange things start happening and they crawl through a mess out into a different world. They find themselves miniature- small enough to ride a sparrow, or get attacked by a squirrel. Even insects are menacing. They immediately have to figure out means of survival- building rough shelters and scavenging for food. Accompanied by a bunch of other tiny people who crawl out of the same -ahem- wreckage. Some of them are drawn in a very cartoony style, while other characters later in the book look far more realistic- I think I finally get why but it’s part of the twist in the novel so I won’t reveal that here. Well, there’s not a ton of plot here- just little snippets of scenes showing what all these tiny people do trying to survive. Eating things they find which are not always safe- a whole bunch of them die from ingesting mushrooms (and when their names are listed, you realize you barely know who they were). Others die by freak accidents, or from doing stupid things: one crawls into a bird nest to keep warm among the nestlings but then gets fatally injured by the mother bird’s beak when she feeds him. There’s a girl who accidentally touches a toxic plant, her hand swells up with a rash and someone comments on it, but that’s it. I suppose they just had no means of treatment, but you see her in the background getting progressively worse- first her arm swells too, then also one side of her face, then her whole body. And then you never see her again, and nobody else even seems to notice. Some of the little people are very resourceful, others just sit around and expect the rest to help them and take care of everything. The main character Aurora is very helpful, always watching out for others, organizing things, making decisions. She’s taken aback when the others act selfish, absorbed in useless pursuits, betraying each other, being petty and mean and conniving. Forcing others to do what they want, cruelly. Doing dumb things without thinking of the consequences (and often meeting their end that way). In the end they even take over the one place of safety and privacy she has, and she stops hoping for their better nature to come forward, recognizes they’re all just terrible, idiotic and self-absorbed people, and retaliates in a very final way.

At least that’s my take on it. Maybe I’ll interpret it differently at a later read. Definitely worth a repeat, though I’ll need a lot of time before that. There are far more gruesome things than I’ve mentioned here, I’m not going to describe more because honestly I want to forget about some of the details for now, but you’ve been warned! See some of the reviews I linked to for more (quite a few of them reveal stuff I’ve left out here).

Borrowed from the public library.

Another adult fairy tale. And this one is dark. Not in an unpleasant way, though. And while there is some nudity and sex, it isn’t gratuitous. Two misunderstood characters, each with their own (though very different) dark past, come together unexpectedly. The man Arzhur was once a knight, but now simply a hired sword, struggling to better his sullied reputation. Some shady-looking wizened old women hire him to rescue a princess from a black castle and take her home to her father. But he quickly finds out that this princess doesn’t want to be rescued and the monsters there aren’t holding her captive. Returning to her father’s court isn’t in her plans either. He’s already messed things up by the time he realizes all this, so he tries to set things right but only gets more and move involved in the life of this strange woman, Islen. She’s not what she appears. She struggles to overcome her own inner burdens and embrace who she really is, without hurting others. Together they set off on a journey, confronting people they once knew well, learning more about each other, attempting to be who they really are without hiding. I can’t find a way to say more about this story without revealing some of the plot twists and surprises that make it such a good read. (Some parts reminded me of the Frozen movie, in a very general way. The struggle to control negative emotions and power, to love those you’re afraid of hurting . . . ) The artwork is stunning, I took twice as long to read this book than I needed, just to immerse myself in the images. It kind of ends on a cliffhanger, which upset me a bit because I wanted to know. I am not sure if the writer left the ending open to let the reader decide what happened next, or if there is a sequel coming. I hope it’s the latter!

Borrowed from the public library.