Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: And Other Stories

by GennaRose Nethercott

From the author of the breakout fantasy novel Thistlefoot : a collection of dark fairytales and fractured folklore exploring all the ways love can save us—or go monstrously wrong.

The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, hungry the desire to be loved, and seen, and known. And the terror of those things to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be known and recognized as the monstrous thing you are. 

Two young women working at a sinister roadside attraction called the Eternal Staircase explore its secrets—and their own doomed summer love. A group of witchy teens concoct the perfect plan to induce the hated new girl into their ranks. A woman moves into a new house with her acclaimed artist boyfriend and finds her body slowly shifting into something specially constructed to accommodate his needs and whims. And two outcasts, a vampire and a goat woman, find solace in each other, even as the world's lack of understanding might bring about its own end.

In these lush, beautifully written stories, GennaRose Nethercott explores love in all its diamond-dark facets to create a collection that will redefine what you see as a beast, and make you beg to have your heart broken.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Horror, Fiction, Magical Realism, Anthologies, Adult

259 pages, Paperback

First published February 6, 2024

About the author

GENNAROSE NETHERCOTT is the author of a novel, Thistlefoot, a Vermont Book Award winning short story collection, Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart, and a book-length poem, The Lumberjack’s Dove, which was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series. A writer and folklorist alike, she helps create the podcast Lore, and she tours nationally and internationally performing strange tales (sometimes with puppets in tow). She lives in the woodlands of Vermont, beside an old cemetery.

Reviews

[Marquise · Rating 1 out of 5]

These fourteen stories are extremely hard to read because they're all so abstract and have such nebulous plotting that you won't know what they are about most of the time; they are all stream-of-consciousness and so hazy that you simply get lost in the web of (pretty) words. Nethercott can write, but she spends too much time choosing how to say it prettily and as vaguely as possible to the detriment of the storytelling and characterisation.

Might be up your alley if you like weird fiction and fever-like storytelling and aren't too fixated on clear plot structures. Do not expect to be told what the stories are about, though, because you'll be on your own to figure them all out.

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[deniz · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,25 stars

' I heard everybody dies twice,once when their heart stops and again when their name is spoken fort he last time'

The blend of magical realism and emotional depth was truly enchanting through the book, with the beasts acting as powerful metaphors for us people’s shared struggles.It hooked me with the first short story.Which i found it fascinating.I was expecting this book to be fantastic and far from the real life as a scary autumn book but it proved me wrong and made a connection to real life struggles and our emotions.
The short stories range from dark and haunting to whimsical, with an emotional background.And the visuals were the cherry on top.As an art student,i adore little spooky sketches in a book.

' Ghosts do not belong only to the dead,they belong to whatever is absent.A sweatheart.
They are a letter you write but never send. '

The whole concept of a "ghost" presented in this book was something I would never have imagined without reading it. The author redefines the idea with themes of longing and loss, which adds layers to the traditional notion of ghosts. Instead of just being spooky apparitions, these "ghosts" reflect deep emotional connections and unresolved feelings, offering a fresh perspective that really stuck in with me. It made me think about how we carry memories and emotions with us, almost as if they haunt us in their own way.

'Why be a girl,when you can be a terror'

I was expecting more scary content.But at the end i understood it is more of a autumn content than just scary.Which is giving it a unique vibe compared to what I usually read.
Overall,i’m happy to read this as a beginning of the spooky season.I loved the short stories that gives spooky vibes as a girl who appreciate literary fiction blending with a touch of fantastical world

playlist : https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3mt...
.
.
.
.
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saw this in shakespeare and company
and i wanted to try it
autumn people,here we go

[bri · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We are never afraid of a thing on its own, as it is. We are afraid of something intruding in a context in which it doesn’t belong. What is a monster? It’s a contradiction. A creature who houses two dissonant aspects… Am I a monster? Yes, love, I am. I am a monster because I contain too much.”

GennaRose Nethercott has trapped the essence of fairytales in a glass cage, pinning its wings open to examine and pluck each individual feather. She's coaxed its darkness, its whimsy, and its beautiful and monstrous nature from its lips and onto these pages. And these fairytales, like all good ones, exist in the lingering. The lingering that will, over time, mold itself into whatever shape best fits the audience's perspective. Maybe that of a lover, of an ex, of a mother, or perhaps even of ourselves. Exploring grief, passion, obsession, love, and self-identity (or lack thereof) in relationships, Nethercott weaves the threads of life and death into complex and beautiful tapestries that so many will find themselves in. These stories' simultaneous singularity and universiality are exactly what make them so brilliant.

If you like dark fairytales, bizarre queer fiction, house books, stories that primarily function as metaphor, weird little guys, or even Welcome to Night Vale, I highly recommend FIFTY BEASTS TO BREAK YOUR HEART.

Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review!

CW:
Eternal Staircase: drug use
A Diviner's Abecedarian: child death, drowning
The Thread Boy: --
Fox Jaw: animal death (mention), insects, dead bodies
The War of Fog: war, grief, child abuse, emesis, death of mother (past), gore (brief)
Drowning Lessons: drowning, drug use, alcohol
The Autumn Kill: blood & gore, animal death, body horror
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: --
Dear Henrietta: infidelity, animal death
Possessions: animal sacrifice, grief, alcohol consumption
Homebody: toxic relationship, infidelity, alcohol consumption, body horror (ish)
The Plums at the End of the World: self-harm, bestiality, animal death, religious bigotry, decapitation, death

[Jamie · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF @ 70% … but that's after basically skipping over most of the previous 22%, so make of those percentages what you will. I really wanted to like this book because the premise sounded fantastic, but I guess maybe I'm just dumb because I didn't get it at all?

This book is very strange and the stories very … abstract, I suppose? Most of them just felt like fever dreams rather than actual stories. There are armies of fog and endless staircases and girls who drown in the rain and a boy made out of thread and something about a fox and oh god I am so confused right now. My reaction at the end of every story was pretty much “Huh?!?”

I feel bad because I almost never DNF books, especially ARCs, but I just couldn't bring myself to finish this one. This collection of stories doesn't currently have a ton of reviews, but the ones it does have are all super positive so I'm obviously in the minority here. So it's probably me and not the book, but it is what it is, I suppose.

With that said, my “favorite” story of the bunch (prior to the 70% mark) was probably the first story in the collection, “Sundown at the Eternal Staircase.” And by “favorite” I mean that I somewhat understood what was happening. Two girls work at a tourist attraction called the Eternal Staircase (which is, indeed, an endless staircase) and they're maybe kind of in love but the staircase makes everything weird. The rules for visiting the staircase were pretty amusing.

My least favorite was “The War of Fog” because I'll be damned if I had any idea what was happening there. Something about an army made of fog and a girl had to type things for her father?

Despite my issues with the stories themselves, Nethercott's writing is absolutely lyrical and I wish I could have appreciated it more.

Even though I DNF'd this book, it wasn't quite a one-star read for me since a couple of the stories were more enjoyable less bewildering than the others. 1.75 stars seems about right, rounded up to a weak two-star rating.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Vintage for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review.

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nethercott's collection of fanciful tales are probably NOT for readers who prefer conventional short stories. Her dark fairy stories are both dreamy and nightmarish, filled with lovely imagery and creepy vibes. My favorite story was the last - The Plums at the End of the World. It featured the goat-headed gal from the cover, and though ultimately quite sad, it was mesmerizing.

The title tale is told in an unusual format reminiscent of The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges, and featuring awesome illustrations by Bobby DiTrani.



Though I preferred the author's novel to her short fiction, this was an enchanting read, and I enjoyed it.

Thanks to NetGalley and Vintage for the ARC.

[Dez the Bookworm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ehhhh, this just didn’t hit me. I read Winterset Hollow by Durham and was looking for something to follow up that masterpiece. This failed horribly for me.

These are several short stories in one book but felt incredibly juvenile in the telling but were sexual in nature so it seemed contradictory. It just felt icky for me. This is supposed to be dark fantasy and it is to some degree but more eye rolling and brow scrunching than anything.

A couple stories were ok but most were so lack luster that it didn’t make the read worth it for me.

[Gabrielle (Reading Rampage) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhere between Borges, Bradbury, Valente and Awad is where Ms. Nethercott makes herself at home: fairytales for a modern world, heartbreak, strange bestiary, fever-dream prose...

That stuff is not everyone's cup of tea, but it's definitely mine. I like things that are beautiful while they rot, and this is the feeling I got from these short stories. The monstrous stuff that's at the heart of a lot of things that look pretty brought to the surface is what Nethercott excels at capturing, if such a thing can be captured. Perhaps 'hinted at' is a better way to phrase it.

OK, I'm going to try to be a little more grounded in my description of these stories: this is magical realism used to explore those emotions most people never let rise to the surface, the obstinate love, the grief, the yearning. The stuff you can't talk about in a straight-forward fashion so you have to draw a baroque and nonsensical picture to try and get it off your chest. If you don't know what I mean, put the book down. Even if you get it, it might feel like a lot, and that's fine. It's not for every mood, either...

I definitely recommend it at your own risk, if you are curious about reading something unique, weird, sad, a little scary and a little ugly, but in that good way?

[Brok3n · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

Blog review.

[Louise · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although I loved Nethercott’s book, Thistlefoot, this collection of stories was definitely not for me. It’s a bunch of very weird stories, most of which (all?) end abruptly. The title story, Fifty Beasts To Break Your Heart, is just a list of imaginary beasts, with short descriptions of each. Others were actually stories, but most were so odd that I just felt lost.

I think that the publisher’s description (“a collection of dark fairytales and fractured folklore exploring how our passions can save us—or go monstrously wrong”) is misleading. These stories are just weird.

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage for the opportunity to read a review copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

[Jena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't read a ton of horror fantasy, which is strange, because every time I do, I love it. Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart is an exciting collection of horror/fantasy short stories. While there were a couple I didn't love, most of them were really engaging. As much as I love a good, weird setting and classic horror tropes, my favourite short stories in the collection were the ones that were more grounded, and served as metaphors and/or parables, such as A Diviner's Abecedarian and The Thread Boy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage Anchor for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

[Celeste · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first experience with Nethercott’s writing, and it immediately resonated with me. But approaching this review, I found myself drawing a blank. It was a really solid collection, with far more hits than misses, and I felt that there was a wonderful cohesion to the collection as a whole. I loved the dark fairy tale vibes. But that’s pretty much all I can come up with. Short story collections are difficult to rate and review. I feel that each story deserves its own attention. So, instead of giving an overarching review, I’m going to include the notes I kept as I read each story. They’re rough, and some are basically just quotes, but they’re what stood out to me as I was reading. If you want to know if I think the collection is worth your time, the answer is yes. If you want to know what I thought of each story, you can find that below, along with my rating of each.

Sundown at the Eternal Staircase: 3
[ ] Right off the bat, Nethercott has a fascinating writing style. I was reminded of Neil Gaiman and Kelly Link, but Nethercott's voice is also completely unique.
[ ] I like the cyclical nature of the story; it was fitting for a tale focussed around a supernatural stairway.
[ ] However, while I was interested in the structure and the staircase itself, the story didn't do much for me. It felt half-formed.

A Diviner's Abecedarian: 5
[ ] The alphabet setup of this is wonderful. A story in tiny vignettes.
[ ] Serious Coven vibes, but younger.
[ ] I like how none of the six girls in the group is ever named. Instead, they are "the one of us with the long blonde hair" or "the one of us with the hoop earrings."
[ ] This kind of groupthink, as well as the shared belief of your own imaginings and how special you are collectively, and the mean girl behavior, feel wholly accurate regarding girls of that age.
[ ] But how much of their "magic" is imagined, and how much is in some way real?
[ ] We are also give a subtle glance into what it's like to be the New Girl, the outsider in a group like this.
[ ] Loved this one. Incredibly unique!

The Thread Boy: 5
[ ] This one felt very much like a fairytale in tone and style.
[ ] The constant sewing imagery was a lovely touch.
[ ] A lovely, somewhat maudlin look at how we can't help but leave a piece of ourselves behind with every relationship, experience, and place that matters. Those ties can hurt, but they're also what make life so beautiful.

Fox Jaw: 1.5
[ ] "It's true--you can't really be angry with someone without loving them first. Sort of the way that you can't cook a meal without heating the pan. You have to care to the point that the grease starts spitting up at you in pinpricks, and then, only then, can the anger start."
[ ] You can't give other people pieces of yourself. You need all of them. And yet, we can't help but give ourselves away, anyway. Those who take the most deserve the least.
[ ] This story is really strange. And not necessarily in a good way. It's unusual and poetic, and oddly repellent. 

The War of Fog: 3.5
[ ] "The more I grow to love a man, the less I tend to like him."
[ ] "War cannot be imagined, for those who have not witnessed it cannot truly fathom it, and for those who have borne witness--it is no longer an imagining. It is a boot print permanently crushed into the heart."
[ ] "No war could be more sanguinary. More storied. Yes, this is THE War. The only war that has ever been or will be--because it is ours. In this way, war is like love."
[ ] This story felt very metaphysical, describing a war in a time loop, but only from a peripheral viewpoint. A fascinating concept that I wish I'd been quicker to grasp. 

Drowning Lessons: 3
[ ] "My sister has drowned 37 times." What an opener.
[ ] "Maybe this is the difference between want and yearn: Want can be flipped on and off like a fuse. Want can be indulged in or set aside. Yearn is something else. You can hear it in the shape of the word."
[ ] "If nobody really knows you, then no one knows if you’re telling the truth. And if no one knows if you’re telling the truth, you can decide what the truth is, and what it isn’t. You have the control. Even when the water is rising."
[ ] Odd. Sad. Lonely.

The Autumn Kill: 4
[ ] The tone here makes me think of Greek myth, as if the narrator is a huntress of Artemis. And then it swaps to a setting rooted in modern reality, with a dystopian vibe.
[ ] "I was killed once, too—swept from my mother’s bed and carved into a huntress. My neighbors sharpened my hands into bayonets. Turned my hip to dagger sheath. My teeth, they filed down to points. They made me chant the song a spine sings when it breaks. Little lullaby. Then they married me to the Hunter’s Moon, and I wore a dog-jaw crown."
[ ] "Please shut up about the end of the world. Yes, the world changed. It does not matter how or when. All worlds end, at some point, and new ones sprout from them."
[ ] "We use the debris of our old lives as weapons. Everything can be a weapon, if held skillfully."
[ ] Dark. Sad. Fierce. Resigned. Defiant.

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart: 3
[ ] A bestiary, but an exceedingly odd one. Written by florists, for when flowers aren't meaningful enough, or can't convey what needs to be understood.
[ ] "Monsters and flowers aren't much different."
[ ] "But what to do when the primrose is not enough? When the greenhouse can no longrt contain a client's longing? Then--a bolder bouquet is needed."
[ ] Some of the wording gave me Gaiman vibes. Some creatures reminded me of Studio Ghibli films, like Spirited Away.
[ ] There is a bit of a through-plot binding this piece together, but it's a weird one.
[ ] Some of the illustrations feel like fever dreams.

A Lily is a Lily: 4
[ ] "As everyone knows, when a person is missed enough, a ghost is born."
[ ] "Like any gaseous form, she could expand and contract to fill the container of his heart in whatever way it needed to be filled."
[ ] "Every detail of her too sharp, too true, too present. She left nothing to long for, to reach toward, and miss."
[ ] Can you love the memory of someone so much that the reality of them is a disappointment?
[ ] Sweet, maudlin, sad.

Dear Henrietta: 3.5
[ ] "Have you ever kept a secret for no good reason? Maybe it wasn’t juicy enough to tell. Maybe there was no one you liked well enough to tell it to. Or maybe you kept the secret so well, you even kept it from yourself—and when you reached to retrieve it, the secret hovered on the edge of your memory like an insect, batting and batting against a screen door, but fluttering off when you tried to catch it in the cage of your fingers."
[ ] This felt like an a24 movie. Very odd and inexplicably creepy. Unsettling. 

Possessions: 3.5
[ ] "I heard once that everybody dies twice—once when their heart stops, and again when their name is spoken for the last time. But there is another sort of dying in between, a crueler death: when those you love begin to make choices they would never make if you were there. If you were alive. Things that would be thoughtless, brutal even, but in your absence, become benign."
[ ] Another sad, existentially disturbing little story.

Homebody: 4
[ ] 2nd person. Always a risk. Tends to work better for short stories than longer form fiction, though.
[ ] "The first moment you saw Marlow, you didn’t love him. Then in the second moment, you did." - A lovely way to convey falling in love. But sometimes, those first instincts are correct.
[ ] This relationship felt dangerous to me from the first night, bound to gradually become more and more toxic and controlling.
[ ] The subtle shift from feeling pretty to feeling less, all because of one remark. A textbook opening line of abuse.
[ ] This story is all about how much of yourself you will give away or tamp down in order to please a person, and how that level of capitulation is rarely enough to keep them. Incredibly sad.

A Haunted Calendar: 2.5
[ ] "Day 6 Ghost (noun): The suspended sensation of watching a wineglass tilt off a table’s edge—knowing it will shatter, but being powerless to stop it."
[ ] "Day 25 Fact: Ghosts do not belong only to the dead. They belong to whatever is absent. A sweetheart. A misplaced key. A hometown you fled in a glinting jet plane while swearing never, never to return."
[ ] Some of these entries feel like those 2 sentence horror stories. Other feel like observations or poetic musings on death or hauntings.
[ ] The way it ends is unsettling.

The Plums at the End of the World: 5
[ ] The dangers of repressed desire, and how it will inevitably lead you to crazier actions than what you craved in the first place.
[ ] "...yearning can shackle you if you don't treat it kindly."
[ ] "No, my monstrosity is not animal, nor human. It comes from a blending of the two."
[ ] “It’s not the dark we’re afraid of,” the goat girl continued, “it’s being in darkness with eyes that were built for the light. It’s not a lone ghost we’re afraid of—it’s the ghost appearing in the realm of the living, in the same room as our breathing bodies. We are never afraid of a thing on its own, as it is. We’re afraid of something intruding in a context in which it doesn’t belong."
[ ] "What is a monster? It’s a contradiction. A creature who houses two dissonant aspects... Am I a monster? Yes, love, I am. I am a monster because I contain too much.”
[ ] “What is a monster but someone who can see this world from both sides? ... What is monster if not someone, some thing, caught between?”
[ ] A brilliant, horrid way to end the collection.

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written and enjoyable short story collection, featuring 14 dark and weird fairy-tale-esque stories. The stories are compelling, the right length for what they’re trying to do, make great use of detail, and have strong concepts. Some require a little thought to figure out, while others are more obvious. I enjoyed almost all of them, and would read more from this author.

Notes on the individual stories:

“Sundown on the Eternal Staircase”: A strong start, with a great, down-to-earth yet bizarre setting and concept, and a good emotional hook. I took this one as a fantastical look at addiction, and at the kind of short-lived relationships most common in high school, between people headed in very different directions and unable to change each other’s course.

“The Diviner’s Abcdenarian”: A mean girl story from the collective perspective of the mean girls. Not my favorite, perhaps because I’m not a fan of plural “we” stories.

“Thread Boy”: A strong and emotionally effective fairy tale. I enjoyed the use of threads as a tangible metaphor for connections among people.

“Fox Jaw”: This one is very weird. In retrospect I concluded that the story is a play on the term “alienation of affection” and thus was more satisfied with it.

“The War of Fog”: The absurdity of a timeline where everything is happening at once, from the perspective of an ingenue. Hurt my brain a bit but worthwhile.

“Drowning Lessons”: A nuanced and believable story about a high school boy and his older sister, who has a dangerous magical problem. I took it as a metaphor for epilepsy but it’s also just strong on its own. The sister feels like a real person, much more than her malady but coping with it in believable ways, and the dynamic between the two is strong.

“Autumn Kill”: A short and atmospheric post-apocalyptic tale.

“Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart”: By far the longest story in the collection, but much of that is illustrations and blank space. It’s formatted as a bestiary and there literally are fifty beasts, all illustrated, and creatively imagined. This wasn’t quite my thing, and I’d have liked to see a little more meat on the researchers’ story. Anyone who loved this should check out Strange Beasts of China.

“A Lily is a Lily”: A predictable but effective story, about the temptations of a fantasy partner vs. the messy reality of humans.

“Dear Henrietta”: Formatted as a letter, this one does a strong job with the slow reveal.

“Possessions”: A good but dark story about three teens dealing with the aftermath of the disappearance of a girl close to them. A very effective ending that complicates the characters’ grief in a way that feels harsh but real.

“Homebody”: A good story about a woman losing herself in a relationship with a man who doesn’t love her as much. It’s at the end of a run of several similarly downer stories, which perhaps hurt it for me.

“The Haunted Calendar”: An advent calendar of post-breakup loss—did not do much for me.

“Plums at the End of the World”: One of the darkest but most memorable stories in the collection, featuring a goat woman, a great deal of injustice, and a very pessimistic take on a world that allows this to happen.

Overall, I liked this collection even better than I expected, and am surprised it hasn’t gotten more acclaim. Nethercott is clearly a pro, with a good range and a strong sense of prose and pacing as well as thematic resonance. I would certainly read more from her.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 5 out of 5]

WARNING: This is Probably Not Your Kind of Book. Think Before Proceeding.

At first didn't think it was my kind. . .until I started in and was flipping pages as fast as possible - had to get a hold of myself, and limited myself to 1 story, or not more than 10 pages. That lasted one day, 40 pages.

These are fractured fairytales at their best. . .dark, devious and not a bit sorry about it. No regret here. I've turned total fangirl for this author, and that's really not becoming at this late date in my journey here, but I'm going with it. You'll need to deal. If you're wincing at that, then my first sentence stands. Here's the bones (TOC) and a drop of my favorite bits in each:

Sundown at the Eternal Staircase
Rules, warnings and cautionary tales about the Eternal Staircase (Heaven? Hell? Limbo? Amusement Park?)
A Diviner's Abecedarian
Divination methods described by and through sassy, spell-casting students
The Thread Boy
MY FAVORITE - if you only read one. . .read this one. . .
Fox Jaw
A steamy tail. Tale.
The War of Fog
This must have been pulled from a larger archived catalog of Named Wars (as opposed to Numbered Wars). Most interesting - having only lasted 9 days, but such damage. . .
Drowning Lessons
Sibling power here, for sure!
The Autumn Kill
Beware this one. . .still. . .we should appreciate the warning words, advice for what's ahead.
Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart
A whimsical collection of 50 - WITH ILLUSTRATIONS! Huzzah! I'm intrigued by the Corvosts, Lylits, and Rausts.
A Lily is a Lily
Just another quirky relationship tale. . .or maybe something a lot darker. . .
Dear Henrietta
Surely a welcome letter from an old friend. . .or. . .
Possessions
A swiss knife is involved, as well as a rooster who expressly denies being cocky.
Homebody
Paint, painting and considerations thereof, and the remarkable consequence thereby. (Keep your Office Jobs, people!)
A Haunted Calendar
Specifically, a 31-day month. Would be a different tale entirely for a 30-day month, I suspect.
The Plums at the End of the World
Just what you long for - a 12-chapter tale with a needy yet alluring goat, an understanding vampire who fixes everything, and plums for the taking. (I just ate one myself, as the story seemed to require it.)

If you had the least bit of interest, I dare you. Probably a perfect book for one of your Halloween reads. . .or Samhain Festival. From me, to GennaRose? All the stars. Odd Perfection 'tis. Awl the Stars. . .

*A sincere thank you to Gennarose Nethercott, Vintage Anchor, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* #FiftyBeaststoBreakYourHeart #NetGalley

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.75⭐️ 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 that it almost felt thrown in for cheap, emotional shock value. There are other instances in other stories, but those felt like the crux of the plot or at least a contributing event, not something thrown in carelessly. 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!

[Floflyy · Rating 3 out of 5]

je retrouve la plume qui m'avait tant plus dans la maison aux pattes de poulet, mais malheureusement ça fonctionne mieux sur un format long. le choix des mots et des images est parfois tellement nébuleux que l'on se demande quel est l'enjeu de la nouvelle. deux nouvelles sont écrites sous forme de listes/bestiaires/dico et ça ne m'a pas convaincu. j'ai préféré les nouvelles plus terre à terre que celles où le fantastique prend le pas sur tout le reste.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5, but rounding up because I can tell this is one that's going to stick with me. Gennarose Nethercott is 100% an auto-buy author for me now, it's like her books were generated in a lab to be everything that I love. I loved the weird delightful dark fantasy writing in these stories, loved all the strange little guys, loved the way one of these somehow managed to make me sob despite being only 7 pages long. as usual with short stories, some were bigger hits for me than others, but honestly most of them were hits. individual ratings for each story are below!

#1: A Haunted Calendar - 5
#2: The Thread Boy - 5
#3: Homebody - 5
#4: The Plums at the End of the World - 4.75
#5: A Diviner's Abecedarian - 4.5
#6: The War of Fog - 4.5
#7: Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart - 4.5
#8: Sundown at the Eternal Staircase - 4.5
#9: Possessions - 4.25
#10: A Lily is a Lily - 4.25
#11: The Autumn Kill - 3.75
#12: Fox Jaw - 3.5
#13: Drowning Lessons - 3.5
#14: Dear Henrietta - 3.5

[blok sera szwajcarskiego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received an arc from NetGalley, thanks!

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart and I would let each of them do it over and over again. GennaRose Nethercott woved a magnificent lore of short stories, which are not my favourite sort of reading, yet from time to time there appears an author who proves me wrong. I'm honored to add Nethercott to that list, because their imagination draws world in colors not known to human eyes. It's simple, yet magical, lyrical and, when it needs, able to rise goosebumps.

Wonderful collections. Please proceed to let it break your heart.

Bump and happy publication day!

[Dee Hancocks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written gothic fairytale horror. These short stories pack a punch. They are strange, quirky and weird, which I loved. Some were more hard hitting for me than others but that’s the nature of a collection of short stories. I loved some of the language used, words like abominations, ravenous, churning and monstrous are peppered throughout. There’s also some great illustrations which are disturbing. If you fancy something a bit dark and imaginative then I would recommend this. Thank you to NetGalley and Vintage Anchor for an E-ARC. This is a voluntary review of my own thoughts.

[bec · Rating 5 out of 5]

❤️❤️

[AlenGarou · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

Da amante delle novelle, questa raccolta era d’obbligo.
Non solo la copertina fa il suo dovere nel strizzare l’occhio al lettore, ma l’originalità e la struttura delle varie storie presenti è qualcosa che difficilmente si trova nell’editoria mainstream. Per non parlare del genere: un folk horror che comunque ha vibes coccolose e pastello sebbene le terrificanti ripercussioni di sottofondo. Ma c’è stato un problema… ok, in realtà due, anche se la radice è la stessa.
Il mio livello di inglese è un po’ scarsetto per capire la vastità delle metafore insite nelle varie novelle. Anzi, alcune non le ho capite proprio. Ho apprezzato molto lo stile dell’autrice, ma il mio cervello alle volte si perdeva nel flusso di coscienza e nelle figure retoriche del testo e non riusciva a tenere il ritmo con gli eventi della storia. Insomma, per alcune novelle più che un parere oggettivo sono andata di vibes.
Sarà stato anche il periodo, ma non escludo di riprendere di nuovo questo libro più avanti, magari a mente fresca, per riassaporarlo al meglio.
Per quanto riguarda le novelle, quelle che mi hanno colpita di più sono state: Sundown at the Eternal Staircase, sia per come il testo sembrasse una brochure turistica e sia per il mistero legato a questa scalinata e a ciò che si nasconde alle due estremità; A Diviner’s Abecedarian per come il testo è suddiviso per definizione di divinazioni e perché non bisogna mai fidarsi di un gruppo di ragazzine; The War of Fog per la trama intrigante e il concept; Drowning Lesson e The Autumn Kill per la particolarità e la violenza di quello che accade ai personaggi; Fifty Beast perché amo i bestiari e infine Hombebody per il finale inquietante e le metafore.
A seguire, l’elenco delle novelle:

Sundown at the Eternal Staircase: 4
A Diviner’s Abecedarian: 4
The Thread Boy: 3.5
Fox Jaw: 2
The War of Fog: 4
Drowning Lesson: 3.5
The Autumn Kill: 4-
Fifty Beast to Break Your Heart: 4
A Lily is a Lily: 3.5
Dear Henrietta: 3
Possession: 3
Homebody: 3.5
A Ghost Calendar: 2
The Plums at the End of the World: 3.5

[Miraclesnow · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reminded me that really good literature exists, and this is one I needed in my life. Thanks

Highlights are Possessions, Homebody, & The Plums at the End of the World.

[Jakki (BizzyBookNook) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of stories is so deliciously horrific and fascinating. I loved every one of them in their twisted glory. This Isn't your typical set of stories, many of them have no real direction or purpose but maybe shock and awe. Some of them are a tad confusing, like waking from a dream that you can't quite remember. There were definitely a few of them that stood out above the rest but over all there wasn't a single one that I wasn't completely captivated by. This book is definitely not for everyone. But for those that it is it will definitely become a favorite!

[Danny_reads]

DNF @ 26%

This is collection of fokloric, fairy tale-esque stories, but I think they were a bit too abstract for me. I found myself thinking "Okay? What's the point of this?" after every story.

These stories felt eerie and dreamlike, and I can definitely see why someone else would enjoy this. This collection just wasn't for me.

[Alicia Ceasar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart by GennaRose Nethercott is a collection of short stories by the author of Thistlefoot. Most of the stories have either a scifi, horror, or fairy tale vibe but they are all very unique and completely engrossing.

I absolutely adored everything about this collection. This book is for people who like things that are kind of strange and a little weird. This is one of the only short story collections where I think every story is really strong. It would be impossible for me to pick a favorite because I loved them all for different reasons. This is a book that I can see myself revisiting often.

That being said, this book is not going to work for some people and I can already see what the complaints will be so, as a warning, here are a few reasons you may not like this book. A lot of these stories just throw you in without a lot of explanation and by the end, you still don’t have a lot of answers. If you aren’t the kind of reader who can just enjoy the ride of a strange story, maybe avoid this one.

But if you are the kind of reader who would sit and listen to a bog witch tell a fairy tale or if you would run barefoot through a swamp looking for an adventure or if you like things a little sapphic and a lot atmospheric, this is the book for you. This book has cemented this author as an autobuy author and I cannot wait to see what she writes next.

Thank you so much to netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book ahead of its release. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

[jellyfishiii · Rating 3 out of 5]

this took me so long to read bc i was only reading it over breaks lol but im done!! i rly like the use of fantasy elements in this to tell kinda mundane stories of love and heartbreak. as well as the unconventional narrative methods. the first half of the book was def better than the second for me though. some of my fav stories were: sundown at the eternal staircase, a diviner’s abecedarian, fox jaw, and the war of fog — especially that one!!

found some quotes from when i first started this in january:

“Okay, so I wasn't supposed to love you. But I do, and this is why:
Because of that one time we lay on my futon mattress and listened to a radio play about a man who sold his soul to the devil.
Because you write poems about me and hide them in the freezer.
Because after I knocked a glass bottle out the fourth-story window and it shattered in the street, you made me go downstairs and sweep it up. Without you, I would have left it there.”

“It’s true — you can't really be angry with someone without loving them first.”

“I lift a fox jaw from the earth and I want to climb inside like it's a small boat. Like it could carry me to you.”

“When your teeth sharpen, do they cut your tongue?”

“You choose this. Every cell in your body insists, This. This is what you need. There is wanting and there is yearning — and then, there is a lung filling with water.”

“Author’s note: I have begun to question the necessity of my work. Without time, there can be no history. Without history, there is no need for a chronicler at all. If nothing can end, then what is the use of remembering it.”

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an interesting collection of short stories! For my own reference, these are the stories I enjoyed the most: Sundown at the Eternal Staircase (a great first entry - I was intrigued the whole time and this one will probably haunt me the most), The Thread Boy (actually feels like a fairytale), Fox Jaw (beautifully strange), The Autumn Kill (surprised me), Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart (impressive execution of the narrative), Possessions (dark but humorous), and The Plums at the End of the World (great characters to root for and follow).

There were details that I was inclined to deem unnecessarily dark, but these stories made me reflect that many fairy tales of old are the same way, and I just decided not to question that. So, reader, just be prepared for macabre and/or bleak plots and perspectives.

Parts of this book do feel like listening to an album and all the songs are about the same break-up?... That is, many relationships described throughout the stories end up going in the same direction. But through these patterns I felt like I really got to know GennaRose Nethercott, at least what she was going through while writing (or I surmise as much from her Acknowledgements page)!

These stories are snapshots of an impressive imagination, and these vignettes of characters living strange little lives are a welcome addition to the gallery of narratives in my literary recollection!

[Lata · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was greatly impressed by the sheer inventiveness of these stories, which are full of longing, the fantastic and the weird, and a fair bit of horror. But that's what folk tales are like, and author GennaRose Nethercott's fourteen short stories in this collection have that feel. They're uncomfortable, spiky and alluring.

My favourites were:

-Sundown at the Eternal Staircase: a doomed summer romance at a strange, and dangerous, tourist attraction.

-The Diviner's Abecedarian: Mean, murderous girls....

-Thread Boy: This reminded me of Isaac, from Nethercott's novel "Thistlefoot".

Though I did not enjoy all of the stories in this collection, I could appreciate Nethercott's beautiful prose. It's captivating, and kept me going through the bizarre tales.

3.5 stars.

Thank you to Netgalley and to Vintage Anchor for this ARC in exchange for my review.

[Ashley Daviau · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve had the BEST luck with short story collections this year! Normally I’m iffy about them but the ones I’ve read this year, including this one, have just about convinced me. This collection is particular was absolutely freaking PERFECT. I sat down to read a story or two before bed and before I knew it, it was 3am and I had finished the whole damn book. Every story was just bloody brilliant, I loved each one more than the last and I can’t recommend this collection highly enough! There’s nothing I love more than deliciously dark and twisted fairy tales.

[val | starrynight.reads ✨]

dnf 🫣

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly whimsical and fun! My favorite stories were "Sundown at the Eternal Staircase", "The Thread Boy", the titular story, and "Dear Henrietta".