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Portero Universe
Slice of Cherry
Kit and Fancy Cordelle are sisters of the best kind: best friends, best confidantes, and best accomplices. The daughters of the infamous Bonesaw Killer, Kit and Fancy are used to feeling like outsiders, and that's just the way they like it. But in Portero, where the weird and wild run rampant, the Cordelle sisters are hardly the oddest or most dangerous creatures around.
It's no surprise when Kit and Fancy start to give in to their deepest desire - the desire to kill. What starts as a fascination with slicing open and stitching up quickly spirals into a gratifying murder spree. Of course, the sisters aren't killing just anyone, only the people who truly deserve it. But the girls have learned from the mistakes of their father, and know that a shred of evidence could get them caught. So when Fancy stumbles upon a mysterious and invisible doorway to another world, she opens a door to endless possibilities.
It's no surprise when Kit and Fancy start to give in to their deepest desire - the desire to kill. What starts as a fascination with slicing open and stitching up quickly spirals into a gratifying murder spree. Of course, the sisters aren't killing just anyone, only the people who truly deserve it. But the girls have learned from the mistakes of their father, and know that a shred of evidence could get them caught. So when Fancy stumbles upon a mysterious and invisible doorway to another world, she opens a door to endless possibilities.
528 pages, Paperback
First published January 4, 2011
128 people are currently reading
7093 people want to read
About the author
Dia Reeves
12 books684 followersI was born. I did some stuff. What do you want from me?
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 552 reviews
September 22, 2011
I went into this book wanting to like it -- the original sounding premise made me feel eager and optimistic. I've been shuffling through a few slow moving books on my currently reading list (Forever *yawn*) so the way this book seemed to run and jump from page one thrilled me. It was never slow... and that statement is probably the only one I can say without a "but" qualification on the tail end.
The world building, or lack thereof, drove me insane. I want to be able to say Reeves has an incredible imagination, but since that imagination is totally without discipline it's a squinty-eyed judgment call. It's easy to keep pulling things out of your ass if you haven't given yourself a set of guidelines to work with. If anything can happen then is it really artful imagination or is it a toddler with a set of crayons attacking a white wall? Anything can happen in the small town of Portero and nothing is ever explained. Why does this town have magic doorways and monsters? Where do the monsters come from? Why do they never move on once they're there? If they come through the doors, are they still somehow tied to the door -- because otherwise wouldn't they spread out? What does the outside world know of Portero and why do people live there if you have to go from place to place in groups so you aren't eaten by monsters?
Very little of Portero's monster issues have anything to do with the plot of Slice of Cherry either. The magical doorways are of significance, but the monsters? Not so much. They're just humdrum facts like Venice has a lot of water and Manhattan has a lot of tall buildings. I wanted to know how all the doors worked and why they were there blah blah blah all my whining and I never got much in the way of answers. Outsiders are tentatively aware of Portero, but they think it's all made up...?
The editors didn't do Reeves any favors by letting her imagination run rampant. Harry Potter has some of the greatest world building of all time, say whatever else you want about the series but the world building is untouchable. There's structure and rules and still room for infinite creativity. Even Twilight with the diamond skinned sparkling vampires had clear cut rules and reasons. Reeves should have sat down at some point and forced herself to write rules down then laminate those rules so she never broke them. There was absolutely no way for Reeves to plot herself into a corner and think her way out of it because her imagination just knocked down any wall.
From there on... the confusion in the book doesn't get much better. The Cordelle sisters are the daughters of a convicted serial killer on death row who have chosen self-isolation over the town's ridicule and disgust. The book speaks about innocence and how sometimes a whole family is convicted, innocent right along with the guilty. People are often cruel to the girls even though they've done nothing wrong. There was a chance this might've been the message of the book... if the sisters hadn't been knife-wielding lunatics too. Both girls are blood thirsty despite pleasant childhoods far removed from the thing their father did, which I guess makes a case for homicidal urges being nature over nurture. I don't agree with that and really it justified the way everyone treated the girls. I could've understood it more if something had happened to make the girls want to kill, but they had happy childhoods with two people who loved them.
The sisters are killers on different ends of the spectrum. I believe the terms are organized and disorganized killers, the difference being an ability to plan and self-control. Fancy, the younger sister, is a sociopath who doesn't regard people other than her family as actual people and the other, Kit, is more of a spree killer, the impulsive sort who are usually caught fast because they leave evidence and witnesses. In the first half of the book they are portrayed very accurately as their serial killer types. They exhibit personality traits and circle around each other like a killing team. In the latter half of the book they both seem to grow out of the more blindly violent sides of their personalities, which is not something that would've happened in reality. A boyfriend doesn't turn a sociopath into a normal person. Love does not stop an impulse killer from losing her temper and shoving a knife in you. It was very realistic and then not at all realistic -- overall an extremely erratic read.
The sisters have a strange relationship and there are some scenes that seemed to toe the line at incest. Who knows? I think Fancy would've been down with that if Kit hadn't been quiet so penis-crazy. Oh, and there is some actual incest/child molestation later on in the book with different characters. Eh. I don't have much to say on the subject because it all seemed so randomly tossed in there.
Almost all the murders are sort of candy coated. They take place in a fantasy world? fantasy bubble? known as the happy place. It's kind of like a Tim Burton movie, candied blood. It should feel dark but it felt closer to a child's day dream than anything really gory. One person is flattened and his life essence comes out like tooth paste? Another person is over fed at a tea party (I believe large parts of the book were influenced by Alice in Wonderland) until they explode? It alternated between too mature and too silly in dizzying turns. Overall the book had very little discipline, like something written in fits and turns during drug binges.
Anyway, I checked out Dia Reeves FAQ on her website, first to see if reading the books out of order would be an issue and then to see if she had any clarifying notes. Presumably when one writes an FAQ you are clarifying some repeated questions so that you don't snap and kill someone who asks a repeat for 3,231st time, but the FAQ read like someone who had already snapped. It was very off-putting. From clicking around her blog I gathered she is not a fan of 'people.' So... don't bother with FAQ or a blog if you don't want to interact with fans? JD Salinger wasn't a people person either, but he didn't have a blog with rainbows and clouds. It annoyed me out of reading Bleeding Violets -- something I'm sure is for the best since it seems to be even worse (and more graphic and more random) than this book.
I do not recommend. It's not a lavish dark fantasy. It's pink soap bubbles that may or may not have been tinged with blood. Strange, but gone in an instant and easily forgotten.
The world building, or lack thereof, drove me insane. I want to be able to say Reeves has an incredible imagination, but since that imagination is totally without discipline it's a squinty-eyed judgment call. It's easy to keep pulling things out of your ass if you haven't given yourself a set of guidelines to work with. If anything can happen then is it really artful imagination or is it a toddler with a set of crayons attacking a white wall? Anything can happen in the small town of Portero and nothing is ever explained. Why does this town have magic doorways and monsters? Where do the monsters come from? Why do they never move on once they're there? If they come through the doors, are they still somehow tied to the door -- because otherwise wouldn't they spread out? What does the outside world know of Portero and why do people live there if you have to go from place to place in groups so you aren't eaten by monsters?
Very little of Portero's monster issues have anything to do with the plot of Slice of Cherry either. The magical doorways are of significance, but the monsters? Not so much. They're just humdrum facts like Venice has a lot of water and Manhattan has a lot of tall buildings. I wanted to know how all the doors worked and why they were there blah blah blah all my whining and I never got much in the way of answers. Outsiders are tentatively aware of Portero, but they think it's all made up...?
The editors didn't do Reeves any favors by letting her imagination run rampant. Harry Potter has some of the greatest world building of all time, say whatever else you want about the series but the world building is untouchable. There's structure and rules and still room for infinite creativity. Even Twilight with the diamond skinned sparkling vampires had clear cut rules and reasons. Reeves should have sat down at some point and forced herself to write rules down then laminate those rules so she never broke them. There was absolutely no way for Reeves to plot herself into a corner and think her way out of it because her imagination just knocked down any wall.
From there on... the confusion in the book doesn't get much better. The Cordelle sisters are the daughters of a convicted serial killer on death row who have chosen self-isolation over the town's ridicule and disgust. The book speaks about innocence and how sometimes a whole family is convicted, innocent right along with the guilty. People are often cruel to the girls even though they've done nothing wrong. There was a chance this might've been the message of the book... if the sisters hadn't been knife-wielding lunatics too. Both girls are blood thirsty despite pleasant childhoods far removed from the thing their father did, which I guess makes a case for homicidal urges being nature over nurture. I don't agree with that and really it justified the way everyone treated the girls. I could've understood it more if something had happened to make the girls want to kill, but they had happy childhoods with two people who loved them.
The sisters are killers on different ends of the spectrum. I believe the terms are organized and disorganized killers, the difference being an ability to plan and self-control. Fancy, the younger sister, is a sociopath who doesn't regard people other than her family as actual people and the other, Kit, is more of a spree killer, the impulsive sort who are usually caught fast because they leave evidence and witnesses. In the first half of the book they are portrayed very accurately as their serial killer types. They exhibit personality traits and circle around each other like a killing team. In the latter half of the book they both seem to grow out of the more blindly violent sides of their personalities, which is not something that would've happened in reality. A boyfriend doesn't turn a sociopath into a normal person. Love does not stop an impulse killer from losing her temper and shoving a knife in you. It was very realistic and then not at all realistic -- overall an extremely erratic read.
The sisters have a strange relationship and there are some scenes that seemed to toe the line at incest. Who knows? I think Fancy would've been down with that if Kit hadn't been quiet so penis-crazy. Oh, and there is some actual incest/child molestation later on in the book with different characters. Eh. I don't have much to say on the subject because it all seemed so randomly tossed in there.
Almost all the murders are sort of candy coated. They take place in a fantasy world? fantasy bubble? known as the happy place. It's kind of like a Tim Burton movie, candied blood. It should feel dark but it felt closer to a child's day dream than anything really gory. One person is flattened and his life essence comes out like tooth paste? Another person is over fed at a tea party (I believe large parts of the book were influenced by Alice in Wonderland) until they explode? It alternated between too mature and too silly in dizzying turns. Overall the book had very little discipline, like something written in fits and turns during drug binges.
Anyway, I checked out Dia Reeves FAQ on her website, first to see if reading the books out of order would be an issue and then to see if she had any clarifying notes. Presumably when one writes an FAQ you are clarifying some repeated questions so that you don't snap and kill someone who asks a repeat for 3,231st time, but the FAQ read like someone who had already snapped. It was very off-putting. From clicking around her blog I gathered she is not a fan of 'people.' So... don't bother with FAQ or a blog if you don't want to interact with fans? JD Salinger wasn't a people person either, but he didn't have a blog with rainbows and clouds. It annoyed me out of reading Bleeding Violets -- something I'm sure is for the best since it seems to be even worse (and more graphic and more random) than this book.
I do not recommend. It's not a lavish dark fantasy. It's pink soap bubbles that may or may not have been tinged with blood. Strange, but gone in an instant and easily forgotten.
January 2, 2011
Favourite Quote "But what if the monsters come?"
"Fancy." Kit looked away from the drama to stare at her sisters, surprised. "We are the monsters."
Slice of Cherry is DIFFERENT. Did I like it? Yes. Did it scare the crap out of me? Yes? It twisted? YES!
The world of Portero is hands down the strangest the world I have ever read. The description of this world is amazing. Dia Reeves writing is fast moving, unpredictable and engrossing. However even though I did enjoy this, quite a few times I was thinking is Reeves crazy. For me, sometimes the scenes were a little too weird and gruesome. That might be because I am not the biggest fan of horror and can't even watch a scary movie without having nightmares for weeks. So I am warning you this book isn't for the faint at heart.
I did however love the characters Fancy and Kit. They are two sisters you wouldn't want to cross. Both original, interesting and a little bit wicked. Fancy though was my favourite, maybe because she wasn't as scary as Kit.
Overall, if you loved Bleeding Violets or are fan of horror or ever wanted to know what a killer or should I say killers are thinking, than I think you will love this.
Thank you to my friend Tina for sharing her copy with me. It was an intriguing read even if it scared me to death. ~grabs book out of freezer and runs to post this to Teccc~
"Fancy." Kit looked away from the drama to stare at her sisters, surprised. "We are the monsters."
Slice of Cherry is DIFFERENT. Did I like it? Yes. Did it scare the crap out of me? Yes? It twisted? YES!
The world of Portero is hands down the strangest the world I have ever read. The description of this world is amazing. Dia Reeves writing is fast moving, unpredictable and engrossing. However even though I did enjoy this, quite a few times I was thinking is Reeves crazy. For me, sometimes the scenes were a little too weird and gruesome. That might be because I am not the biggest fan of horror and can't even watch a scary movie without having nightmares for weeks. So I am warning you this book isn't for the faint at heart.
I did however love the characters Fancy and Kit. They are two sisters you wouldn't want to cross. Both original, interesting and a little bit wicked. Fancy though was my favourite, maybe because she wasn't as scary as Kit.
Overall, if you loved Bleeding Violets or are fan of horror or ever wanted to know what a killer or should I say killers are thinking, than I think you will love this.
Thank you to my friend Tina for sharing her copy with me. It was an intriguing read even if it scared me to death. ~grabs book out of freezer and runs to post this to Teccc~
July 9, 2016
Okay, alright I think I've finally come up with something to say about this book. Straight up fucking odd. When I read the first few pages and the back, I loved it. One of the two sisters, Kit, was obviously the rougher one and Fancy was shy and more of a follower. The back description hinted at something that they did together but it was very vague. It quickly stopped there though, because what the story actually was, was really, and I mean REALLY different than what you probably anticipated. I can't even put my finger on it but the way the two sisters acted was just off. The pace of the story was strange too. They cleaned the house, they giggled, they did mundane stuff and then they just turned around and murdered men. Yet, the second they both get a couple of guys... Bam! They're converted saints. They gain these teenage-girl-like qualities with a side helping of their old ways. Turns out all they wanted was a dick to fix them up. Fine, whatever, I can accept that and set it aside. I can also accept the fact that there was no development whasoever on Portero which is what screwed me over. I'm done the book, yet I still don't know if they were living in a real world the whole time or not. Monsters roaming the streets with no reason behind it? Doors and fairy rings? The fuck. But saying all that, I couldn't get over that I felt like I was in one of the Saw movies. Blood, killing, more blood, fancy moves with knives, some laughing, blood. Also, there was lack of description of ANYTHING, I had this image in my head of what everything looked like the entire time that I was reading and it was all patchy and missing pieces, full of blood and meaningless murder. No world building whatsoever. So much was missing from this whole book yet the author managed to fill up 505 pages of useless shit. It's like she went and sneezed it all up one day and handed it to a publisher the morning after. The sisters, the plot, the message, were all over the place! Because you know what? It didn't even exist. Who builds such a shit fantasy world, 'tis a tad lame when your readers cant envision it and immerse themselves in it. I actually had moments were I stopped and put the book down and re-evaluated whether I actually thought this was a good idea to read. Now I know a lot of people love fast pacing stories but let me tell you, some parts that could've taken up a good chapter, ended up being half a page long. Looking back on it now, there was nothing that particularly stood out for me that I actually liked because a lot of it was the same, it just all blends into a big blob of nothing. They wander, the find a target, they kill, they talk to some boys. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. I'm sorry Reeves but this was just completely out there. Next time, atleast fix up some of the incest that occurs in this story before you throw it out at the world.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 8, 2010
I was lucky enough to win an Arc and sink my teeth in a nice thick piece of Slice of Cherry. So Thank-you Dia Reeves, for sending me a copy and for the nightmares that followed it;)
From Fancy's Dream Diary:
A doctor examined me and Kit and said the reason we were sick was because Kit had my heart and I had hers. But when he switched our hearts, they stopped beating.
Move over YA! Dia Reeves is back with her second horror novel, and if y'all thought Bleeding Violet was shutter-worthy, you haven't read nothin yet.
Slice of Cherry isn't your sunshine and daises kind of book, no fluff-n-stuff here folks, this is pure psychotic terror at it's finest.
Once in awhile I like to push my own limit when it comes to horror books, since I'm chicken sh*t and all, so normally I wont read these kind of books, like evah, but Dia Reeves has such an incredible talent to make even the sickest elements intriguing. Not that I didn't freak the hell out, cause I so did. In fact, I had to stop the book repeatedly and flick on Disney to get a scene out of my head, which mind you, didn't work. Still, her characters and storyline are so wickedly fascinating that I found myself invested in the dark and distrubing minds of these characters.
Meet the Cordelle sisters, Fancy and Kit. There father is on death row, being the Bonesaw killer and all, but these two seem to have inherited his love for blood-lust. They are with out a doubt the two crazies chicks I ever read in my entire reading existence. Not only do they enjoy the fine art of torture, blood and sticking body parts in jars, but they'll do it with a smile plastered to there faces. Happiness is, after all, a bloody knife. True, they only do it to those who they think deserve it, but dammmme!
Meet the Turner brothers Ilan and Gabriel...eh, lets just say that they are a well placed match for the sister here.
I don't want to give to much away since this book isn't published till Jan, but bottom line, this book will freak you out. I loved it and feared it at the same time. It's twisted in ways that you'd be surprised that it's even YA, but the sisters connection is surprisingly touching, in a very strange whack-out way. So for those of you who is faint at heart (like meee) then I wouldn't recommend this book, but if you like your books with a side of crazy and deranged, then this is the book for you.
Creepy, cracked and bizarrely brilliant, y'all are going to want a serving of a Slice of Cherry once this hits the shelves!
From Fancy's Dream Diary:
A doctor examined me and Kit and said the reason we were sick was because Kit had my heart and I had hers. But when he switched our hearts, they stopped beating.
Move over YA! Dia Reeves is back with her second horror novel, and if y'all thought Bleeding Violet was shutter-worthy, you haven't read nothin yet.
Slice of Cherry isn't your sunshine and daises kind of book, no fluff-n-stuff here folks, this is pure psychotic terror at it's finest.
Once in awhile I like to push my own limit when it comes to horror books, since I'm chicken sh*t and all, so normally I wont read these kind of books, like evah, but Dia Reeves has such an incredible talent to make even the sickest elements intriguing. Not that I didn't freak the hell out, cause I so did. In fact, I had to stop the book repeatedly and flick on Disney to get a scene out of my head, which mind you, didn't work. Still, her characters and storyline are so wickedly fascinating that I found myself invested in the dark and distrubing minds of these characters.
Meet the Cordelle sisters, Fancy and Kit. There father is on death row, being the Bonesaw killer and all, but these two seem to have inherited his love for blood-lust. They are with out a doubt the two crazies chicks I ever read in my entire reading existence. Not only do they enjoy the fine art of torture, blood and sticking body parts in jars, but they'll do it with a smile plastered to there faces. Happiness is, after all, a bloody knife. True, they only do it to those who they think deserve it, but dammmme!
Meet the Turner brothers Ilan and Gabriel...eh, lets just say that they are a well placed match for the sister here.
I don't want to give to much away since this book isn't published till Jan, but bottom line, this book will freak you out. I loved it and feared it at the same time. It's twisted in ways that you'd be surprised that it's even YA, but the sisters connection is surprisingly touching, in a very strange whack-out way. So for those of you who is faint at heart (like meee) then I wouldn't recommend this book, but if you like your books with a side of crazy and deranged, then this is the book for you.
Creepy, cracked and bizarrely brilliant, y'all are going to want a serving of a Slice of Cherry once this hits the shelves!
January 5, 2011
Dia Reeves is like a bucket of cold water on YA lit’s face…and I mean that in the best way. Her debut novel, Bleeding Violet, turned paranormal inside out and made it fascinating, in a sexy and gruesome sort of way. Her sophomore novel, SLICE OF CHERRY, is like a twisted childhood fantasy come true. Which is to say that I LOVED it.
As she did in Bleeding Violet, Dia kind of simply throws readers to the wolves and makes you fight to understand and be sympathetic to what’s going on in the story. In a world where some YA writers seem to “baby” their readers, this is a refreshing challenge. Things are not outright explained to us, but rather allowed to unfold gradually over the course of the book’s many pages. SLICE OF CHERRY focuses greatly on the horrors of the human psyche. I mean, Portero is weird enough on its own, but Kit and Fancy’s sociopathic behavior could technically happen in any normal American town, which is the truly creepy part of this novel.
The characters in SLICE OF CHERRY are fantastically messed up, definitely out there in a caricature-like but still completely understandable way. Little time is wasted on backstory, on explanations of what made the girls the way they are. Instead, they—especially Fancy—believe so thoroughly in their oddness that they leave us no room to question how they came to be that way…and that was totally fine with me. We don’t need complicated psychiatric explanations because they are so fully realized, their bizarreness so beyond our comprehension of typical human behavior that they successfully straddle the line between the real and the macabre.
SLICE OF CHERRY is in a genre all its own. If Bleeding Violet didn’t convince me that Dia is a genius, then this book most definitely did. This book will appeal to anyone who has even a pinch of darkness to them, who ever felt like they were weird and enjoyed things that no one else seems to.
As she did in Bleeding Violet, Dia kind of simply throws readers to the wolves and makes you fight to understand and be sympathetic to what’s going on in the story. In a world where some YA writers seem to “baby” their readers, this is a refreshing challenge. Things are not outright explained to us, but rather allowed to unfold gradually over the course of the book’s many pages. SLICE OF CHERRY focuses greatly on the horrors of the human psyche. I mean, Portero is weird enough on its own, but Kit and Fancy’s sociopathic behavior could technically happen in any normal American town, which is the truly creepy part of this novel.
The characters in SLICE OF CHERRY are fantastically messed up, definitely out there in a caricature-like but still completely understandable way. Little time is wasted on backstory, on explanations of what made the girls the way they are. Instead, they—especially Fancy—believe so thoroughly in their oddness that they leave us no room to question how they came to be that way…and that was totally fine with me. We don’t need complicated psychiatric explanations because they are so fully realized, their bizarreness so beyond our comprehension of typical human behavior that they successfully straddle the line between the real and the macabre.
SLICE OF CHERRY is in a genre all its own. If Bleeding Violet didn’t convince me that Dia is a genius, then this book most definitely did. This book will appeal to anyone who has even a pinch of darkness to them, who ever felt like they were weird and enjoyed things that no one else seems to.
August 8, 2012
WOW! When it comes to Dia's writing I become speechless. She has a way of capturing her readers, in a dark and disturbing way, which I personally love.
Slice of Cherry WAS dark and disturbing, but also had some deep meaning. The relationship between two sisters, though extremely off kilter, had such a deep bond, that no one could come between. And if Fancy was ever threatened off losing her sister, Kit, she would be sure to rid that person of their life. Or at least from the real world. Fancy and Kit are daughters of the Bonesaw Killer, a serial killer and when their dad gets taken away to prison, the killings don't stop.
There isn't much I can say about this book without giving anything away. Let's just say that it's like your reading your worst nightmare. You just have to read it.
If you enjoy Dia's writing and have read Bleeding Violet, you'll LOVE Slice of Cherry. I always say that I am a Dia fan for life, but if you read her books, I know you would be too. She brings something entirely different to the YA genre. It's difficult to put thoughts about her books into words.
Slice of Cherry WAS dark and disturbing, but also had some deep meaning. The relationship between two sisters, though extremely off kilter, had such a deep bond, that no one could come between. And if Fancy was ever threatened off losing her sister, Kit, she would be sure to rid that person of their life. Or at least from the real world. Fancy and Kit are daughters of the Bonesaw Killer, a serial killer and when their dad gets taken away to prison, the killings don't stop.
There isn't much I can say about this book without giving anything away. Let's just say that it's like your reading your worst nightmare. You just have to read it.
If you enjoy Dia's writing and have read Bleeding Violet, you'll LOVE Slice of Cherry. I always say that I am a Dia fan for life, but if you read her books, I know you would be too. She brings something entirely different to the YA genre. It's difficult to put thoughts about her books into words.
June 10, 2019
It took me a week to get through this book... it just wasn't what I was expecting. The premise sounded so good, but I feel like it wasn't the book that the summary described (can I get that book, please?)
September 29, 2015
I didn't like this as much as Bleeding Violet. It got a bit repetitive, it wasn't as psychologically incisive (or else it was using metaphors that didn't resonate with me as much), and there wasn't as much general Portero wackiness in it, somehow. However, it grew on me and improved to three stars by the end.
February 12, 2012
ready... set... die awkwardly.
so when I was 15 in spanish class we had to write a story about a super hero. I wrote a story about a girl who had no friend except for her dog and her super power was depressing people into killing themselves (really and no one thought this was a cry for help?). This book is kind of like that. it's written in a voice that sounds like a child but a demented child. I have a friend whose daughter when I met her explained to me how to make a clown pizza, this requires killing a clown and then grating up it's nose for cheese and using it's blood for sauce etc, you get the picture, that is also just like this book.
This book is sad, but it's also interesting and weird. there are like all these sad things the characters are living in the middle of, but nice things are happening to the characters. Except for the fact that terrible things happened to them before the book started. It feel culturally that it comes out of that down south, louisiana, voodoo stories kind of tradition, I'm not sure how it got there but it certainly seems to have jumped the fence into such a location.
The content seems inappropriate for a teen book I mean sex and murder and whatnot, but the voice doesn't work on the adult level at all the voice is directed at that 15 year old age. honestly this book seems like it might have gotten a little lost in the woods with hansel and gretel. It's one of those things where I think the same subject could have been written better by someone else.
However, I say all this also knowing this is a very good book and I definitely recommend it.
so when I was 15 in spanish class we had to write a story about a super hero. I wrote a story about a girl who had no friend except for her dog and her super power was depressing people into killing themselves (really and no one thought this was a cry for help?). This book is kind of like that. it's written in a voice that sounds like a child but a demented child. I have a friend whose daughter when I met her explained to me how to make a clown pizza, this requires killing a clown and then grating up it's nose for cheese and using it's blood for sauce etc, you get the picture, that is also just like this book.
This book is sad, but it's also interesting and weird. there are like all these sad things the characters are living in the middle of, but nice things are happening to the characters. Except for the fact that terrible things happened to them before the book started. It feel culturally that it comes out of that down south, louisiana, voodoo stories kind of tradition, I'm not sure how it got there but it certainly seems to have jumped the fence into such a location.
The content seems inappropriate for a teen book I mean sex and murder and whatnot, but the voice doesn't work on the adult level at all the voice is directed at that 15 year old age. honestly this book seems like it might have gotten a little lost in the woods with hansel and gretel. It's one of those things where I think the same subject could have been written better by someone else.
However, I say all this also knowing this is a very good book and I definitely recommend it.
March 23, 2011
Thank you so very much to Tommy for giving me this book. You are the bestest ever.
Dia! I'm going to give your second book two stars, even though I enjoyed parts of it, because you didn't improve on any of the flaws from your first book, Bleeding Violet. Didn't you read my review?!
Plot points were abandoned. Portero was not realized that well in the first book, and especially not enough that it is a lazy excuse to do whatever you feel like doing when you don't have the kahunas or finesse whatever to pull off what you only vaguely (it seems like) know what you're trying to pull off.
Too much was taken for granted based on "craziness" as well as on the fucked up supernatural town of Portero (Texas). In fact, altogether too much hinged on things that were taken for granted as facts of life that were not necessarily so. Genetics? Puhleeeeeze.
Also, I'm way too annoyed that it was okay for every. single. character. to be a homicidal and/or enabler except for the protaganist, Fancy. Um, experiencing growing pains and sibling rivalries and jealousy is NOT a bigger fish to fry than a crazier than a shithouse rat sister who loves nothing better than slicing and dicing people in the cellar!
Framing for murder? Not that bad. Murder? Not that bad. But liking toys at the age of fifteen? OH MY GOD HOW COULD ANYONE BE THAT BAD?!!!! Geez Louiiiiiise.
I wanna put this in Mariel go-to terms but I don't know if anyone (other than Emilie) will get this? In the film Disco Pigs there are two teenaged crazy people. The ending is that the girl (played by Elaine Cassidy) is a-okay now that her playmate is dead. No fucking way am I letting the writer (in that case it was also the director, Kristen Sheridan. My Left Foot Jim's daughter) off the hook with that shit. She was still fucking crazy. A serene beach shot is NOT an ending. A Slice of Cherry did that cop-out, pretty much. Sigh.
Reeves is still funny (pretty much all that Bleeding Violet had going for it). It's a shame that the best parts of the books were just there for jokes (their "fan mail" from people who read in the papers about their killer papa) and left to rot out like big stinking plot hole/untied threads when they weren't useful anymore for gags.
C'mon, you can do better than this. The "we hurt the ones we love" was taken for granted. It would have been better to play out how the girls felt that the rest of the world were toys with wind-up gears on their backs. They liked to bleed people to feel closer, see how they tick? Genetics is not the answer to that. A "Find a way to help people so they'll like you" message! is not the answer to that. I'd rather they had one true connection with another person (that is not just wanting to have sex!) as an answer more than an obvious everybody-fights-with-their-family thing.
Okay, it made me uncomfortable the "It isn't healthy to be close to your sister" storyline. I was forced not to spend time with my twin when I was growing up. My social anxiety had nothing to do with her (it had everything to do with child abuse). I don't know if I would have read this if I'd known that that was the message! of this book... Also, I love me some toys. I kinda wished Fancy told the rest of them to fuck off and ran off into the happy place sunset with Bearzilla.
Films that did better what this book wanted to do:
1. Heavenly Creatures
2. A Tale of Two Sisters (Korean film. NOT the shitty remake)
3. Disco Pigs (great until the bullshit ending)
4. Fun
5. Sister My Sister
There are worse stories too, such as one starring Thora Birch that I'd prefer not to recall. Or the godawful French film from a few years ago (starring that Bond chick) that used "They are twins!" as a reason for all behavior. (Grrrrr!)
(Ignore the obvious Dexter comparisons because that wasn't the real story of the book at all. That was "ooh this sounds like Dexter" book jacket laziness. Also, I've never seen Dexter.)
[If you wanna read about vigilante cool kids, I recommend Santa Olivia. Damn I heart the shit out of that book.]
{Jean Genet also writes about the mystique of murder in an out of our world way that Reeves book didn't even begin to do.}
\I'm out of new brackets./
P.s. I love that they sang Shimmy Shimmy Coco Pop.
P.s.s. I enjoyed reading this book. My annoyance didn't set in towards the latter half when I gave up hope that Reeves will ever listen to me.
----------------
*sob* I didn't win the contest. Now I know what a big fucking loser Susan Lucci felt like every time she lost the daytime Emmy awards. Now I know how Adlai Stevenson felt when he lost the Presidency twice. Or Paul Bryant every time Manny beats him in the best reviewers list on goodreads. I'm a loser! I'm as bitter as Hayley Joel Osment when he lost to Tom Cruise.
They made me take a dive!
Beck's Loser.
I am not made of win. I am made of lose.
---
I'd had my winner's acceptance speech all planned out.
I was gonna wear a black version of this dress:
They were going to play Queen's We are the Champions as I walked to the mailbox to get my package.
I'd dance to Metric's Succexy as I walked back.
Then maybe a Gary Glitter sport's anthem 'cause I'm such a winner that sports teams no longer get their winning song anymore.
Sob!
I'm gonna go listen to some Morrissey...
-----
I wanna win something. I read the first one and it was crazy. Please, please, please let me get what I want. Lord knows it would be the first time.
Fonso sacrificed a chicken. Maybe I should do a spell? By hook or by crook I will win this book!
I will be your best friend! Like these guys! I'll change my name to Dia and we'll be the Dia twins.
Um... hold on a sec. What am I saying? There's tons of loose change in there. Help yourself! All the Canadian coins you could ever want. (Even Han Solo's "quite a bit" of imagined cash.)
Cookies? There isn't one afro hair in them. I promise.
Dia! I'm going to give your second book two stars, even though I enjoyed parts of it, because you didn't improve on any of the flaws from your first book, Bleeding Violet. Didn't you read my review?!
Plot points were abandoned. Portero was not realized that well in the first book, and especially not enough that it is a lazy excuse to do whatever you feel like doing when you don't have the kahunas or finesse whatever to pull off what you only vaguely (it seems like) know what you're trying to pull off.
Too much was taken for granted based on "craziness" as well as on the fucked up supernatural town of Portero (Texas). In fact, altogether too much hinged on things that were taken for granted as facts of life that were not necessarily so. Genetics? Puhleeeeeze.
Also, I'm way too annoyed that it was okay for every. single. character. to be a homicidal and/or enabler except for the protaganist, Fancy. Um, experiencing growing pains and sibling rivalries and jealousy is NOT a bigger fish to fry than a crazier than a shithouse rat sister who loves nothing better than slicing and dicing people in the cellar!
Framing for murder? Not that bad. Murder? Not that bad. But liking toys at the age of fifteen? OH MY GOD HOW COULD ANYONE BE THAT BAD?!!!! Geez Louiiiiiise.
I wanna put this in Mariel go-to terms but I don't know if anyone (other than Emilie) will get this? In the film Disco Pigs there are two teenaged crazy people. The ending is that the girl (played by Elaine Cassidy) is a-okay now that her playmate is dead. No fucking way am I letting the writer (in that case it was also the director, Kristen Sheridan. My Left Foot Jim's daughter) off the hook with that shit. She was still fucking crazy. A serene beach shot is NOT an ending. A Slice of Cherry did that cop-out, pretty much. Sigh.
Reeves is still funny (pretty much all that Bleeding Violet had going for it). It's a shame that the best parts of the books were just there for jokes (their "fan mail" from people who read in the papers about their killer papa) and left to rot out like big stinking plot hole/untied threads when they weren't useful anymore for gags.
C'mon, you can do better than this. The "we hurt the ones we love" was taken for granted. It would have been better to play out how the girls felt that the rest of the world were toys with wind-up gears on their backs. They liked to bleed people to feel closer, see how they tick? Genetics is not the answer to that. A "Find a way to help people so they'll like you" message! is not the answer to that. I'd rather they had one true connection with another person (that is not just wanting to have sex!) as an answer more than an obvious everybody-fights-with-their-family thing.
Okay, it made me uncomfortable the "It isn't healthy to be close to your sister" storyline. I was forced not to spend time with my twin when I was growing up. My social anxiety had nothing to do with her (it had everything to do with child abuse). I don't know if I would have read this if I'd known that that was the message! of this book... Also, I love me some toys. I kinda wished Fancy told the rest of them to fuck off and ran off into the happy place sunset with Bearzilla.
Films that did better what this book wanted to do:
1. Heavenly Creatures
2. A Tale of Two Sisters (Korean film. NOT the shitty remake)
3. Disco Pigs (great until the bullshit ending)
4. Fun
5. Sister My Sister
There are worse stories too, such as one starring Thora Birch that I'd prefer not to recall. Or the godawful French film from a few years ago (starring that Bond chick) that used "They are twins!" as a reason for all behavior. (Grrrrr!)
(Ignore the obvious Dexter comparisons because that wasn't the real story of the book at all. That was "ooh this sounds like Dexter" book jacket laziness. Also, I've never seen Dexter.)
[If you wanna read about vigilante cool kids, I recommend Santa Olivia. Damn I heart the shit out of that book.]
{Jean Genet also writes about the mystique of murder in an out of our world way that Reeves book didn't even begin to do.}
\I'm out of new brackets./
P.s. I love that they sang Shimmy Shimmy Coco Pop.
P.s.s. I enjoyed reading this book. My annoyance didn't set in towards the latter half when I gave up hope that Reeves will ever listen to me.
----------------
*sob* I didn't win the contest. Now I know what a big fucking loser Susan Lucci felt like every time she lost the daytime Emmy awards. Now I know how Adlai Stevenson felt when he lost the Presidency twice. Or Paul Bryant every time Manny beats him in the best reviewers list on goodreads. I'm a loser! I'm as bitter as Hayley Joel Osment when he lost to Tom Cruise.
They made me take a dive!
Beck's Loser.
I am not made of win. I am made of lose.
---
I'd had my winner's acceptance speech all planned out.
I was gonna wear a black version of this dress:
They were going to play Queen's We are the Champions as I walked to the mailbox to get my package.
I'd dance to Metric's Succexy as I walked back.
Then maybe a Gary Glitter sport's anthem 'cause I'm such a winner that sports teams no longer get their winning song anymore.
Sob!
I'm gonna go listen to some Morrissey...
-----
I wanna win something. I read the first one and it was crazy. Please, please, please let me get what I want. Lord knows it would be the first time.
Fonso sacrificed a chicken. Maybe I should do a spell? By hook or by crook I will win this book!
I will be your best friend! Like these guys! I'll change my name to Dia and we'll be the Dia twins.
Um... hold on a sec. What am I saying? There's tons of loose change in there. Help yourself! All the Canadian coins you could ever want. (Even Han Solo's "quite a bit" of imagined cash.)
Cookies? There isn't one afro hair in them. I promise.
October 12, 2012
What the fuck was that?!
As you can see, I did not finish this book. I made it 104 pages in before I had to stop for fear of puking my guts over the bed.
Seriously, this book is nasty.
Instead of writing a proper review, I'm going to bring examples from the book and comment on them
In the beginning of the story, a prowler sneaks into Fancy and Kit's (daughters of a famous serial killer) room, wanting something to sell on Ebay. Kit stabs him and they tie him up in their cellar. Kit is bloodthirsty and has an intense desire to dissect and cut things up. She uses Franken (as they so comically named the prowler because of all the stitches from the cuts they give him) for her cutting pleasure and tortures him every day.
They keep him as their pet.
How the hell does their mother not know about this?!
When I started this book, I originally thought this was going to be in our world, but apparently it takes place in a bizarre town that just happens to get attacked by monsters constantly and the streets run with blood.
Okay.
Why?
I think the story would have been better if it was placed in OUR world, not some poorly described town with monsters in it.
p. 68 "You don't want any kisses from me, do you?"
Fancy faltered, thinking he was talking to her, but Gabriel was staring down at a severed head, frowning at it. He startled her when he jabbed the stick through its eye--it made an unforgettable wet sound.
"It's too bad." Said Gabriel. He used the stick to raise the head to his face; he spoke into its ear. "Real monsters eat you from the inside out."
Oh right, and random severed heads litter the sidewalks too.
P. 79 "Hey Kit." said Gabriel. "Maybe you don't remember me, but I'm Gabe. That's Ilan."
"We know who you are." said Kit cheerfully. "Our dad killed your dad."
That's an interesting way to start a conversation.
I actually like this quote.
P. 85 As the sisters hurried down Seventh Street, Fancy told Kit how Gabriel had behaved outside the music store.
Kid shrugged it off. "Who hasn't picked up a stray head? Remember that time when we were little, when people still liked us? A whole bunch of us found this severed head in a field and played kickball with it?"
"Don't make excuses for him. It's one thing to use somebody's skull as a ball; it's a whole nother thing to be whispering secrets into it's ears. A person's gotta draw the line somewhere, Kit."
Da fuq? PLAYING KICKBALL WITH SOMEONES HEAD ISN'T MUCH BETTER.
P. 90 I've done cooler, freakier things than that. And so have you. Remember that time you made that squirrel eat its own liver?"
You...WHAT?!
Okay, it's one thing to kill and torture a college boy in your basement and play kickball with a skull, but when you make a cute little squirrel EAT ITS OWN LIVER, that's where I draw the fucking line.
The girls are attacked by a rapist, but they outsmart him into stumbling into a field of Ghoul's Delight, which is an immobilizing plant. Kit stabs him with a screwdriver.
P. 96 She jabbed the knife into the left-hand side of the old man's enormous gut. He screamed when the knife went in.
"There." Fancy stood and made an 'after you' gesture to Kit. "Now you can unzip him and see if you really do like evisceration."
Kit squealed and hopped in place like a kid on Christmas. She rolled him onto his side as she yanked up on the hilt of the switchblade, which parted his belly as easily as Moses had parted the Red Sea, and then laughed when Fancy squealed and skipped back with the old man's guts decorating her Mary Janes.
"I wanna unzip something else. Maybe his liver?"
"No he needs that. People can live a long time with their guts hanging out. But livers are important. Cut out his eyes, or sever his fingers. He doesn't need those."
"What does it matter if I cut out his liver and it kills him? We ARE killing him, right?"
"Yes, but I want him alive when the animals come."
"Animals?"
An hour later, the sisters sat in a tree, watching the pack of hogs as they feasted on the old man.
P. 99 Kit burst into the cellar. "Look what I have, Franken!"
She hopped onto the cot where Franken lay pale and still, as if Kit had pulled him out of a drawer at the morgue.
He studied the jar she held to his face, the ear that flopped against the glass as she shook it. "Who's that?"
"Some guy we met on the road who wanted to commit ungentlemanly acts upon my person. We ripped out his guts and let the hogs eat him. But this!" Kit tapped the glass. "This is mine."
And the weird thing is that the college kid actually LIKES Kit, for no reason, even though she cuts him up all the time and keeps him tied up to a cot in their cellar and wants to 'put him out of his misery'. What the fuck?!
There is also no plot whatsoever. I felt like this book was just created as a fun thing the author started playing with once, but it probably shouldn't have been published. Maybe the plot comes in later, but I'm too disgusted to find out.
*sigh* I might return to it eventually. It really sucks because I bought it and wasted $6 on this piece of shit. That might not seem like a lot, but it feels like it when the book turns out to be that bad.
For now;
As you can see, I did not finish this book. I made it 104 pages in before I had to stop for fear of puking my guts over the bed.
Seriously, this book is nasty.
Instead of writing a proper review, I'm going to bring examples from the book and comment on them
In the beginning of the story, a prowler sneaks into Fancy and Kit's (daughters of a famous serial killer) room, wanting something to sell on Ebay. Kit stabs him and they tie him up in their cellar. Kit is bloodthirsty and has an intense desire to dissect and cut things up. She uses Franken (as they so comically named the prowler because of all the stitches from the cuts they give him) for her cutting pleasure and tortures him every day.
They keep him as their pet.
How the hell does their mother not know about this?!
When I started this book, I originally thought this was going to be in our world, but apparently it takes place in a bizarre town that just happens to get attacked by monsters constantly and the streets run with blood.
Okay.
Why?
I think the story would have been better if it was placed in OUR world, not some poorly described town with monsters in it.
p. 68 "You don't want any kisses from me, do you?"
Fancy faltered, thinking he was talking to her, but Gabriel was staring down at a severed head, frowning at it. He startled her when he jabbed the stick through its eye--it made an unforgettable wet sound.
"It's too bad." Said Gabriel. He used the stick to raise the head to his face; he spoke into its ear. "Real monsters eat you from the inside out."
Oh right, and random severed heads litter the sidewalks too.
P. 79 "Hey Kit." said Gabriel. "Maybe you don't remember me, but I'm Gabe. That's Ilan."
"We know who you are." said Kit cheerfully. "Our dad killed your dad."
That's an interesting way to start a conversation.
I actually like this quote.
P. 85 As the sisters hurried down Seventh Street, Fancy told Kit how Gabriel had behaved outside the music store.
Kid shrugged it off. "Who hasn't picked up a stray head? Remember that time when we were little, when people still liked us? A whole bunch of us found this severed head in a field and played kickball with it?"
"Don't make excuses for him. It's one thing to use somebody's skull as a ball; it's a whole nother thing to be whispering secrets into it's ears. A person's gotta draw the line somewhere, Kit."
Da fuq? PLAYING KICKBALL WITH SOMEONES HEAD ISN'T MUCH BETTER.
P. 90 I've done cooler, freakier things than that. And so have you. Remember that time you made that squirrel eat its own liver?"
You...WHAT?!
Okay, it's one thing to kill and torture a college boy in your basement and play kickball with a skull, but when you make a cute little squirrel EAT ITS OWN LIVER, that's where I draw the fucking line.
The girls are attacked by a rapist, but they outsmart him into stumbling into a field of Ghoul's Delight, which is an immobilizing plant. Kit stabs him with a screwdriver.
P. 96 She jabbed the knife into the left-hand side of the old man's enormous gut. He screamed when the knife went in.
"There." Fancy stood and made an 'after you' gesture to Kit. "Now you can unzip him and see if you really do like evisceration."
Kit squealed and hopped in place like a kid on Christmas. She rolled him onto his side as she yanked up on the hilt of the switchblade, which parted his belly as easily as Moses had parted the Red Sea, and then laughed when Fancy squealed and skipped back with the old man's guts decorating her Mary Janes.
"I wanna unzip something else. Maybe his liver?"
"No he needs that. People can live a long time with their guts hanging out. But livers are important. Cut out his eyes, or sever his fingers. He doesn't need those."
"What does it matter if I cut out his liver and it kills him? We ARE killing him, right?"
"Yes, but I want him alive when the animals come."
"Animals?"
An hour later, the sisters sat in a tree, watching the pack of hogs as they feasted on the old man.
P. 99 Kit burst into the cellar. "Look what I have, Franken!"
She hopped onto the cot where Franken lay pale and still, as if Kit had pulled him out of a drawer at the morgue.
He studied the jar she held to his face, the ear that flopped against the glass as she shook it. "Who's that?"
"Some guy we met on the road who wanted to commit ungentlemanly acts upon my person. We ripped out his guts and let the hogs eat him. But this!" Kit tapped the glass. "This is mine."
And the weird thing is that the college kid actually LIKES Kit, for no reason, even though she cuts him up all the time and keeps him tied up to a cot in their cellar and wants to 'put him out of his misery'. What the fuck?!
There is also no plot whatsoever. I felt like this book was just created as a fun thing the author started playing with once, but it probably shouldn't have been published. Maybe the plot comes in later, but I'm too disgusted to find out.
*sigh* I might return to it eventually. It really sucks because I bought it and wasted $6 on this piece of shit. That might not seem like a lot, but it feels like it when the book turns out to be that bad.
For now;
July 25, 2011
Originally reviewed on The Book Smugglers: http://thebooksmugglers.com/2011/07/b...
Happiness is a bloody knife.
At least, it is for Fancy and Kit Cordelle, daughters of the infamous Bonesaw Killer who hacked up over a dozen victims in his home’s cellar before being caught red-handed and sent to prison. The Cordelle sisters keep to themselves, regarded as pariahs in their small hometown of Portero, which suits them just fine. The summer Fancy turns fifteen, however, she and her older sister Kit are forced to interact with others when they attend Juneteenth at Cherry Glade – a ritual for young Porterenes, as they are granted one wish. With her wish, Fancy is finally handed the opportunity to give in to her darkest urges and show everyone just how deep Cordelle blood runs. From squirrels and small animals, Fancy and Kit move on killing to humans, but only those bad men and women that truly deserve their wrath. With Fancy’s gift for opening doors and Kit’s charisma and bloodlust, the sisters soon find themselves the proprietors of a well-renowned business in Portero, even earning the respect and gratitude of their fellow Porterenes. But even as the sisters relish in their killings, they also begin to drift apart and grow up…
Holy moly. I went into this book expecting to be thoroughly engrossed and entertained based on my previous experience with Bleeding Violet, but I wasn’t expecting to come away from the book liking it even more than its predecessor. Slice of Cherry takes the twisted world of Portero and exposes an even darker side of its inhabitants through the eyes of sisters Fancy and Kit. I am quite comfortable in saying that this is what I felt was missing from Bleeding Violet. Slice of Cherry is earnestly macabre, with razor-sharp characterizations in a sugar-sweet coat of moral ambiguity. This is what so-called paranormal or “edgy” YA should aspire to, because there is nothing mundane about this delectable novel from the very talented Ms. Reeves.
Portero is a strange place, where monsters lurk at night, corpses are mundane, and special doors can be opened to other worlds. As introduced in Bleeding Violet, Slice of Cherry expounds upon Portero’s uniqueness, as Fancy is able to create worlds of her own in order to keep herself and the ones she loves safe, or at least from meeting her father’s fate. While the world is familiar (and thoroughly awesome), the thing that truly sets apart Slice of Cherry is its characters. Fancy and Kit are what we “transies” would call sociopaths. Psychotic sociopaths. They suffer from Dexter Morgan syndrome, in that they feel compelled to kill in order to fill an emptiness within, and though they try to only kill those that deserve it (a wicked control freak slowly poisoning her younger sister, an abusive stepfather, a jealous and murder-scheming dancer), they don’t exactly have a sense of morality; they will kill anyone if it pleases them (but then again, this is Portero we are talking about and everyone is a little off-kilter and plays by their own set of rules). Fine, you say. There are a number of books about teenage sociopaths. What makes these two girls any different?
What defines Fancy and Kit is their relationship with each other and the outside world. These two characters are so bizarre, so twisted and removed from any normal semblance of rational human behavior, that their story is immediately believable and not at all cliched (at least, not in this reader’s opinion). There is a level of complete unreliability with Fancy as our protagonist, as she insists that she and her older sister Kit are “practically the same person” – when nothing could be further from the truth. While Kit is charming, loquacious, and the center of attention, Fancy is taciturn and silent, resenting everything and everyone. When Kit becomes more interested in men than her younger sister, their relationship is sorely tested because even though we readers are never force fed background information about what made Kit and Fancy the way they are, it’s clear that Fancy resists change of any kind (even to the point where she wears little girl dresses that cannot fit her changing body), and that she sees her father’s arrest, Madda’s overtime work, and Kit’s falling in love as abandonment. I loved this tension within Fancy’s narration, her frustration and inability to process the changes that occur within and without her. At the same time, Kit’s characterization begins as the dangerous, impulsive and irresponsible one, but over the course of the book it’s clear that Kit’s grip on reality is far more sturdy than Fancy’s. If you ask me, Fancy is the girl to be afraid of. Take this first scene, for example:
The relationship between sisters, especially sisters of a close age, is always fraught with hardship and tensions, even when you throw murderous tendencies and unbridled psychopathy to the mix. As Kit says to Fancy, it’s easy to show a boyfriend how much you love him, but showing a sister is much harder. Just as Bleeding Violet is a character-centric story, so too is Slice of Cherry. It is the coming of age of these two sisters, Fancy in particular, that makes this book so memorable.
That’s not to say the other elements are any less well-written! As always, Ms. Reeves’ prose is dreamlike, strange, and bewitching as she effortlessly tells a story about some rather gory and unsavory subjects in a deceptively blase manner. Be warned that Slice of Cherry is not for the faint of heart as there are numerous disturbing scenes. If you’re looking for an uncomplicated, black-and-white moral story, you’re probably not gonna like Fancy and Kit very much. If you’re looking for traditionalism, or a nicely packaged, formulaic romp, look elsewhere.
But, if you, like me, delight in the absurd and the grotesque; if you’ve ever felt like you just don’t quite adhere to the tastes of the norm; if you like complicated and darkness…well, you might wanna cut yourself off a Slice of Cherry.
Happiness is a bloody knife.
At least, it is for Fancy and Kit Cordelle, daughters of the infamous Bonesaw Killer who hacked up over a dozen victims in his home’s cellar before being caught red-handed and sent to prison. The Cordelle sisters keep to themselves, regarded as pariahs in their small hometown of Portero, which suits them just fine. The summer Fancy turns fifteen, however, she and her older sister Kit are forced to interact with others when they attend Juneteenth at Cherry Glade – a ritual for young Porterenes, as they are granted one wish. With her wish, Fancy is finally handed the opportunity to give in to her darkest urges and show everyone just how deep Cordelle blood runs. From squirrels and small animals, Fancy and Kit move on killing to humans, but only those bad men and women that truly deserve their wrath. With Fancy’s gift for opening doors and Kit’s charisma and bloodlust, the sisters soon find themselves the proprietors of a well-renowned business in Portero, even earning the respect and gratitude of their fellow Porterenes. But even as the sisters relish in their killings, they also begin to drift apart and grow up…
Holy moly. I went into this book expecting to be thoroughly engrossed and entertained based on my previous experience with Bleeding Violet, but I wasn’t expecting to come away from the book liking it even more than its predecessor. Slice of Cherry takes the twisted world of Portero and exposes an even darker side of its inhabitants through the eyes of sisters Fancy and Kit. I am quite comfortable in saying that this is what I felt was missing from Bleeding Violet. Slice of Cherry is earnestly macabre, with razor-sharp characterizations in a sugar-sweet coat of moral ambiguity. This is what so-called paranormal or “edgy” YA should aspire to, because there is nothing mundane about this delectable novel from the very talented Ms. Reeves.
Portero is a strange place, where monsters lurk at night, corpses are mundane, and special doors can be opened to other worlds. As introduced in Bleeding Violet, Slice of Cherry expounds upon Portero’s uniqueness, as Fancy is able to create worlds of her own in order to keep herself and the ones she loves safe, or at least from meeting her father’s fate. While the world is familiar (and thoroughly awesome), the thing that truly sets apart Slice of Cherry is its characters. Fancy and Kit are what we “transies” would call sociopaths. Psychotic sociopaths. They suffer from Dexter Morgan syndrome, in that they feel compelled to kill in order to fill an emptiness within, and though they try to only kill those that deserve it (a wicked control freak slowly poisoning her younger sister, an abusive stepfather, a jealous and murder-scheming dancer), they don’t exactly have a sense of morality; they will kill anyone if it pleases them (but then again, this is Portero we are talking about and everyone is a little off-kilter and plays by their own set of rules). Fine, you say. There are a number of books about teenage sociopaths. What makes these two girls any different?
What defines Fancy and Kit is their relationship with each other and the outside world. These two characters are so bizarre, so twisted and removed from any normal semblance of rational human behavior, that their story is immediately believable and not at all cliched (at least, not in this reader’s opinion). There is a level of complete unreliability with Fancy as our protagonist, as she insists that she and her older sister Kit are “practically the same person” – when nothing could be further from the truth. While Kit is charming, loquacious, and the center of attention, Fancy is taciturn and silent, resenting everything and everyone. When Kit becomes more interested in men than her younger sister, their relationship is sorely tested because even though we readers are never force fed background information about what made Kit and Fancy the way they are, it’s clear that Fancy resists change of any kind (even to the point where she wears little girl dresses that cannot fit her changing body), and that she sees her father’s arrest, Madda’s overtime work, and Kit’s falling in love as abandonment. I loved this tension within Fancy’s narration, her frustration and inability to process the changes that occur within and without her. At the same time, Kit’s characterization begins as the dangerous, impulsive and irresponsible one, but over the course of the book it’s clear that Kit’s grip on reality is far more sturdy than Fancy’s. If you ask me, Fancy is the girl to be afraid of. Take this first scene, for example:
“I know you’re a good person. You didn’t let her kill me. I know you’re good. Please?”
Fancy looked him in his eyes until he stopped babbling and really focused on her, really saw her. When he was quiet she said:
“Daddy’s locked up, so we never see him. Madda had to start working twelve-hour shifts to support us, so we never see her, either. If Kit kills you, they’ll lock her up too, and then I won’t have anybody. That’s the only reason you’re alive. Because if I thought I could do it and not get busted, I’d kill you myself.”
Fancy looked away from the prowler’s horrified stare and finished threading the needle.
“I’m the Bonesaw Killer’s daughter,” she whispered, almost to herself. “Why would you ever think I was good?”
The relationship between sisters, especially sisters of a close age, is always fraught with hardship and tensions, even when you throw murderous tendencies and unbridled psychopathy to the mix. As Kit says to Fancy, it’s easy to show a boyfriend how much you love him, but showing a sister is much harder. Just as Bleeding Violet is a character-centric story, so too is Slice of Cherry. It is the coming of age of these two sisters, Fancy in particular, that makes this book so memorable.
That’s not to say the other elements are any less well-written! As always, Ms. Reeves’ prose is dreamlike, strange, and bewitching as she effortlessly tells a story about some rather gory and unsavory subjects in a deceptively blase manner. Be warned that Slice of Cherry is not for the faint of heart as there are numerous disturbing scenes. If you’re looking for an uncomplicated, black-and-white moral story, you’re probably not gonna like Fancy and Kit very much. If you’re looking for traditionalism, or a nicely packaged, formulaic romp, look elsewhere.
But, if you, like me, delight in the absurd and the grotesque; if you’ve ever felt like you just don’t quite adhere to the tastes of the norm; if you like complicated and darkness…well, you might wanna cut yourself off a Slice of Cherry.
June 8, 2025
I loved the idea of this more than I liked the actual book itself unfortunately. I was expecting angst and suspense and being on the edge of my seat more than I got. The pacing was just kind of off.
The characters felt like they were just kind of there in some instances. There was so much room for growth that just didn't happen and I felt a bit let down by the ending.
thank you to the publisher for the gifted arc
The characters felt like they were just kind of there in some instances. There was so much room for growth that just didn't happen and I felt a bit let down by the ending.
thank you to the publisher for the gifted arc
January 22, 2011
Teen psychopath Narnia. Seriously.
I really wonder if this or Bleeding Violet was written first - there is a cameo here by the characters in Bleeding Violet and this must be set almost a year after BV, but that means nothing about which was actually written first, and this book feels a lot less polished and a lot more incoherent than BV. And I liked it a lot less.
I had a lot of problems with this book:
- the universe and its setup is never explained. Ok. But there is a sort of inconsistency, in some things ( father on death row, notoriety) universes (ours and Portero´s) seem to clash. The barriers of what each universe is, so we know what rules apply, is not too clear.
- there is inconsequentiality (which I think is not a word, but indulge me) to the flow of the plot. A character gets mad or discovers something. But a few pages after there it did not make much difference, or characters is shocked when rediscovers that something more clearly. I am not talking about inconsistency in plot, but of inconsistency of character emotions.
- likability. Now this is personal and as they say mileage will vary. But I did not like Kit and Fancy that much actually. I can like, or at least love reading about, very morally dubious characters, but Kit and Fancy never truly lived for me. Lots of angst and drama and creepy horror stuff. But I do not care. And their love interests were both flat and beyond creepy. Like I mentioned above, the character emotions seem to not make a lot of sense, as regarding plot flow, which means I end up not caring a lot.
- the horror level really is very high at times. The morality is disturbing (euphemism that). It´s not satirical, or even funny enough for me to be able that I can turn off moral judgment. It´s there for kicks and it is not my kick.
I really liked, with some quibbles, BV. This I did not like at all. Not sure if I want to read any third novel or not!
I really wonder if this or Bleeding Violet was written first - there is a cameo here by the characters in Bleeding Violet and this must be set almost a year after BV, but that means nothing about which was actually written first, and this book feels a lot less polished and a lot more incoherent than BV. And I liked it a lot less.
I had a lot of problems with this book:
- the universe and its setup is never explained. Ok. But there is a sort of inconsistency, in some things ( father on death row, notoriety) universes (ours and Portero´s) seem to clash. The barriers of what each universe is, so we know what rules apply, is not too clear.
- there is inconsequentiality (which I think is not a word, but indulge me) to the flow of the plot. A character gets mad or discovers something. But a few pages after there it did not make much difference, or characters is shocked when rediscovers that something more clearly. I am not talking about inconsistency in plot, but of inconsistency of character emotions.
- likability. Now this is personal and as they say mileage will vary. But I did not like Kit and Fancy that much actually. I can like, or at least love reading about, very morally dubious characters, but Kit and Fancy never truly lived for me. Lots of angst and drama and creepy horror stuff. But I do not care. And their love interests were both flat and beyond creepy. Like I mentioned above, the character emotions seem to not make a lot of sense, as regarding plot flow, which means I end up not caring a lot.
- the horror level really is very high at times. The morality is disturbing (euphemism that). It´s not satirical, or even funny enough for me to be able that I can turn off moral judgment. It´s there for kicks and it is not my kick.
I really liked, with some quibbles, BV. This I did not like at all. Not sure if I want to read any third novel or not!
October 22, 2010
[Bilingual Review below]
Not for the faint of heart
I consider myself a lucky person. I’m an avid reader and if a book appeals to me directly, touches my heart, and the characters stay in my head for weeks after I’m done, I usually get in touch with the writer. I take my time and write an email to give them feedback and an explanation of how much that book meant to me and why.
This was the case with Dia Reeves. I loved her first book Bleeding Violet so much that I decided to write to her, explaining all the crazy random thoughts that came to mind while reading the story. Many wonder what I expect in return. Nothing, other than the satisfaction of knowing that the writer knows what her readers are thinking, that her words sparked something in me, made something change inside, made an impression.
Dia took me by surprise answering my email and since then I’ve been following her career very closely as a fan and admirer of the writer I would love to become someday. I said I was lucky before because I got to read one of the three galleys for Dia Reeves’s new book titled, Slice of Cherry. If you were a sucker for Bleeding Violet like me, this book is going to leave you speechless.
Slice of Cherry is not a sequel to Bleeding Violet. The common denominator is that both stories are set in Portero, which is the word for “doorman” in Spanish. Slice of Cherry is the story of the sisters Cordelle, Kit and Fancy. Portero is a really strange town where demons might attack around the block and outsiders (called transies) have little chance of survival in daily activities. There is another dark reason that the town casts the sisters aside. They are the daughters of the infamous Bone Saw Killer. The girls’ father was caught in the act and taken into custody.
For some really strange reason, the sisters feel drawn to the family legacy: the hunt for the victim, toying with them, seducing them into trust, getting “the job” done, enjoying it just as much as their father did. They thrive on their thirst for the kill, the sharpness of the knife, the intrigue of what’s inside, the secrets that come by the hand of death.
Kit and Fancy decide to satisfy their need for killing by all means. But the sisters don’t kill just anyone. Their target? The ones that truly deserve to die. How will they do it without getting caught like their father did? What will they do with the evidence?
While trying to find a solution to their problems, the sisters discover one of many family secrets: a window of opportunity that might make their darkest desires a reality,
Boys always get in the way. In this case, the Turner Brothers. Gabriel speaks his mind too much and turns violent without explanation. On the other hand, Ilan stares at Fancy like he is out on the hunt for her. Like he is her predator. Like he has a big secret. Does he know what the Cordelle Sisters are really doing in their father’s cellar?
Have you ever imagined what’s inside the mind of a serial killer? This is your chance to find out.
I loved Slice of Cherry for many reasons. Dia’s builds an intriguing world where it’s really hard to predict what will happen next. Everything is completely outside of the box and Portero is a Pandora’s box.
This book is not for the fainted-hearted or people who are skittish about blood, guts, dismemberment. The sisters “get their hands dirty” a lot, so beware.
I loved the sisters’ bond, which feels real and true. The way they go about finding their next victim, developing their plans are extremely well thought-out in a way that makes the plot intriguing and the kind of book you can’t get enough of. This book brings fantastic into fantasy.
Get ready for Slice of Cherry. Put it on your wishlist for January 2011, because it’s bound to be one of the most interesting and entertaining books you will read next
* (Spanish) *
Soy una de esas personas que a veces tiene muchisima suerte. Me considero una lectora ávida, y la mayoría de las veces, cuando conecto con una historia, toca mi corazón y me hace pensar en los personajes por semanas después de terminar el libro, trato de contactar al autor. Generalmente por correo electrónico, me tomo mi tiempo, explicando lo que significó leer el libro, la conección de las palabras del autor y los personajes, con mi dia a dia.
Este es el caso con Dia Reeves. Me encantó su primer libro, “Bleeding Violet” “Sangrando Violeta” tanto, que decidí escribirle, explicando todos los pensamientos locos al azar que invadieron mi mente al leer la historia. Muchas personas piensan, “hey”, “¿Por qué en el mundo hiciste eso?” “¿Qué esperás del autor?” Nada, excepto la satisfacción de saber que el escritor sabe lo que sus lector está pensando, que sus palabras provocaron algo nuevo en mí, hicieron una impresión.
Dia me tomó por sorpresa contestando mi correo electrónico, y desde entonces he seguido su carrera de cerca, como una fan y admiradora, ella es definitivamente el tipo de escritora que me gustaría ser algún día.
Me considero suertuda, porque pude leer uno de los 3 de la galleys de su nuevo libro titulado “Slice of Cherry”.”Rebanada de Cereza” si adoraste “Bleeding Violeta”, como yo, este libro te va a dejar sin palabras.
“Slice of Cherry” no sigue la misma historia de “Bleeding Violeta.” ¿Cual es el común denominador de ambas historias? La ciudad Portero.
“Rebanada de Cereza” es la historia de las Hermanas Cordelle, Kit y Fancy. Portero es una ciudad muy extraña, donde demonios pueden atacarte en la calle y los de afuera (transies) tienen pocas posibilidad de supervivencia, en las actividades cotidianas.
Las hermanas son temidas en la ciudad por una razón en Particular.
Son las hijas del infame asesino de la sierra de hueso. El padre de las hermanas ha sido detenido por ser un asesino a sangre fría.
Por alguna razón muy oscura, las hermanas, se sienten atraídas al legado familiar.
La búsqueda de la víctima, seducirlos, ganar su confianza, la planificación del proximo ataque, asesinarlos, y lo disfrutan tanto como su padre hizo por años.
La sed de matar, la nitidez de la navaja, la intriga de lo que hay dentro del cuerpo, los secretos que vienen de la mano de la muerte, las empujan todos los dias en diferentes direcciones.
Kit y Fancy, deciden satisfacer su necesidad de matar por todos los medios. La prisa, la gratificación instantánea. Pero las hermanas no matan a cualquier persona. ¿Su objetivo? Los que realmente merecen morir. ¿El gran inconveniente? ¿Cómo hacerlo sin ser descubierto, como su papá lo hizo? ¿Como esconder la evidencia?
Tratando de encontrar una solución a su reserva las hermanas descubren uno de los secretos mas extraños de su familia. Una ventana de oportunidades que puede hacer los deseos más oscuros de las hermanas una realidad.
No me quiero olvidar de los hermanos. Gabriel dice lo que piensa sin filtros, y se vuelve violento, sin explicación. Por otra parte Ilan, mira de lujo, como si se fuera a la caza para ella. Al igual que él es su depredador. Al igual que él podría estar manteniendo un gran secreto, o que no sabe lo que las Hermanas Cordelle están haciendo en la bodega de su padre?
¿Alguna vez has imaginado lo que está en la mente de un asesino en serie? Esta es tu oportunidad para averiguarlo.
Me encantó “Rebanada de Cereza” por muchas razones. La forma en la que Dia construye la realidad en Portero es muy difícil predecir lo que ocurrirá en las próximas paginas. Portero es una caja de Pandora.
Este libro no es para gente no tienen estomago. Sangre, vísceras, desmembramiento y 101 maneras de matar a alguien, son partes de la historia. Te lo advierto, definitivamente no es para ti, si no te gusta leer asesinatos y no puedes soportar sangre a primera mano. Las hermanas “Se ensucian las manos” muchisimo, así que ten cuidado. Te estoy advirtiendo.
Me encantó la coneción entre las hermanas, se siente real y verdadera. Incluso el hecho de que son, asesinas, y la forma en que va sobre la planifican sus escapadas, las razones por las cuales cometen los asesinatos, y como lo hacen, sin tener que sufrir las consecuencias del crimen.
Prepárate para este libro y agregálo en tu lista de libros para enero de 2011. “Rebanada de Cereza” está destinado a ser uno de los libros más interesantes y entretenidos que leerás el año que viene…
Not for the faint of heart
I consider myself a lucky person. I’m an avid reader and if a book appeals to me directly, touches my heart, and the characters stay in my head for weeks after I’m done, I usually get in touch with the writer. I take my time and write an email to give them feedback and an explanation of how much that book meant to me and why.
This was the case with Dia Reeves. I loved her first book Bleeding Violet so much that I decided to write to her, explaining all the crazy random thoughts that came to mind while reading the story. Many wonder what I expect in return. Nothing, other than the satisfaction of knowing that the writer knows what her readers are thinking, that her words sparked something in me, made something change inside, made an impression.
Dia took me by surprise answering my email and since then I’ve been following her career very closely as a fan and admirer of the writer I would love to become someday. I said I was lucky before because I got to read one of the three galleys for Dia Reeves’s new book titled, Slice of Cherry. If you were a sucker for Bleeding Violet like me, this book is going to leave you speechless.
Slice of Cherry is not a sequel to Bleeding Violet. The common denominator is that both stories are set in Portero, which is the word for “doorman” in Spanish. Slice of Cherry is the story of the sisters Cordelle, Kit and Fancy. Portero is a really strange town where demons might attack around the block and outsiders (called transies) have little chance of survival in daily activities. There is another dark reason that the town casts the sisters aside. They are the daughters of the infamous Bone Saw Killer. The girls’ father was caught in the act and taken into custody.
For some really strange reason, the sisters feel drawn to the family legacy: the hunt for the victim, toying with them, seducing them into trust, getting “the job” done, enjoying it just as much as their father did. They thrive on their thirst for the kill, the sharpness of the knife, the intrigue of what’s inside, the secrets that come by the hand of death.
Kit and Fancy decide to satisfy their need for killing by all means. But the sisters don’t kill just anyone. Their target? The ones that truly deserve to die. How will they do it without getting caught like their father did? What will they do with the evidence?
While trying to find a solution to their problems, the sisters discover one of many family secrets: a window of opportunity that might make their darkest desires a reality,
Boys always get in the way. In this case, the Turner Brothers. Gabriel speaks his mind too much and turns violent without explanation. On the other hand, Ilan stares at Fancy like he is out on the hunt for her. Like he is her predator. Like he has a big secret. Does he know what the Cordelle Sisters are really doing in their father’s cellar?
Have you ever imagined what’s inside the mind of a serial killer? This is your chance to find out.
I loved Slice of Cherry for many reasons. Dia’s builds an intriguing world where it’s really hard to predict what will happen next. Everything is completely outside of the box and Portero is a Pandora’s box.
This book is not for the fainted-hearted or people who are skittish about blood, guts, dismemberment. The sisters “get their hands dirty” a lot, so beware.
I loved the sisters’ bond, which feels real and true. The way they go about finding their next victim, developing their plans are extremely well thought-out in a way that makes the plot intriguing and the kind of book you can’t get enough of. This book brings fantastic into fantasy.
Get ready for Slice of Cherry. Put it on your wishlist for January 2011, because it’s bound to be one of the most interesting and entertaining books you will read next
* (Spanish) *
Soy una de esas personas que a veces tiene muchisima suerte. Me considero una lectora ávida, y la mayoría de las veces, cuando conecto con una historia, toca mi corazón y me hace pensar en los personajes por semanas después de terminar el libro, trato de contactar al autor. Generalmente por correo electrónico, me tomo mi tiempo, explicando lo que significó leer el libro, la conección de las palabras del autor y los personajes, con mi dia a dia.
Este es el caso con Dia Reeves. Me encantó su primer libro, “Bleeding Violet” “Sangrando Violeta” tanto, que decidí escribirle, explicando todos los pensamientos locos al azar que invadieron mi mente al leer la historia. Muchas personas piensan, “hey”, “¿Por qué en el mundo hiciste eso?” “¿Qué esperás del autor?” Nada, excepto la satisfacción de saber que el escritor sabe lo que sus lector está pensando, que sus palabras provocaron algo nuevo en mí, hicieron una impresión.
Dia me tomó por sorpresa contestando mi correo electrónico, y desde entonces he seguido su carrera de cerca, como una fan y admiradora, ella es definitivamente el tipo de escritora que me gustaría ser algún día.
Me considero suertuda, porque pude leer uno de los 3 de la galleys de su nuevo libro titulado “Slice of Cherry”.”Rebanada de Cereza” si adoraste “Bleeding Violeta”, como yo, este libro te va a dejar sin palabras.
“Slice of Cherry” no sigue la misma historia de “Bleeding Violeta.” ¿Cual es el común denominador de ambas historias? La ciudad Portero.
“Rebanada de Cereza” es la historia de las Hermanas Cordelle, Kit y Fancy. Portero es una ciudad muy extraña, donde demonios pueden atacarte en la calle y los de afuera (transies) tienen pocas posibilidad de supervivencia, en las actividades cotidianas.
Las hermanas son temidas en la ciudad por una razón en Particular.
Son las hijas del infame asesino de la sierra de hueso. El padre de las hermanas ha sido detenido por ser un asesino a sangre fría.
Por alguna razón muy oscura, las hermanas, se sienten atraídas al legado familiar.
La búsqueda de la víctima, seducirlos, ganar su confianza, la planificación del proximo ataque, asesinarlos, y lo disfrutan tanto como su padre hizo por años.
La sed de matar, la nitidez de la navaja, la intriga de lo que hay dentro del cuerpo, los secretos que vienen de la mano de la muerte, las empujan todos los dias en diferentes direcciones.
Kit y Fancy, deciden satisfacer su necesidad de matar por todos los medios. La prisa, la gratificación instantánea. Pero las hermanas no matan a cualquier persona. ¿Su objetivo? Los que realmente merecen morir. ¿El gran inconveniente? ¿Cómo hacerlo sin ser descubierto, como su papá lo hizo? ¿Como esconder la evidencia?
Tratando de encontrar una solución a su reserva las hermanas descubren uno de los secretos mas extraños de su familia. Una ventana de oportunidades que puede hacer los deseos más oscuros de las hermanas una realidad.
No me quiero olvidar de los hermanos. Gabriel dice lo que piensa sin filtros, y se vuelve violento, sin explicación. Por otra parte Ilan, mira de lujo, como si se fuera a la caza para ella. Al igual que él es su depredador. Al igual que él podría estar manteniendo un gran secreto, o que no sabe lo que las Hermanas Cordelle están haciendo en la bodega de su padre?
¿Alguna vez has imaginado lo que está en la mente de un asesino en serie? Esta es tu oportunidad para averiguarlo.
Me encantó “Rebanada de Cereza” por muchas razones. La forma en la que Dia construye la realidad en Portero es muy difícil predecir lo que ocurrirá en las próximas paginas. Portero es una caja de Pandora.
Este libro no es para gente no tienen estomago. Sangre, vísceras, desmembramiento y 101 maneras de matar a alguien, son partes de la historia. Te lo advierto, definitivamente no es para ti, si no te gusta leer asesinatos y no puedes soportar sangre a primera mano. Las hermanas “Se ensucian las manos” muchisimo, así que ten cuidado. Te estoy advirtiendo.
Me encantó la coneción entre las hermanas, se siente real y verdadera. Incluso el hecho de que son, asesinas, y la forma en que va sobre la planifican sus escapadas, las razones por las cuales cometen los asesinatos, y como lo hacen, sin tener que sufrir las consecuencias del crimen.
Prepárate para este libro y agregálo en tu lista de libros para enero de 2011. “Rebanada de Cereza” está destinado a ser uno de los libros más interesantes y entretenidos que leerás el año que viene…
June 21, 2025
2025 reads: 149/300
i received a digital review copy from the publisher as part of their influencer program. this did not affect my rating.
kit and fancy are the daughters of the infamous bonesaw killer, which has led to them feeling like outsiders. in portero, though, they’re far from being the most dangerous creatures around. they begin offering their services so they can satiate their hunger to kill—only the people who deserve it, of course. if they learned one thing from their father, it’s to never leave a shred of evidence. so, when fancy stumbles upon a doorway to another world, it creates endless possibilities.
i can’t believe i hadn’t heard of this book before now! this was originally published in 2011 and has now been reissued in 2025. since i didn’t read the original edition, i can’t compare the two. i will say that i love the new cover so i’m glad for that, at least!
now, i must admit i was very intrigued by the premise of two sisters—daughters of a serial killer, no less—providing a killing service to get rid of abusers and the like. with a premise like that, i was so excited to dive in. safe to say this did not disappoint! i enjoyed so much about this book, from the sisters’ messy relationship with each other, to their messy relationships with other people, to the murder itself, and more. the writing style didn’t completely click with me, but i did enjoy it in some ways. i’d recommend this book, and i will be looking into other books by dia reeves!
i received a digital review copy from the publisher as part of their influencer program. this did not affect my rating.
kit and fancy are the daughters of the infamous bonesaw killer, which has led to them feeling like outsiders. in portero, though, they’re far from being the most dangerous creatures around. they begin offering their services so they can satiate their hunger to kill—only the people who deserve it, of course. if they learned one thing from their father, it’s to never leave a shred of evidence. so, when fancy stumbles upon a doorway to another world, it creates endless possibilities.
i can’t believe i hadn’t heard of this book before now! this was originally published in 2011 and has now been reissued in 2025. since i didn’t read the original edition, i can’t compare the two. i will say that i love the new cover so i’m glad for that, at least!
now, i must admit i was very intrigued by the premise of two sisters—daughters of a serial killer, no less—providing a killing service to get rid of abusers and the like. with a premise like that, i was so excited to dive in. safe to say this did not disappoint! i enjoyed so much about this book, from the sisters’ messy relationship with each other, to their messy relationships with other people, to the murder itself, and more. the writing style didn’t completely click with me, but i did enjoy it in some ways. i’d recommend this book, and i will be looking into other books by dia reeves!
November 1, 2017
What in the...? No.
I needed a horror book to fill out a Halloween challenge and loaded this on to my iPod, totally forgetting that it was also tagged fantasy. I enjoyed the first 10 minutes or so, until I realized this was set in a fantasy world and it was super weird and confusing. Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy and it's my favorite genre, but the Portero world was missing any type of structure. Fantasy worlds tend to have pretty strict guidelines - this is where it takes place, this type of magic exists, these creatures exist - and explanations are supposed to be given when needed. But it was as if the author just decided this sounds cool and how about this with no rhyme or reason, so there was no world building to speak of. Why are there deadly monsters that reside in Portero? How are these magical doorways opened and where do they lead? Why do certain characters have special gifts and others don't? Why does anyone even live in this shithole town when it's literally the only paranormal (not to mention super dangerous) town that exists in the universe? As the reader you just have to accept that this is the way things are and you'll never know why.
Then there's the fact that Kit and Fancy just fucking suck as characters. One is an impulsive murderer and the other is a low-key type of crazy, which I guess is supposed to make them a good team. Instead it just causes them to argue all the time, regardless of the infinite amount of times they mention how the other is the only person who matters besides their mother. They freak out about having to go out in public and be around people because they want to spend summer just the two of them being weirdos, but then they see two cute brothers and well, that goes out the window. Ain't love grand? And while we're on the subject, why does Kit's hostage inexplicably fall in love with her? It can't even be blamed on Stockholm Syndrome because he was being sliced and stitched on the daily and that doesn't happen.
I know a lot of people are calling this gruesome and horrific, but it was so silly and exaggerated that I couldn't make myself view it that way. I guess it's the way I feel when I watch Evil Dead, like is there anyone out there who was ever actually scared by that movie??? I do think that the book reads more adult than YA, despite the characters ages, but I don't think this book would appeal to anyone in the right age range for it either. Too bad this wasn't a horror/thriller book like I thought because it had the potential to be great.
I think I would have DNF'd this if I wasn't able to finish it so quickly and had no time to start another horror book. The one positive is that the narration was pretty good and I was able to speed it up and cut a couple hours off the total time.
I needed a horror book to fill out a Halloween challenge and loaded this on to my iPod, totally forgetting that it was also tagged fantasy. I enjoyed the first 10 minutes or so, until I realized this was set in a fantasy world and it was super weird and confusing. Don't get me wrong, I love fantasy and it's my favorite genre, but the Portero world was missing any type of structure. Fantasy worlds tend to have pretty strict guidelines - this is where it takes place, this type of magic exists, these creatures exist - and explanations are supposed to be given when needed. But it was as if the author just decided this sounds cool and how about this with no rhyme or reason, so there was no world building to speak of. Why are there deadly monsters that reside in Portero? How are these magical doorways opened and where do they lead? Why do certain characters have special gifts and others don't? Why does anyone even live in this shithole town when it's literally the only paranormal (not to mention super dangerous) town that exists in the universe? As the reader you just have to accept that this is the way things are and you'll never know why.
Then there's the fact that Kit and Fancy just fucking suck as characters. One is an impulsive murderer and the other is a low-key type of crazy, which I guess is supposed to make them a good team. Instead it just causes them to argue all the time, regardless of the infinite amount of times they mention how the other is the only person who matters besides their mother. They freak out about having to go out in public and be around people because they want to spend summer just the two of them being weirdos, but then they see two cute brothers and well, that goes out the window. Ain't love grand? And while we're on the subject, why does Kit's hostage inexplicably fall in love with her? It can't even be blamed on Stockholm Syndrome because he was being sliced and stitched on the daily and that doesn't happen.
I know a lot of people are calling this gruesome and horrific, but it was so silly and exaggerated that I couldn't make myself view it that way. I guess it's the way I feel when I watch Evil Dead, like is there anyone out there who was ever actually scared by that movie??? I do think that the book reads more adult than YA, despite the characters ages, but I don't think this book would appeal to anyone in the right age range for it either. Too bad this wasn't a horror/thriller book like I thought because it had the potential to be great.
I think I would have DNF'd this if I wasn't able to finish it so quickly and had no time to start another horror book. The one positive is that the narration was pretty good and I was able to speed it up and cut a couple hours off the total time.
January 29, 2025
"Sorry about trying to kill you back there. Nothing personal."
"I know. You're like rottweilers--they protect you from burglars, but nothing protects you from them."
In celebration of the 2025 re-release, I revisited this book after 10+ years--10+ years of having it pop up in my brain, reminding me that it would be nice, wouldn't it, to write things that are weirder, gorier, more creative and far more senseless. And I'm honestly not sure if I can say that I liked it.
But.
Those 10 years were also full of me reading a lot of mainstream YA (and loving a lot of it, promise!). So I can certainly say that I'm grateful for Slice of Cherry. It stands out as so fucking weird and carelessly messy, both qualities I'm kinda desperate for.
I was drawn to Slice of Cherry for the exact reasons the negative reviews here hate it. As an #edgy teen looking for things that pushed the envelope, I loved that it was so disgusting, creatively disgusting, full of candy-coated gore with characters who so completely did not give a shit, who slaughtered as a form of love. Knives, blood, guts, and ooky-spooky adult themes everywhere with pedophiles and underage sex and serial killers. As an adult who forgets so much of what she reads now, I loved that it was so off-kilter and the kooky worldbuilding wasn't explained at all and I kept thinking, this is kind of a total tonal mess and some of these decisions are infuriating and I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel, but I love that it's a mess.
Is it a great book? Can't say. But I'm so glad that back in 2011 YA of all eras, an agent and an editor took a serious chance on this. I want publishing to take more chances. I want more Slice of Cherrys and I want them yesterday.
Silence, and then Fancy asked: "Do you know the real me?"
"You're fifteen. I don't know if there is a real you."
June 1, 2016
Seriously, I get why a lot of people don't like Dia Reeves, she's creepy, you find yourself liking her characters even though they are psycho.... but I have to say I love them. I have a younger sister so she enjoyed listening to this too, it was eerie and weird and we all understand what Fancy is going through when Kit pulls away.
**The narrator is amazing, I plan to see what else she narrates. I want more Potero I WANT MORE!!!!!
**The narrator is amazing, I plan to see what else she narrates. I want more Potero I WANT MORE!!!!!
August 23, 2018
It's a no from me, dawg.
This book was so all over the place. I really wanted to like this one.
This book was so all over the place. I really wanted to like this one.
August 23, 2020
So strange. Some parts I thoroughly enjoyed, some parts weren't for me.
September 13, 2011
I just love it. The book is amazing! It’s about the Cordelle sisters; Kit and Fancy. Living their life as normally as it would be, for they are known as the Bonesaw Killer’s daughters, the most bloody murderer I town. Kit and Fancy, are hardly the oddest or most dangerous creatures around town. They love to kill, knives are their accessory and toys, they love to collect body parts, open people’s bodies like they’re giving them a surgery. It’s a hobby, it’s just for fun.
These two girls aren’t the kind of people you wanna mess with, or else, you’ll be dead meat. They’re mysterious and beautiful, hot sisters. (But hell, looks can be deceiving) and always have that desire to kill, and murder, like it’s just nothing. Fancy and Kit have very different personalities; Kit is very arrogant, smart and always acts as the boss. She has the loud voice and the one who’s always the first to cut, slice people’s bodies. She’s more evil than Fancy. She dresses like she’s going to parties and get laid. While Fancy is the total opposite. She has that sweet voice like a small kid. She dresses small clothes and looks like a doll. She’s very calm, reserved and quiet. But the truth is, Fancy is much evil than Kit. Read the book to know why, like I said, looks can be deceiving.
Check out my full review in my blog here
These two girls aren’t the kind of people you wanna mess with, or else, you’ll be dead meat. They’re mysterious and beautiful, hot sisters. (But hell, looks can be deceiving) and always have that desire to kill, and murder, like it’s just nothing. Fancy and Kit have very different personalities; Kit is very arrogant, smart and always acts as the boss. She has the loud voice and the one who’s always the first to cut, slice people’s bodies. She’s more evil than Fancy. She dresses like she’s going to parties and get laid. While Fancy is the total opposite. She has that sweet voice like a small kid. She dresses small clothes and looks like a doll. She’s very calm, reserved and quiet. But the truth is, Fancy is much evil than Kit. Read the book to know why, like I said, looks can be deceiving.
Check out my full review in my blog here
April 14, 2014
You know how when you stab people, it's like plugging into them? You feel their hearts beating; you feel their blood flowing. You see their struggle for life, and in that moment they start to seem real and like windup toys.
I did not like this book as much as I'd hoped I would, but it was never difficult to read, in fact I tore through it. The chapters are fairly short, the prose is simple without being overtly so, but with some lovely turns of phrase and pieces of imagery here and there. There's some interesting coming-of-age stuff here that gets a little creepy later on with all the teenagers having sex stuff, but overall this was a quick, easy read that was unique enough to stand out in a sea of dystopian ya novels. As I read it I kept thinking, this is what would happen if Francesca Lia Block had a bad trip on shrooms.
But I am well, well past my "I'm just so ~fascinated~ by serial killers!" phase that I feel everybody who's even slightly weird goes through, and that made sympathizing with the two leads often very difficult. It gets a little easier later on when the girls start targeting people who have, at least, done something wrong, and mostly leave innocent people alone (mostly). (I'm not super enamoured with the Hannibal #eattherude thing either.) I'm just not sure about the message this book is sending about violent revenge, specifically how it's handled later in the case of incestuous sexual abuse.
The truth of the matter is: there is no such thing as emotional catharsis. Screaming and breaking crockery only makes you angrier. Sobbing and listening to sad music only makes you sadder. And I don't think torturing and/or killing your abuser heals any emotional wounds; it wouldn't for me, and certainly not in such an immediate and complete way as it seems to do for the characters in this book. Then again, it's just a book, and a book about a relationship between two sisters as they grow up, and not a novel exploring the complicated healing processes of abuse survivors, so... I mean, I knew what I signed up for, and faulting this book for being a little one-dimensional in that regard is like getting pissed that Carrie wasn't an accurate portrayal of bullying.
I saw other reviewers complaining about the worldbuilding in this, or rather the lack of it, but I didn't mind it so much because the non-explanation felt like a deliberate choice rather than a lack of thought. Portero is a mysterious town somewhere in Texas that people from the surrounding towns don't necessarily believe even exists, because the townspeople are so strange and insular and hardly anyone ever leaves. Monsters are a fact of life — and not the fun, sexy kind, but the disfigured, flesh-eating kind that burst out of the ground and wreck entire city blocks with such regularity that everyone in town just kind of shrugs and moves on. Strange things happen and people in Portero take it for granted that that's just The Way Things Are.
There are definitely different kinds of worldbuilding; for instance there's the Tolkien, where every little detail is meticulously plotted out in advance, including long studies on trivial details intended to flesh out the world even more and make it seem real. The sub-class of this is the Rowling, where the author does this kind of world-building on the fly, and usually ends up writing themselves in a corner they have to Deus Ex Machina their way out of; it seldom stands up to scrutiny. (I am not a Harry Potter fan, and I hate the worldbuilding.) Then there's the Jargon. We've all read these books, where worldbuilding is reduced to a Series of Random and usually capitalised Nouns that are often not very Well Defined. Everything has a specific stupid name for it, and the concepts in those books are usually the same as real life, just swapped out with different terminology. I can pick out a dozen of these on my shelves.
Then there's books like Slice of Cherry, which offer almost no explanation for the ways in which the book's world clearly differs from ours; things just are, and it works. It works because Reeves doesn't bog the book down trying to over-explain the magic away with pseudoscience that would just eliminate your suspension of disbelief. It doesn't matter why the monsters are there. It doesn't matter how Fancy and Kit are able to go into a magic otherworld through a kinetoscope which they can trap people in. They just can, and now let's move on and discuss something more interesting than minutiae, please.
Overall, this is a really imaginative and solid effort that never bored me or left me skimming pages as other books lately have. The romance is weird enough to be tolerable. There's a Mystery that is genuinely a mystery and not the author just withholding information and artificially dragging the plot out, only to reveal it all at the last minute. It is admittedly quite satisfying to see two teenage girls unrepentantly murder a rapist. I'm definitely checking out this author's other works.
"I'm not innocent," said Fancy without thinking, moved by the shop owner's lurid confession. "Maybe that's why they hate us. For reminding them that innocence is just an illusion, and that if you scratch the surface, we're dark and maggoty all the way down to the bone. We're animals, and we're guilty — every one of us."
September 23, 2020
Twisted and gruesome are the words that come to mind when describing this book. These two sisters are psychotic, and the daughters of the Bonesaw Killer, who is in prison on death row. The author is ingenious in crafting this world. This is not for the faint of heart or anyone who does not like graphic, gory details. It is a coming of age in a weird way, and I can see why the young adult crowd may love this.
September 29, 2023
Slow start and then I didn't know if I liked it. But I kept going back and getting more and more invested!! This was not at all what I was expecting to read and I mean that in the best way. Would definitely read another book by Dia Reeves.
March 12, 2011
I didn't expect to laugh so much reading a book about the teen daughters of a serial killer. What a treat! I know there are people out there who will only be horrified by the plot and not amused, but believe me, if they're not laughing, they just didn't get the jokes.
Fancy and her older sister, Kit, live in Portero, a place not your average American town. Careless residents and ignorant visitors are routinely devoured by any number of monsters, their bloody remains left scattered in the street. As Kit says, "Who hasn't come across a stray head at some point?" Fancy and Kit are the socially ostracized daughters of the Bonesaw Killer, who's on death row. They seem to have inherited his lust for blood. In the first two pages Kit stabs an intruder to their home. She and Fancy drag him down into their father's cellar and torture him for amusement. Later their reputations begin to improve when they turn their killing talents to the truly deserving. Desperate people write letters pleading for the girls to get rid of troublesome foes, and the girls are only too happy to oblige. Fancy's other great gift (other than murder) is her ability to use reflective surfaces to see far distances. She visits her father on death row using this method. In addition she has the ability to take herself and others into a place of her own creation, the Happy Place. There she can make anything she imagines actually happen. Of course the things Fancy imagines are often violent and bloody, which only makes the moniker "The Happy Place" funnier and funnier as the book goes on, especially since it's the place she and Kit use to get rid of the bodies that begin to pile up.
Fancy thinks she only needs Kit and her mother, Madda. (Madda has no idea her daughters are engaging in multiple murders and the girls fight to keep her in the dark.) Everything's fine until Kit develops a crush on an unbalanced boy who just happens to be the son of the Bonesaw Killer's last victim. ("We know who you are," said Kit cheerfully. "Our dad killed your dad.") Fancy assumes the relationship is doomed, but to her dismay Kit and Gabe get hot and heavy,turning Fancy into the anguished third wheel. Then Gabe's older brother, Ilan, expresses interest in Fancy, his crush complicated by the fact that Fancy is actively plotting to kill Gabe. Fancy doesn't want to be with Ilan because she doesn't want to grow up. She still dresses like a little girl and she's fighting adolescence tooth and nail--and with knives, murder and mayhem, of course. In large part, this book is about growing pains, sisterhood, and accepting the inevitability of change. The relationship between Fancy and Kit is one of the best and most unusual (yet very recognizable) portraits of sisterhood I have ever read.
The violence is extreme, though it's stated in such a straightforward manner that it's really quite funny. Yes, there's blood and guts, eviscerations and stabbings, and even a scene in which hogs devour a man's body. But these things are not described in great detail, just stated matter-of-factly, the way things happen in Portero. There's also much discussion of sex and many sexual jokes (most of which Fancy doesn't get since she's determined to hold on to her childlike innocence in that realm.) Violence, sex, monsters and murder--many people would cry that this is not a book for teens. It is for teens. Probably older ones. Probably not the Twilight crowd. But it's for teens because it's also about growing up, finding first romance, and figuring out who you are and who you want to be. I loved this book and I'm happy to find out there is a companion novel, Bleeding Violet, which was published first.
Slice of Cherry won't be every reader's slice of pie, but it was definitely mine.
Fancy and her older sister, Kit, live in Portero, a place not your average American town. Careless residents and ignorant visitors are routinely devoured by any number of monsters, their bloody remains left scattered in the street. As Kit says, "Who hasn't come across a stray head at some point?" Fancy and Kit are the socially ostracized daughters of the Bonesaw Killer, who's on death row. They seem to have inherited his lust for blood. In the first two pages Kit stabs an intruder to their home. She and Fancy drag him down into their father's cellar and torture him for amusement. Later their reputations begin to improve when they turn their killing talents to the truly deserving. Desperate people write letters pleading for the girls to get rid of troublesome foes, and the girls are only too happy to oblige. Fancy's other great gift (other than murder) is her ability to use reflective surfaces to see far distances. She visits her father on death row using this method. In addition she has the ability to take herself and others into a place of her own creation, the Happy Place. There she can make anything she imagines actually happen. Of course the things Fancy imagines are often violent and bloody, which only makes the moniker "The Happy Place" funnier and funnier as the book goes on, especially since it's the place she and Kit use to get rid of the bodies that begin to pile up.
Fancy thinks she only needs Kit and her mother, Madda. (Madda has no idea her daughters are engaging in multiple murders and the girls fight to keep her in the dark.) Everything's fine until Kit develops a crush on an unbalanced boy who just happens to be the son of the Bonesaw Killer's last victim. ("We know who you are," said Kit cheerfully. "Our dad killed your dad.") Fancy assumes the relationship is doomed, but to her dismay Kit and Gabe get hot and heavy,turning Fancy into the anguished third wheel. Then Gabe's older brother, Ilan, expresses interest in Fancy, his crush complicated by the fact that Fancy is actively plotting to kill Gabe. Fancy doesn't want to be with Ilan because she doesn't want to grow up. She still dresses like a little girl and she's fighting adolescence tooth and nail--and with knives, murder and mayhem, of course. In large part, this book is about growing pains, sisterhood, and accepting the inevitability of change. The relationship between Fancy and Kit is one of the best and most unusual (yet very recognizable) portraits of sisterhood I have ever read.
The violence is extreme, though it's stated in such a straightforward manner that it's really quite funny. Yes, there's blood and guts, eviscerations and stabbings, and even a scene in which hogs devour a man's body. But these things are not described in great detail, just stated matter-of-factly, the way things happen in Portero. There's also much discussion of sex and many sexual jokes (most of which Fancy doesn't get since she's determined to hold on to her childlike innocence in that realm.) Violence, sex, monsters and murder--many people would cry that this is not a book for teens. It is for teens. Probably older ones. Probably not the Twilight crowd. But it's for teens because it's also about growing up, finding first romance, and figuring out who you are and who you want to be. I loved this book and I'm happy to find out there is a companion novel, Bleeding Violet, which was published first.
Slice of Cherry won't be every reader's slice of pie, but it was definitely mine.
January 4, 2011
Rating: 3.5
After finishing Slice of Cherry, it took me a few days to digest it. It was necessary for me to pull my thoughts together before I wrote this review. I finally concluded that Slice of Cherry's gory and murderous aspects contributed a grade of gritty excellence. While, the out of this world deliverance was just plain weird. Don't get me wrong, I love twisted stories, I just found this one to have a lot of "what the hell just happened" moments even after all the hilarious elements. Now, I immensely enjoyed getting to know the mentally deranged sisters. I mean these girls were on a different wavelength than most people. Kit started out as a bubbly character with killing spree tendencies. In contrast, Fancy's time revolved around preventing Kit from following in her father's footsteps which simmered her urges. I don't necessarily blame them for acting this way since their father was after all Portero's bonesaw killer.
As time went on, I was curiously intrigued in the sister's mindset change. Also, the boy interests presented with the Turner brothers helped spice up the lack of romance. As for the town, I didn't quite grasp the meaning behind all the monsters creeping around. I hoped for an in depth explanation, instead I was left with an undeveloped description. Throughout Slice of Cherry, Kit and Fancy searched for a door that opened up into a whimsical world. I loved Dia's imagination behind this place filled with wondrous aspects. All in all, the concept's originality was definitely there. However, it just didn't live up to my presumed expectations. Since everyone's perception is different, I do recommend you give this one a try. Distorted YA books don't come along often so I am excited to see where Dia's creativity leads us next.
After finishing Slice of Cherry, it took me a few days to digest it. It was necessary for me to pull my thoughts together before I wrote this review. I finally concluded that Slice of Cherry's gory and murderous aspects contributed a grade of gritty excellence. While, the out of this world deliverance was just plain weird. Don't get me wrong, I love twisted stories, I just found this one to have a lot of "what the hell just happened" moments even after all the hilarious elements. Now, I immensely enjoyed getting to know the mentally deranged sisters. I mean these girls were on a different wavelength than most people. Kit started out as a bubbly character with killing spree tendencies. In contrast, Fancy's time revolved around preventing Kit from following in her father's footsteps which simmered her urges. I don't necessarily blame them for acting this way since their father was after all Portero's bonesaw killer.
As time went on, I was curiously intrigued in the sister's mindset change. Also, the boy interests presented with the Turner brothers helped spice up the lack of romance. As for the town, I didn't quite grasp the meaning behind all the monsters creeping around. I hoped for an in depth explanation, instead I was left with an undeveloped description. Throughout Slice of Cherry, Kit and Fancy searched for a door that opened up into a whimsical world. I loved Dia's imagination behind this place filled with wondrous aspects. All in all, the concept's originality was definitely there. However, it just didn't live up to my presumed expectations. Since everyone's perception is different, I do recommend you give this one a try. Distorted YA books don't come along often so I am excited to see where Dia's creativity leads us next.
August 15, 2011
i read quite a lot of YA and i don't
think i'm going out on a limb when i say
that dia reeve's is an author that is
completely unique in her voice, vision and
storytelling. i thought so after being
stunned, horrified, and totally intrigued
by Bleeding Violet, and i can say the same
of her second novel, Slice of Cherry.
it's about two sisters, kit and fancy, who
are the daughters of an infamous serial
killer father. the apples, alas, fall not
far from the tree. and they live in Portero,
known for its doors into who knows what places,
demons and monsters.
the sisters decide to follow in daddy's footsteps
to satisfy their blood thirst and fascination
with evisceration and the like. but they'd only
target people who deserved to die, of course.
the book is not for the squeamish. reeves
approaches the gruesome the same way she
approaches sex, directly, in your face, without
apologies. (which i appreciate as both writer
and reader!)
but what i *really* appreciate in this novel
are the themes underlying the dismemberment
and bloodshed: family, loyalty, first loves,
forgiveness, finding yourself, and growing up.
she weaves these themes deftly and they
are universal themes, despite the outrageous
occupation of the two sisters. and reeves is
great at dark humor. i laughed out loud in
many moments of this novel, and i'm not easy
to please when it comes to humor in novels.
i've had the pleasure of meeting reeves in
person and that only makes my reading experience
that much the more pleasurable. i can't wait to
see what she writes about next!!
definitely recommended.
think i'm going out on a limb when i say
that dia reeve's is an author that is
completely unique in her voice, vision and
storytelling. i thought so after being
stunned, horrified, and totally intrigued
by Bleeding Violet, and i can say the same
of her second novel, Slice of Cherry.
it's about two sisters, kit and fancy, who
are the daughters of an infamous serial
killer father. the apples, alas, fall not
far from the tree. and they live in Portero,
known for its doors into who knows what places,
demons and monsters.
the sisters decide to follow in daddy's footsteps
to satisfy their blood thirst and fascination
with evisceration and the like. but they'd only
target people who deserved to die, of course.
the book is not for the squeamish. reeves
approaches the gruesome the same way she
approaches sex, directly, in your face, without
apologies. (which i appreciate as both writer
and reader!)
but what i *really* appreciate in this novel
are the themes underlying the dismemberment
and bloodshed: family, loyalty, first loves,
forgiveness, finding yourself, and growing up.
she weaves these themes deftly and they
are universal themes, despite the outrageous
occupation of the two sisters. and reeves is
great at dark humor. i laughed out loud in
many moments of this novel, and i'm not easy
to please when it comes to humor in novels.
i've had the pleasure of meeting reeves in
person and that only makes my reading experience
that much the more pleasurable. i can't wait to
see what she writes about next!!
definitely recommended.
January 17, 2011
When I first started this book I knew it was about two sisters murdering people. Like Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood meets Dexter. Sounds awesome, right? Right.
What I didn’t intend on was the murderesses being more like snotty little boys who torture turtles because they can. And that’s the secret to Slice of Cherry. It’s not about exacting revenge or even mindless cruel killing, the motive lies in these two teenage girls stuck in childhood and “filling a hole” within themselves by killing people who aren’t exactly saints to begin with. Oh, and it just so happens their father is on death row for murdering several people.
This is Dia Reeves’ second in the Portero series, though you don’t really need to read the first in order to read the second (I did, however) and if you’ve never read Reeves I suggest you loosen your mind before entering. Her world can get a little Alice in Wonderland-y if you aren’t used to that. Slice of Cherry had moments of pure childhood (almost cartoon-y) innocence blended with the slightly nauseating description of murder and other morbid things. And the real conflict begins when Kit, the older of the two, begins to grow up, leaving Fancy in her childish dream world.
So all things aside, this is a coming of age story. In the darkest way possible. Still, this book has no problem entering you into an altered reality and presenting a sweet and tough story about how hard it is to let go of the easiness of childhood and enter the turmoil of adolescence.
What I didn’t intend on was the murderesses being more like snotty little boys who torture turtles because they can. And that’s the secret to Slice of Cherry. It’s not about exacting revenge or even mindless cruel killing, the motive lies in these two teenage girls stuck in childhood and “filling a hole” within themselves by killing people who aren’t exactly saints to begin with. Oh, and it just so happens their father is on death row for murdering several people.
This is Dia Reeves’ second in the Portero series, though you don’t really need to read the first in order to read the second (I did, however) and if you’ve never read Reeves I suggest you loosen your mind before entering. Her world can get a little Alice in Wonderland-y if you aren’t used to that. Slice of Cherry had moments of pure childhood (almost cartoon-y) innocence blended with the slightly nauseating description of murder and other morbid things. And the real conflict begins when Kit, the older of the two, begins to grow up, leaving Fancy in her childish dream world.
So all things aside, this is a coming of age story. In the darkest way possible. Still, this book has no problem entering you into an altered reality and presenting a sweet and tough story about how hard it is to let go of the easiness of childhood and enter the turmoil of adolescence.
July 19, 2011
Dia Reeves' writing style is as engrossing as ever and combined with the story's quick pacing, I devoured this book. The world of Portero - and its inhabitants - is so rich, vibrant, and macabre that I almost - almost - want to visit it. This story, however, featured little of Portero and its inhabitants outside of the two Cordelle sisters, neither of whom is especially likable or intriguing. The lack of likability for either of these characters made it difficult for me to empathize/sympathize with any of their feelings. I kept hoping that if I stayed the course, the story and the sisters would payoff (Bleeding Violet did so right out of the gate) but I was suprisingly disappointed. There also just wasn't a whole lot of character development for Fancy (the story's protagonist and POV-holder) and what development there was (emotional, romantic, sexual) felt forced and awkward. The book also lacked any real, cohesive plot; there's no goal or obstacle that either Fancy or her sister Kit work toward or to overcome besides the unmagical fact their growing up and apart. Fantasy narrative acts as a metaphor for and a way of exploring life and the feelings and experiences we undergo and this story completely disregards that. I'm unsure if this is second-novel syndrome or an indication of Reeves' writing to come, but I am willing to read another of her books. I sincerely hope the next one set in her Portero-centered series features characters, charm and tone similar to "Bleeding Violet."
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