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This is a pitch-perfect Southern Gothic, with an immersive setting, a heroine it's easy to root for, a bunch of dark small-town secrets to figure out, and a spooky magic element.

I just wish it had a single copy editor to catch the truly egregious amount of spelling and grammar mistakes!

Ch. 45

Ch. 28

"The spreading branches of holly over my stomach . . . Two of the bows frame my pelvis . . . "
Surely this is boughs? As in boughs of holly?

"'Kris,' he beseeches, desperately messianic."
What point of this man's lust-filled whining is reminiscent of the Messiah??

I am begging publishers to hire copy editors again.

Why on earth does the prince of St. Patrick's Day have a Scottish accent???

Ch. 58

What denomination is this chaplain??
Does the sign of the cross: probably Catholic
Wants couple to write their own vows: Not Catholic
Called a priest: Probably Catholic
Quickie marriage for a couple he's never met with no pre-cana: probably not Catholic

"She had scarcely ever come across even the odd chicken . . . in Frottica . . . "
Perhaps because there were no chickens in Oz before Billina??

Dreadful Shakespearian analysis. Really awful.

Chapter 6

The problem with Strong Female Characterifying mythological women like this is if Clytemnestra was a such a tough fighter and great huntress, why did she need Aegisthus? Why doesn’t she just kill Agamemnon herself? Clytemnestra in mythology was a careful plotter who used the power she could amass in a deeply patriarchal, misogynistic society to accomplish her goal - why isn’t that good enough?

4hr50min

The worldbuilding is just so lazy! How are there characters named Christopher and Gabriel in a world without Christianity or Judaism? How is there a character named Erin in a world without Ireland? And for that matter, why are all the “Machlish” characters’ names spelled traditionally in Irish except for Erin’s Anglicized one?

"So I'm shut in here - walled in, really - to prevent the Nine Houses becoming none House, with left grief."

Perhaps the greatest literary line of all time.

"We could recall the stories we read in school - Bram Stoker's Dracula and John William Polidori's The Vampyre . . . "

Okay, needlessly-returning-to-outdated-gendered-terms editrixes, which schools actually assigned either of those stories, particularly Polidori's?

Lila entered this tournament without even knowing the rules of the game? I try not to call Sue on non-fanfic characters, but yeesh.

Points back for the allusion to the goodest boy, St. Guinefort.

" . . . it's as rowdy as the Fifth Ward on Lá Fhéile Pádraig."

St. Patrick exists in this world?!

Also, between this and the "mamaí" earlier, the gratuitous fangirl Irish is killing me.

Do they ever explain why Riko Moriyama has a girl's name?

God, the conlang-ing in this book is so bad I wish the author hadn't included it at all.

"God always begins with women, always. They lead the way . . . Thanks to them we are on this path today: Jesus is risen, He is alive among us!"

Unafraid of all that is marginal, He Himself became a marginal figure. If we dare make our way to the fringes, we will find Him there.

"Then you and Wendell are not--an item?"

An item? What year is this set again? 2017?

Oof. Do any of these authors know what folk horror is?

The annotator, commenting on the myth that it should be impossible for bees to fly, states how prevalent the myth is by citing as an example a source from Quora who claimed to have a degree in physics and who said . . . the opening lines of Bee Movie. Starring Jerry Seinfeld. Word-for-word.
Did the annotator google at all before putting this quote in a published book?