Gretel and the Dark
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Vienna, 1899. Josef Breuer - celebrated psychoanalyst - is about to encounter his strangest case yet. Found by the lunatic asylum, thin, head shaved, she claims to have no name, no feelings - to be, in fact, not even human. Intrigued, Breuer determines to fathom the roots of her disturbance. Years Later, in Germany, we meet Krysta. Krysta's Papa is busy working in the infirmary with the 'animal people', so little Krysta plays alone, lost in the stories of Hansel and Gretel, the Pied Piper and more. And when everything changes and the real world around her becomes as frightening as any fairy tale, Krysta finds that her imagination holds powers beyond what she coulc ever have guessed... As the shadows and echoes between them multiply, it becomes clear that these two narratives are the interwoven threads of one much bigger story, which scours the darkest, most shameful places of twentieth-century history and reveals - in a dizzying fianl twist - a path back out to the light.
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Full review to follow: Some readers have classified this book as YA. It is NOT, I repeat, is NOT suitable for young readers. It is extremely dark and deals with some very disturbing adult themes. But riveting and haunting too.
I don't know what to say. I read this book mainly because the reviews had me convinced the book would have a giant reveal at the end that would change my mind about everything I had read up until then. Nah. Not really. We have two stories here and one I liked reading very much (Krysta and Greet) and one I felt I had to slug through (Joseph and Lillie) to get back to the other narrative. I guess my imagination is WAAAAYY wilder than I thought because I started to create amazing endings for both of these tales that would completely defy logic. So by the time I got to the reveal I was sorely disappointed. There is not much more I can say that isn't a spoiler, but I wanted to give people the head's up that there is nothing here we haven't seen before and the strongest parts of this book are the fairy tales and how they relate to the reality of the characters. This is very much a case of reviews ruining a book for me, but catch 22. I probably would not have read it if it weren't for the reviews and then the reviews pumped it too much, in my humble opinion, and I was let down. Overall, not a BAD book, it just wasn't what I wanted it to be.
