Unreliable narrators experienced a moment a few years ago, with everyone from big 5 editors to bookstagrammers gushing over them. With Thistlefoot, a Baba Yaga retelling involving two siblings and a traveling puppet show, GennaRose Nethercott takes this concept of shifting perspective to the extreme. Sure, people can curate their stories, but how about houses?

The house in question, a wonderful wooden creation that runs around on chicken’s feet, breaks the third wall repeatedly in the narrative by addressing the readers directly. The feisty house, named Thistlefoot, acknowledges that it is telling us only one version of several possible stories, holding its secrets close to its shingles, and even rebukes us at one point for not having patience. Thistlefoot is not messing around. It has its reasons and no reader quibbles will sway it from its intended purpose.

Those reasons soon become apparent as we follow Thistlefoot and its inhabitants, siblings Bellatine and Isaac Yaga, on an epic adventure. The siblings are an unlikely pair. Bellatine uses carpentry to stop herself from using her magical power which she fears. Isaac, on the other hand, uses his own gift to grift his way across the country. Thanks to this impasse, they’ve grown estranged, but when the mysterious house on chicken feet is bequeathed to them by a long lost ancestor, they form a tenuous agreement. They will use Thistelfoot as a traveling puppet theater. After one year of performances, Isaac will keep all the profits while Bellatine will retain sole ownership of the house.

Too bad neither of them knows Thistelfoot is being hunted by a shadowy creature known as the LongShadow man. As the siblings struggle to figure out how to protect Thistlefoot, they must dig deep and learn about their own ancestral history, no matter how painful. The individual story arcs of Bellatine and Isaac intertwine with Thistelfoot’s own story like vines on a trellis. The house and its memories form a scaffold onto which each individual can hang their own trauma, obstacles, and desires.

Who gets to tell a story, and how that viewpoint shapes future understanding of historical events, is at the root of all fables and folktales. This is never more obvious than when a house on chicken legs encourages two squabbling siblings to take control of their own narratives. It’s a lesson I will take with me into my own writing. Narrators are not necessarily unreliable, they simply each have their own agenda, which can often directly conflict with traditional Western story structure. Honoring that balance and saying true to oneself is at the root of every good story, no matter who tells it.

Folklore is something I'm really into right now and I love how this one incorporates Jewish folklore into this lovely tale. Definitely one to read if you enjoyed Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver.

I loved this Baba Yaga retake about the Yaga siblings having to go to Russia and try to get their inheritance. It was a fast read with wonderful characters. I will be recommending this book to everyone!

I don't have enough good things to say about this book. It took me a little while to get into the multiple POVs, but I'm glad I stuck with it. The plot speeds up as the book goes along. The characters are interesting and three-dimensional. And I really like how the themes are presented in this novel. I'll be thinking about Thistlefoot for a long time.

Thank you so much to the publisher for sending me an ARC!
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Unfortunately I DNFed this, it just didn’t catch my attention and maybe I’ll get into it again when I’m in the perfect headspace to give this another try! But I would buy and recommend this to others definitely!

DNF at around 30%. Certain characters started to have very repetitive monologues and I lost interest for the plot. Please take this review with a grain of salt.

I was so intrigued and ready to devour this book but unfortunately, I was just not able to get into the characters or story enough to completely finish the title. Based on other reviews and friends who have read this book and loved it, this is a case of "it's not the book, it's me."

Thank you to GennaRose Nethercott, Anchor Books, and NetGalley for an advanced eBook in exchange for my honest review.

This is a wonderful story of Baba Yaga and her descendants we are following Isaac and Bellatine as they uncover more about their past and the abilities that they seem to have. The back and forth between the present and the past, paired with the changing view points did not muddle the story and were very distinguished so the reader wouldn't get confused. The mystery and main antagonist of the story, the Longshadow Man follows the twins as they try to revive their family's traveling theater show and leaves nothing but destruction in his wake. This is a wonderful twist on a classic Jewish myth and I loved reading every page.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC of this book, and thanks to GennaRose Nethercott for writing it. I find it hard to believe it’s a debut novel and can’t imagine how anything that comes later can compare to this. It’s truly an incredible story, at turns, reminding me of Clive Barker’s Weaveworld and Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. It’s a folktale, a fantasy, a horror story, and a thought-provoking commentary on human nature, the stories we tell, and the persistence of multi-generational trauma.

I wish I could quote the book in this review, but I’ve been asked not to because it’s an uncorrected proof. Instead, I will paraphrase the parts that stood out to me and my words will pale in comparison to Nethercott’s.

The book starts off with a description of KALI TRAGUS, Russian thistle, known in the U.S. as tumbleweed. What a powerful way to hook a reader, by describing something that seems so innocuous, yet ends up so integral to the story. Traveling with some early immigrants, Russian thistle took up residence here and seeds this story. Isaac and Bellatine Yaga are ancestors of one such immigrant, and thus, their story is the flower of this seed. On the outside, they’re prickly and best left alone because coming too close can cause injury, but this is only because they were conceived through adversity and violence—memories that don’t live in their minds, but in the very atoms of their beings. They carry the scars of those who existed long before they were birthed.

Issac has a special skill described as a “mirror,” his ability to mimic people uncanny and unnerving. The description of how he observes and replicates every aspect of his subjects is thorough and vivid, and frankly, creepy. Sometimes, the original subject can appear as the secondary version of themself, while Isaac seems to be the genuine article. Imagine how jarring it would be to observe your image in the mirror and wonder if it’s your reflection or you are its. Isaac is driven by a compulsion to never remain in one place for long. Something in his family’s long-ago past drives him.

Then, we’re introduced to Bellatine and told that if anything ever happened to her hands, this story would not exist. It’s heavy foreshadowing, but to what, we have not a clue. She has inherited a strange “gift” that she abhors and tries to hide because her mother made her feel shame about it. Each time she allows it free reign, she feels rejuvenated and looks healthier than before—a sure sign that it’s of benefit to her (even if she can’t see it), once she learns to use it.

The two are estranged, due to Isaac’s inability to remain in one place, but are thrown together when they receive notice of a shared inheritance from a relative in Russia who died many years ago. Hoping for something valuable, they are surprised to open the crate addressed to them to find a small cottage with chicken legs. The origin and nature of the house are a mystery.

This is when the nature of the world in which they reside takes on a unique phantasmic twist that is so unlike the one in which we live. They’re not surprised to find a house on chicken legs, but rather, confused about why it was left to them. As the youngest current descendants of the previous owner, they are bequeathed this treasure which lay in storage for 70 years. The reader then learns of other examples of homes or buildings which have sprouted eyes or mouths or wings—whatever would have protected them from a recent disaster. For example, a janitor was killed when a steam pipe burst in a mall. In response, the stores developed mouths that occasionally opened to emit steam. The mystery is: why did this house sprout chicken feet?

There is a description in this book that was so masterfully done, it pains me to mess with the original words. It describes a series of events, beginning with the current one, a phone call, and tracing it back to its origins, an ocean away, before returning to the present and tracing the actions that follow the call.

Another time, Bellatine observes something about her brother Isaac. People see him as charming and easy to befriend, with a mythic reputation, but there’s a toxic edge to him. When he talks to people, Bellatine imagines him as neither friendly nor honorable, but rather, more like a cat toying with its prey before killing it. Feeling on edge, probably because he has stayed in one place for too long, Isaac decides to walk into town to hit a local bar, assume a different persona, and fleece some customers. As he walks in the chill October air of Vermont, he feels the air is “tight as a seam,” imagining he need only tug firmly and the entire night would “unzip” to reveal some “Otherworld.” His little, black cat, Hubcap, travels with him, and he acknowledges to himself that Hubcap is his anchor. Many travelers take some kind of memento to tie themselves to their former identity. Isaac, on the other hand, left home with nothing, and somewhere along the way, Hubcap became his talisman to draw him back into himself when he strays too far.

The narrator cautions us that facts are limited because there are only so many facts in the universe. Conversely, there are an unlimited number of lies. Every storyteller twists reality, or lies, to reveal an esoteric and more compelling truth. And this particular story is all about storytelling and our ability to discern truth from lies, and reality from the imaginary. This is part of what makes it a folktale. There’s a kernel of reality hidden within a fantastical story. The narrator goes on to explain that memories can be forgotten, but folktales never can because they find their way into hearts and are retold as stories. And people love stories. Later, we’re told that answers are also finite, while questions are neverending. We can always come up with more of them. Questions hold potential. Answers are the end of the road; there’s nothing left to discover. Nethercott’s words are way better than mine.

The narrator questions the common understanding of ghosts, ultimately explaining that people do not leave ghosts behind, but events do. They push the past into the present until they force it to collide. This is the story of one such tragic event being compelled to crash into the present, making it impossible for the main characters to deny the event that birthed current events. You can never take a step without walking through a ghost. Places hold onto the memories of what transpired and adapt accordingly. This world is haunted. Stories help us to make sense of it all.

Isaac has spent the past few years riding the rails and hitchhiking. He’s observed that drivers will share secrets they won’t share with friends. Friends stick around to remind you when you’ve shared a secret. Strangers take those secrets with them so you can let them go.

So, there’s a bit of current event analysis thrown in here, and I love that kind of thing. We are cautioned against the monsters who cultivate mobs by using fear as bait. When someone tries to tap into your fear, they’re really just seeking power. It could be power over you, but eventually, it’s more expansive than that, looking to control everyone. Soldiers are an extension of these people. Their uniforms don’t actually matter. They’re all the same, aroused by power. “Their bayonets jut out like angry erections eager to spring from their barrels.” Oops, I quoted the author. It couldn’t be helped. I just couldn’t think of a better way to state this.

When Thistlefoot eventually decides to divulge the history of the house and the Yaga family to the reader, the voice used is present tense, occasionally using the word “today” to emphasize the ongoing nature of the past. This pulls the reader deeper into the story and makes them feel as if they are experiencing it along with the characters. In addition, it more closely ties the past to the present, explaining the trauma that has been passed down and is now experienced by Isaac and Bellatine. We’re reminded that the year is 1919, not very long ago. It’s a cautionary tale. Not only should we make ourselves impervious to those who would use our fears to gain power, but we also must remember that history is not in the past; it follows us into the present and future. Because there is no end to this story—pain does not have a beginning, middle, or end. And according to Thistlefoot, the pain is so brutal and so horrific that God doesn’t want to see it, so he closes his eyes. We, on the other hand, must keep our eyes open, especially when this story is about a village destroyed because of the hatred of Jews. Anti-semitism seems to rear its ugly head again and again throughout history. We cannot close our eyes or pretend amnesia, lest it happen again.

Apologies, but I see no way to avoid quoting: “What is a house but a container for a life? What is a life but a container for a story? When a container is broken, it does not destroy the contents. It sets them free.” I also loved this: “What happens when the walls we raise outlive the dangers they were built to keep out? At what point does a fort become a cage?” There were so many other profound or funny statements sprinkled through this book, I’ll have to content myself with highlighting them for myself. I’ll enjoy reading this story again, and I’ll tell everyone I know this is one they won’t want to miss. I hope it doesn’t change one bit from the uncorrected proof I had the pleasure of reading. It’s perfect as-is.

Thistlefoot is an amazing take on the Baba Yaga stories, pulling the Eastern European folklore into the modern US. The living house provides a sense of home and safety but also introduces a dangerous new enemy into the lives of the brother and sister Bellatine and Isaac, and upends their plans to put on a traveling show reprising one of their parents' most famous puppet stories.

Multiple viewpoints woven together make for a rich story that pulls the reader in and keeps them reading, hungry to see what happens next.

<i>“I’ll tell you what came before. I’ll recite it like a folktale. These sorts of memories, they’re easier to understand that way. A memory, a true memory, is harsh and full of sharp edges. The facts, they don’t always make sense in the ways that we might wish. Things happen that we cannot speak of aloud. These rememberings are prickly like blackberry briar in winter, with no leaves to soften them. And the very worst thing about memory, the deadliest, most brutal part: memory can be forgotten. But a folktale—a folktale can never be forgotten because it wriggles and rearranges until it sits neatly on the heart. It is fluid and changing, able to adapt to whatever setting it finds itself in. It shifts in the mouth of every teller and adapts to the shape of each listener’s ear…So, the folktale survives. Assimilates. And with it—so survives the memory.” </i>

I almost stopped reading on like page 35, that’s how much I hated Isaac. And I had so many complaints in the beginning: 1) Unnecessary passive voice that made the book feel over-long. 2) Overwritten similes/metaphors/etc, i.e.: “Her hands became a famine, hot with want.” 3) Not sure about some of the POC characters —Shona’s dialogue was laughably bad.

Despite all of this, I fell in love. I never wanted this book to end. I cried. It was amazing.

Thistlefoot was interesting. I loved the Jewish and Russian folklore woven into American history. I usually love any book that retells Baba Yaga but the premise misled me since its just about her descendants. While I thought Nethercott wrote well, her descriptiveness and turn of phrase poetic. However, the plot felt meandering and much of the book dragged as a result. The magic system was never adequately described either so much of the fantastical worldbuilding was hard to buy into.

This was an interesting and fanstastical tale. I really enjoyed the narrative and theme of this book - that despite people and things perishing, they can live through passing stories along and those stories can change depending on the storyteller and the audience. My only gripe with the book was that it was a little bit too long.

Thistlefoot begins by piquing your curiosity and then sends you running down the road in a modern day fairy tale that makes you wish every word could be true. A lot dark, a bit scary, and a lot of fun you'll wish you could make friends with the Yaga siblings who aren't too sure they're even friends themselves.

Wow. Well, this is the only book I've sobbed in my car while listening to it on my way to work. What a way to start a morning that was.

I've been looking forward to reading this book for a while in my quest to read Jewish fantasies. This one was different from what I expected, but still enjoyable, especially the ending. I overall enjoyed the book though the pacing in the middle slowed it down a lot, and I can see people not finishing it before getting to that fantastic ending.

The main characters each had their own quirks and issues and had one of my least favorite things: miscommunication. So many misunderstandings would have been solved if they had just talked to each other. As an estranged family with generational trauma, this seemed pretty realistic, but it was still frustrating. The side characters were diverse and interesting, and I would love to see their adventures after the book ends. The main antagonist was extremely intimating, and I dreaded anytime he appeared. I actually loved the folktale elements between some chapters.

Now if you are an Ashkenazi Jew, there is an extremely hard-to-read/listen-to description of past trauma that hits you right in your soul. This may lead to you feeling the past hurts now in the present. This trauma leads to an ending that ties up why there is magic and how it links to the character's quirks, the plot itself, and how the past can cause pain in the present. If this book had a better-paced middle, I would happily give it 5 stars, but the bad pacing brought it down for me.

DNF at 30%

I will have to try reading Thistlefoot at another time. I was really struggling to get into it, even though I really liked the premise and truly wanted to enjoy it.

I enjoyed reading this modern folktale of the Baba Yaga story. Having known little of the original tale, this book has sparked my interest. The Yaga siblings kept me interested and the story moved along nicely. I loved the message about keeping history alive by "witnessing" it and telling the tale. While bits within the story may change from telling to telling, the truth of the thing remains.

(4.5 stars)

Thistlefoot is a hard novel to put into one genre. It’s magical realism, a retelling/reimagining, family saga, and more. If you’re at all familiar with the Baba Yaga legends, you’ll recognize them in this book. If not, you may find yourself going down a bit of a rabbit hole doing some online research about Baba Yaga (which is what I did, even though I was basically familiar with the theme).

Isaac and Bellatine Yaga are siblings and are direct descendants from Baba Yaga via their mother’s side of the family. Their parents were/are puppeteers. They haven’t seen each other in a number of years when they both get urgent messages that say they must show up in New York City to claim an inheritance that has been shipped from what is now Ukraine. That inheritance turns out to be Thistlefoot, the cottage/house on chicken legs, made famous in the Baba Yaga tales and pictured on the cover of this book. Both Isaac and Bellatine have unusual powers that they have either been taking advantage of (Isaac) or resisting (Bellatine). This house has been stored for over 70 years and is gifted to the two young siblings by their great-great-grandmother. The house responds only to commands in Yiddish, which delighted me, as Baba Yaga isn’t always Jewish in stories; mainly she’s a topic of Russian/East European folktales. Unfortunately, a shadowy figure is after the house! And that’s the rest of the story.

Thistlefoot, while an adventure story of sorts, covers a lot of topics along the way. Among them are sibling relationships and intergenerational trauma. A unique feature is that a few of the chapters are narrated by the house itself.

Some quotes that resonated with me:
“How do you ruin a people? Is it with fire? Is it with bullets? … But all it takes is one survivor, and the story lives on. One survivor to carry the poems and the songs, the prayers, the sorrows. It isn’t just taking a life that destroys a people. It’s taking their history… Kill the story, and you kill the culture.”

“If a story does its job, it doesn’t ever end. Not really. But it can change. This is the nature of folktales. They shift to fit each teller… It can become an offering. A lantern. An ember to lead you through the dark.”

Highly recommended.

Thank you to NetGalley and Anchor Books for the opportunity to read an advance readers copy of this book, even though I’m rather late to it. I bounced between the ARC and the published audiobook, courtesy of my public library. The narrator, January LaVoy, did a good job with the various voices and accents.

THIS BOOK WAS SO FUN! I mean, look at that cover? Did you read that premise? How could this not be a success? I loved the wild idea of this book, and the way that it was steeped in folklore. There is some great representation in this book and an even greater story. I loved it and will absolutely recommend it!

Thistlefoot is a unique and beautifully written Baba Yaga and her chicken-legged house retelling inspired by Jewish myths that follow estranged siblings, Baba Yaga’s descendants, Bellatine Yaga and Issac Yaga, who inherits the chicken-legged house of Baba Yaga after 70 yrs of her death. They name it Thistlefoot.

Bellatine is a carpenter, wishes to have a normal life and settle with the house but ever the wonderer Issac doesn’t and asks her to buy him out and for that they come to an agreement, they revive and tour their family’s famous puppet show, The Drowning Fool, for a year throughout America, Issac gets to keep the money and Bellatine the house at the end of the year but it wasn’t only Thistlefoot that came from Russia to American. A sinister villain, Longshadow Man followed the house to America unleashing poison and violence among people with the intention of killing the house. It was interesting to find out who is the Longshadow man and how he is connected to the house and Baba Yaga.

+I loved the plot and concept. There is the theme of multigenerational and familial trauma, power of stories and memories, painful cruel history of pogrom, emotional reckoning gives lots of depth to plot making it poignant and thought-provoking.

+/-Writing it beautiful, flowery, and poetic to a point that you wish to get lost in the purple prose. The narrative is unique. Present timeline is third person narrative from Issac and Bellatine’s perspective but the past of the house and of Baba Yaga was told by Thistlefoot through stories that make it a stories within story. Thistlefoot tells the story of its origin in different versions along with how it met Baba Yaga, what is his and Baba Yaga’s history, and what make it alive. There is also The Fool’s story, the show they play, how the Fool originated. While I loved the writing and unique narrative style, I could see it might not be for everyone and why some readers DNFed it. Moreover, the pace is slow and stories within story sometimes make it confusing and hard to get how they interconnect with each other.

+The setting of New Orlean and other places Issac and Bellatine visit for the puppet show tour is well written but what makes this retelling different is Baba Yaga’s connection to the plight of Jews through historical setting of pre-WWI Gendenkrovka, now known as Ukraine, a hometown of Baba Yaga and how this small town was destroyed in Pogrom.

The characters’ personal stories were well written. Bellatin is a responsible person, living an honest life. She sees her gift of being able to give life to animate things with memory and story as a curse because of how her parents viewed and treated it. The only person who didn’t care about her gift or never made it big deal was Issac and when he left her and their parents’ house without any note or goodbye, it was hard for her to deal with her gift and abandonment issues. I didn’t exactly get why she feels her gifts are curse until it was revealed what more she could do with her gift and what she experienced. It was great to see how she overcome the fear of her hands and her gift and started to see it in a positive light.

Issac is an actor, doppelganger, and thief who could shift into any person’s face and body and he made it a means to earn by hosting shows in streets that gave him the name, Cameleon King. He is selfish, manipulative, and coward which makes him unlikable but he is hiding a lot behind his uncaring personality that also makes him interesting. He is an amazing observer, he follows his gut feeling and he knows how to get out of situations and turn them in his favor. He is also hiding the pain of loss and is drowning in guilt. It was interesting to see why he felt responsible for the death of his best friend and how he could finally deal with the loss.

-Both characters are complicated. While I liked reading both siblings’ childhood, their fear and struggle, their gifts, how they see it and how it changed their life… I feel there still isn’t much depth. There is lots of judgment and assumptions from Baellatin’s side and I don’t think from her perspective and looking at Issac’s nature, she was very wrong in it but what makes me annoyed is they don’t talk to each other. They understand each other throughout the book by observing each other’s reactions. Looking at the amount of time they spent together, half the time of it was about getting over the abandonment from Bellatine’s side and getting the house ready for the show and Issac shape-shifting to avoid his migraine. Their lack of conversations made me care less about them. I cannot decide who I liked most as their actions kept changing my opinions about them. It wouldn’t be wrong if I say both stayed estranged throughout the book.

– Secondary characters are good but we don’t get to know them well. Shona’s story was told in less than a page while we don’t get more than few lines for Rummy and Sparrow.
+ I liked Winnie and Thistlefoot the most. The objects given life were much more filled with life and wisdom than the humans of the story!

+The Longshadow man creates lots of suspense and make the story creepy and atmospheric. It was clear he was connected with Progom but how he connected to Baba Yaga or the house was hard to guess until it was revealed. Baba Yaga’s magic was also different from other retellings I have read.

+ Climax and the end is perfect. All questions were answered. I wasn’t expecting what Issac did and what happened to him and for a minute I couldn’t get the purpose of the whole event but it made much more sense later when the fool told the final version of Thistlefoot story which made it even more uncertain and hard to defeat the Longshadow man. It was amazing how Issac used his experience of the happening in defeating The Longshadow man. I liked the end and loved how all the events happening in this last few pages changed Issac and Bellatine.

Overall, Thistlefoot is intriguing and beautifully written Baba Yaga retelling with Slavic and Jewish folklore but the characters and confusing narration style make it okay for me.