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 their father's mistakes 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...
I've never read another book like Slice of Cherry in the Young Adult genre. It is completely unique and original and at times utterly bizarre.
Kit and Fancy Cordelle are two sisters unlike any other. They both seem to have inherited the same intense fascination with killing that their father, the bonesaw killer, had. I never really liked either of the sisters which in a way is kind of a good thing because their hobbies are definitely twisted and horrifying. However, I did enjoy reading about them, it was disturbing, yet refreshing to explore their relationship, which had its ups and downs throughout the story. They like to think that they are practically the same person and almost have this unhealthy attachment to each other, but throughout the novel they start to realise they do have their differences just like all sisters. For Fancy, this unsettles her, as she hates change, so much so that she still plays with dolls and wears dresses more suited to little girls even though she is now in her teens. So when she realises that Kit is happy to spend time with somebody else other than her, she ends up feeling lost and I think this is what helps her grow up.
I found it fascinating how both of the girls gut reactions to anybody they don't like is to either torture them or straight out kill them. They are also completely nonchalant about killing. At first I thought Kit was the more bloodthirsty of the two, but you soon realise that Fancy is just as bad if not worse, she is just more creative and inventive with the way she kills. Kit is more impulsive at first, whereas Fancy likes to plan so as to wipe out the risk of leaving any evidence behind, so when she comes across a door into another world she realises it is the perfect place to kill. This new world is the definition of weird and it had this unsettling atmosphere to it which is really unnerving.
Portero is the creepy town they live in, where the strange is the norm. It is a place where corpses can rise, strange creatures are roaming in the woods and the neighbours are happy to overlook suspicious deaths as long as it benefits them. I haven't read Dia Reeves first book, Bleeding Violets, so I'm not sure of how much of Portero was explained, but I would have liked to have learned more about it, especially the doorways to worlds that seem to be scattered across the town. Although I did love the hot sticky summer atmosphere of it and the lure of knowing that anything could happen.
I loved how this book is so different from others and whilst there were some loose ends that were left untied (not crucial to the plot though) I did enjoy it. It is a mix of realism and surreal fantasy with the toxic relationship of the sisters and their brutal and terrifying interest in killing coupled with the exciting yet eerie world they live in. A must read for anyone that enjoys a dark, quirky and unique read.
.5
Random Passage: Fancy and Kit jounced along redbrick streets past low, colorful buildings. The docile trees lining the medians had cute little cages around them and nothing in common with their cousins in the wild forest upsquare. The whole town generally smelled pine fresh or, when the wind was right, like freshly baked bread, thanks to the bread factory in the warehouse district. Many days, however, Portero smelled like blood.
Kit and Fancy Cordelle are two sisters unlike any other. They both seem to have inherited the same intense fascination with killing that their father, the bonesaw killer, had. I never really liked either of the sisters which in a way is kind of a good thing because their hobbies are definitely twisted and horrifying. However, I did enjoy reading about them, it was disturbing, yet refreshing to explore their relationship, which had its ups and downs throughout the story. They like to think that they are practically the same person and almost have this unhealthy attachment to each other, but throughout the novel they start to realise they do have their differences just like all sisters. For Fancy, this unsettles her, as she hates change, so much so that she still plays with dolls and wears dresses more suited to little girls even though she is now in her teens. So when she realises that Kit is happy to spend time with somebody else other than her, she ends up feeling lost and I think this is what helps her grow up.
I found it fascinating how both of the girls gut reactions to anybody they don't like is to either torture them or straight out kill them. They are also completely nonchalant about killing. At first I thought Kit was the more bloodthirsty of the two, but you soon realise that Fancy is just as bad if not worse, she is just more creative and inventive with the way she kills. Kit is more impulsive at first, whereas Fancy likes to plan so as to wipe out the risk of leaving any evidence behind, so when she comes across a door into another world she realises it is the perfect place to kill. This new world is the definition of weird and it had this unsettling atmosphere to it which is really unnerving.
Portero is the creepy town they live in, where the strange is the norm. It is a place where corpses can rise, strange creatures are roaming in the woods and the neighbours are happy to overlook suspicious deaths as long as it benefits them. I haven't read Dia Reeves first book, Bleeding Violets, so I'm not sure of how much of Portero was explained, but I would have liked to have learned more about it, especially the doorways to worlds that seem to be scattered across the town. Although I did love the hot sticky summer atmosphere of it and the lure of knowing that anything could happen.
I loved how this book is so different from others and whilst there were some loose ends that were left untied (not crucial to the plot though) I did enjoy it. It is a mix of realism and surreal fantasy with the toxic relationship of the sisters and their brutal and terrifying interest in killing coupled with the exciting yet eerie world they live in. A must read for anyone that enjoys a dark, quirky and unique read.
.5Random Passage: Fancy and Kit jounced along redbrick streets past low, colorful buildings. The docile trees lining the medians had cute little cages around them and nothing in common with their cousins in the wild forest upsquare. The whole town generally smelled pine fresh or, when the wind was right, like freshly baked bread, thanks to the bread factory in the warehouse district. Many days, however, Portero smelled like blood.
2 comments:
I've heard interesting things about this one.. I really want to read it and see what I think of it because everything that I've read about it makes me entirely curious. I think bizarre and disturbing are excellent ways in which to describe this book, but I still seem drawn to it in some inexplicable way.. Interesting review, thank you!
Thanks! It was definitely a unique book and I couldn't stop thinking about it after.
Post a Comment