thank you to tin house and natalia theodoridou from who i received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

“sour cherry” is a surrealist descent through the branches of a family tree that evokes a true gothic horror from the prose-like lines to the atmospheric weight of a ghost filled mansion. theodoridou, through women that go unnamed and our all knowing narrator telling a fairy tale, maps the lives of the men in a lordly family and the pestilence that clings to their bones, leeches out into the world around them. the men seemingly carry an unnatural curse that springs up decay from their very existence down to birthing stones, festering hardwood floors, throats full of forests, and women wasting away into nothingness. “sour cherry” uses allegory and symbolism to seek to answer what makes a man a man and what makes men monsters? built around the ever cyclic nature of domestic violence, theodoridou opens the discussion of the entrapment the unnamed women experience at the hands of the man who manages to make them stay.

this book was captivating and all consuming. the atmospheric setting and format drew me in and didn’t let go. the format and narrator’s voice were also unique and i haven’t read another book formatted like this before. i felt that the pacing was at times a bit too stunted or whip-quick, with seemingly pointless diversions into subplots for which there are no answers—but this did not decrease my enjoyment or understanding of the story. “sour cherry” nestles neatly alongside the similarly surrealist generational trauma stories “the invisible hotel”by yeji y. ham and “woodworm” by layla martínez—if you liked those, read this and if you like this read those!