This review originally appeared on the book review blog justonemorepaige.wordpress.com.

I'm not usually as interested in urban fantasy as I am in other fantasy sub-genres. For some reason I tend to find them cheesier or less well written (maybe that's a product of my inability to pick good ones, but whatever the reason, that's been my experience). However, when I read that this was a reworking of an old Russian tale, I decided to try again. I read The Bear and the Nightingale earlier this year, a novel similarly based on an old Russian tale, and really enjoyed it. Plus, on the more superficial side, the cover of this book is gorgeous.

The story is the of a young girl, Vassa (Vasalissa, in the original), who is living with a stepmother and stepsisters, who are not all completely fond of her, because her father has left. When all the lights go out one night, she is sent out to BY's, a chain of creepy convenience stores. In order to make BY's stop dancing (on its giant chicken legs) long enough for you to walk in, you have to sing to it. And each store is constantly surrounded by decapitated heads on poles - the punishment for those who shoplift. The owner of this particular BY's, Babs Yagga (originally the witch Baba Yaga) forces Vassa into a deal: work for her for 3 nights and she can have the lightbulbs she needs. But crazy things happen in and around this store. Each night Vassa is given an impossible task to finish, which she only succeeds at with the help of two characters. The first is her magic wooden doll, Erg, a gift from her mother before she died. The second, a mysterious man on a motorcycle that drives the perimeter of the store lot over and over, can only communicate with Vassa through dreams, and has a secret about who he is and how he ended up working for Babs. Throughout her 3 days and nights in the store, Vassa makes friends with some enchanted swans, deals with Babs' "employees" (two severed hands named Dexter and Sinister), has to figure out how to rescue two otherwordly attorneys, and tries save the world from the longer and longer Nights that Babs is forcing them to endure.

This was a super unique reading experience. The blurb about the author on the inside cover says that she is an artist as well as a writer. That definitely comes across. I feel like this book was written as a surreal art piece - the kind where you can see the outlines of everything and are pretty sure you know what's happening, but you can't necessarily be sure because some of the details are not where you think they should be or are blurred and misshapen. I felt like I was reading the script to a B level horror movie that is destined to become a cult classic. And I mean that as a compliment. It was all very gory, creepy, and totally weird, with some pretty awkward dialogue and interactions. (I know I just said I meant that as a compliment, but only gave the book 3 stars on Goodreads. To clarify, I mean: if you love a good cult classic B horror movie than you will love this book. It’s just not my genre of choice. So I recognize the genius, but it just wasn’t my favorite.)

There were some things I loved: the chapter art was gorgeous, Night personified was so creative and beautifully written, and the interactions between all the characters were very fairy tale like, which was perfect for the atmospheric feel. And seriously, the atmosphere was probably the best part – this author can set a mood and bring it to life masterfully (again, I credit that to her artistic sense). But there were a few things that threw me off just a little. I feel like there were some super impressive, out of the blue, connections that Vassa made with very little evidence and perhaps she got to those conclusions unrealistically quickly given how much information she had. At the same time, there were other realizations and observations that she was very slow to pick up on. And the variations there made the plot a little discordant to me. Also, Erg. I loved some of the small quirks about her, that she loved to eat (so much), but she communicated in a flat, one-dimensional sarcastic way that I was not really a fan of. It seemed too overdone and fake. If I think about it, it makes sense as a tone of communication for a wooden doll brought to life by magic, but it rang a little strangely while I was reading.

This is definitely a book I would recommend reading, but at the same time, not one I would recommend unreservedly. I think you need to like a certain “underground” genre feel to your reads, to really love this book. But as a retelling, I appreciated the nods to the original as well as the creative additions and shifts to make it current day and urban in setting. And I adored the ambiance it created – I fell right into it and, like Vassa’s experience the “Night glove[d] me in the hush of dark creatures and moonlight scripted on puddles in the gutter.” p.287