BOOK REVIEW: THE BUTCHER'S HOOK BY JANET ELLIS

Well, this was just deliciously wicked

If I had to describe The Butcher's Hook's writing style in one word, I'd choose sharp. Ellis's writing immediately feels very measured, like she's carefully considered what she wants to convey and precisely how she wants to convey it. And word by word, Ellis creates the acerbic, fierce, and starkly present protagonist that is Anne. And boy did I love being inside Anne's head. As twisted as her thoughts could sometimes (always) be, they always made a strange kind of sense. And as a reader, I'm not so much interested in condoning characters' actions so much as I am in understanding them—and with Anne, I always understood (though definitely not condoned lol). To put it simply, she was compelling as hell. 

The Butcher's Hook was a feminist historical fiction novel with a badass anti-heroine and razor sharp writing. Is anyone really all that surprised that I loved it?