“They also call her the smiling cobra.”

49. Cackle – Rachel Harrison

The story of a terrible, sad sack relationship becomes a story of adorable spiders, cake, coffee, and friendship. It’s a bit sentimental and a bit sinister and, truly, the best character is Ralph. So fleshed out for a spider.

Annie gets dumped, but it’s presented to her like a mutual breakup because her boyfriend got bored of her catering to his every need and supporting him endlessly and wanted to find some other dupe to do those same activities. He will waffle on who would be best to make him feel good even though he’s basically doing nothing. Tale as old as time.

Annie gets a new job in Aster, but finds an apartment in Rowan, just down the road. Rowan is weird and so quaint that it seems like something’s enchanted. Because it is. And the town is essentially owned by Sophie, who is a witch and is both very generous and intimidating and as she says, she’s into vengeance. So it’s hard to tell if her wanting Annie to be her friend so damn badly is with good intent or ill intent. Is Sophie just being overly generous to buy her friendship so she can control Annie? Is she just really generous with Annie because she’s not descended from anyone who tried to drown her or burn her, etc.? Or, the biggest question of all, will Ralph get another cute hat? If only everyone had a spider to tell them not to communicate with people who are bad for their future.

 

Pickles is both enchanting and intimidating in her cuteness.