Josie's Coat

by Amy McNulty

A woman with shoulder bones as sharp as an eagle’s talons—bones almost protruding from her skin—opens her mouth as wide as it’ll go, impossibly wide, consuming the pill that takes both of her arms to cradle. The nourishment makes her thin stomach pop out like she’s pregnant with a child so large it’ll burst through her stomach. She swallows slowly and licks her lips. Her eyes search around hungrily for more.

That dream again.


Josie is skilled at her job as an "unfortunate" who inhabits the bodies of her clients to perform their work while they sleep, but her coworkers’ cruel jealousy over her success leads to her enslavement and the loss of her dream-worker status. A YA sci-fi reimagining of the tale of Jacob’s favorite son Joseph, his dreams, and his famous coat.

A novelette by the author of The Never Veil Series and Fall Far from the Tree.

Genres: Retellings

66 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 9, 2016

About the author

Amy McNulty is an editor and author of books that run the gamut from YA speculative fiction to contemporary romance. A lifelong fiction fanatic, she fangirls over books, anime, manga, comics, movies, games, and TV shows from her home state of Wisconsin. When not editing her clients’ novels, she’s busy fulfilling her dream by crafting fantastical worlds of her own.

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an incredibly creative and well-written sci-fi retelling of a Biblical story I am only sort of familiar with. I can't really judge it from a religious or even a retelling perspective since I don't really know the original, but as a sci-fi novella it was great, and it even had a happy/positive ending, so fuck yes to all of this.

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Josie is skilled at her job as an "unfortunate" who inhabits the bodies of her clients to perform their work while they sleep. This is a very cool premise. I'm not a huge sci-fi reader but I followed the story well enough. There were a few times, where I was a bit confused, but not so much that I put the book down. Josie's coworkers’ are cruel and jealous over her success leads to her enslavement and the loss of her dream-worker status. And if you believe in karma or 'what goes around, comes around' the story ends with a happy ending. Sure Josie decided to take the higher ground (which was nice) b/c she didn't have to at all.

[Rowena Fortuin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a gender-swapped SciFi retelling of Joseph's coat of many colours. Josie is a dreamworker who inhabits the bodies of others while they work. I love the story of Joseph's coat of many colours and enjoyed this book. I'm not a SciFi reader, but it's a creative and interesting retelling.

[Daiz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was offered a review copy of Josie's Coat in exchange for an honest review.

Okay first of all…I went into Josie's Coat not knowing/remembering a whole lot about the original biblical Joseph tale….so I'm not the best person to discuss how Josie's Coat fares as a retelling.

I do have some conflicting feelings about Josie's Coat…I think it was a very interesting read and really the only thing that really fell short was that the fact that the story itself was so short. I thought the sci-fi premise was really fascinating and that if Josie's Coat had been a full novel we could have explored that more. But nevertheless Josie's Coat was still an enjoyable read.

I enjoyed the creepy imagery of Josie's dreams.
As a novelette, Josie's Coat doesn't give us a great deal of world building but Josie's Coat was more character driven. I really liked that all of the characters come off as a little strange. I found all the characters quite intriguing which was just another reason I was left wanting more.

The ending. I don't know if it's just me…but because Josie's Coat is a novelette I'd kind of assumed that there would be some kind of intense sort of cliff hanger ending that would keep us wondering what would've happened next…Instead we have a sort of epilogue chapter and personally I don't think it worked. It didn't seem to fit tonally for me and while I'd been enjoying everything prior to that point, I felt let down by the end.

So overall Josie's Coat was a great quick read and I definitely wouldn't mind seeing more of this world.

[Shakera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Josie's Coat was a quick and easy read with nice and simple writing. It's a nice story of how karma works. It was easy to follow along and a great start to something bigger. I would like to see where this goes.

[Kira Thurgood · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Received free e-copy as a part of YASH*

A solid writing style and an awesome concept--I mean, a genderswapped sci-fi retelling of the Biblical story of Joseph? It was just way too short! I wanted the narrative to be more fleshed out so that I could understand the world a little more.

[Anne Bollmann (Annelise Lestrange) · Rating 5 out of 5]

review coming soon!