White Is for Witching in The Toast

Oct 11, 2014 CC rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror, fantasy, fiction, african-diaspora

Such a strange book, as I have come to expect from Oyeyemi who, to me, is the high priestess of dark, modern fairy tales. Oyeyemi plays around with a few experimental writing conventions and structures, but it somehow lacks pretension and...works, unexpectedly. Part horror (I couldn't help but think of Shirley Jackson), part twisted coming-of-age novel, with a subtle commentary on racial politics. Honestly, I'd read anything Oyeyemi writes. Her novels are just too oddly sharp to pass up. ...more

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Sep 23, 2019 P. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fictive, paranormal-or-magic, lgbtqia, horror-y

Took me a while to read because this is prose that demands you pay attention and not plow through it. The plot is important (and I haven't really seen a racist haunted house before but it makes so much sense!) but it's not the best part about this book. The horror is deep and matter of fact, and the switching of perspectives helps to disorient the reader and also bring you deeper into the psychology of the characters. ...more

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Feb 04, 2015 Melanie Greene rated it liked it · review of another edition

I wasn't sure if I would be drawn in, but one thing Oyeyemi knows darn well how to do is draw me in, almost unwillingly, and not let me go until I've raced through all the twisty passages to 'the end.' I'm wrung out from reading this, and regrouping slowly until I can move on to another of her books. ...more

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May 23, 2013 Flora rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fairy-tales-folklore, ghost-stories-horror

While reading this I was simultaneously glorying in the mish-mash of haunted houses, fairy tales, monstrous women and other favourite things of mine while also writhing with envy that Helen Oyeyemi keeps writing the novels that I want to write!

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