welcome to another post about a LWB (little weird book). ‼️SPOILERS CAN AND WILL OCCUR ‼️

for my online book club, we decided to read two small books instead of one big one! I chose Spread Me by Sarah Gailey, and a friend named Renee chose Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente. I’ll write about Spread Me later…this post is for Comfort Me with Apples.

side note: the definition of “weird”

i want to make sure that the word “weird” to describe these books doesn’t necessarily translate as a negative thing. It could mean “different”, “unique”, “out there”, etc. OR it could also mean weird in a bad way…like steer clear of this. 😂 I should’ve made this known in my intro post, but figured I should say something now before we dive too deep into this series.

Number of pages: 103

summary.

“SOPHIA WAS MADE FOR HIM.
Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.
It’s just that he’s away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.
But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband’s face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can’t quite meet her gaze…
But everything is perfect. Isn’t it?“

initial thoughts.

okay, I can’t lie, I sorta cheated because when I was looking up the book, I saw that this was supposed to be a reimagining of Adam and Eve from the Bible. So, having that knowledge, I could see the themes quickly within the book, from the chapter titles (which were different kinds of apples) to the Arcadia Gardens HOA-esque rules being like the rules of the Garden of Eden to the names of the other characters and neighbors of Sophia (Mrs. Lyon, Mrs. Fisch, Mrs. Minke, etc.).

i wondered how terrifying this thriller would be, but since it’s only 103 pages, but the author did a good job keeping the reader in suspense, dropping hints of the evil that was lurking behind the shadows of Arcadia Gardens, and revealing the doubt about Sophia’s husband – her questions to her neighbors, eventually how her neighbors tried to warn her through a play…WHEW. It doesn’t take long to understand that something is very, very wrong here.

we GET IT.

one sentiment me and my friends in book club had was that there was a lot of repetition in the beginning of how much Sophia was made for her husband. Like, OKAY, WE GET IT…you were made for him, this house, this life. I know the author was trying to put emphasis on the importance of this to Sophia, and how much horror it is for her to realize that she, in fact, doesn’t belong in her own house. She may have been made for her husband, but she wasn’t the only one made for him.

nancy drew, meet sophia.

i will give it to Sophia: as soon as she found that hairbrush in her vanity along with the lock of hair that wasn’t hers, alarms were going off, and she went into detective mode. She asked her neighbors questions, and they weren’t being very helpful initially, assuring her that nothing was wrong, that her husband only had eyes for her. Then this weird musician guy named Mr. Semengelof arrives at her neighbor’s house, and I’m not exactly sure who he’s supposed to represent within the Biblical narrative, but he’s weird. He keeps asking Sophia if she’s happy, and she says she is, even though she’s lying because she isn’t because of what she’s found. Her neighbors insist that she is though, and you realize later that they’re protecting her with their answers.

but the signs are THERE: the hairbrush and hair, the neighbors acting weird and putting on a play that represented Sophia and another woman being in Sophia’s house, her husband reacting oddly to said play…and then Sophia tearing her house apart only to find more body parts?! It doesn’t take Nancy Drew to tell us that Sophia has been living in a nightmare, and not known it. So, she tries to escape, running through the neighborhood after curfew, and into the forbidden garden where she meets Cascavel, the character who represents the serpent in Eden. And Cascavel asks Sophia some hard questions that she answers truthfully, knowing the truth isn’t what she’s supposed to say in order for things to be okay.

she’s crossed the point of no return though, and Cascavel knows it. So, he continues to toy with her by telling her the truth without actually telling her 😭 Truly how a serpent would act, for real!

i’m SHOOKETH.

you know what REALLY got me? when Cascavel asks Sophia what her husband’s name is…and she couldn’t answer. And you know what? I COULDN’T ANSWER EITHER. Like, they really never said this man’s name through most of the book until the very end when he’s confessing everything to her. And his confession? Well…

this is where it gets WEIRD…

you’re telling me…

sophia’s husband would talk to “his father” (who’s supposed to represent God), a creator, about making him a mate, but then once the mate didn’t satisfy him, he’d get his father to dispose of the wife, and create a new one? Eventually, his father gets tired of the cycle, and doesn’t take the wives away. But the father still creates new wives for him!

so the husband chooses…TO KILL THEM to get rid of them! And not only that…he cuts them up, and puts their body parts THROUGHOUT THE HOUSE. IN THE WALLS. IN THE BASEMENT. Sophia found part of a finger IN THE KNIFE HOLDER IN THE KITCHEN. Like, what in the Criminal Minds episode is THIS?!

i honestly was hoping Sophia was going to make it; I hoped she would poison her husband with that apple Cascavel gave her in the garden, and she’d make it home free.

but remember…it’s Adam and Eve…not Adam and Sophia. So…you already know who we’re introduced to in the end. And she was made for him.

weird scale from 1-10?

i almost gave this a lower score than it deserved, but it truly deserves an 8. Really, the fact that it’s a horrific retelling of Adam and Eve in Genesis is enough for it to be high on the weird scale! When I finished reading, I tried to imagine if that was how things actually went…how twisted and messed up it would be. Like, if that’s how Adam and Eve began, the world would’ve been so screwed to begin with. But thankfully, it’s not! Even though Adam and Eve did mess it up for the rest of us eventually.

another little weird book, reviewed! I’ll write about Spread Me for my next lwb review, but I think I should release Demon Slayer: Volume 10 to you before that one. I’ve held onto it for TOO LONG, and it’s begging to be released from the drafts!

thank you for reading!

Mishy 🦋🍎