We Shall Be Monsters, by Alyssa Wees

An atmospheric parable about three generations of women, told in alternating chapter by Gemma and her mother Virginia, that involves a witch, a man-eating beast, a curse, and an enchanted forest in rural Michigan.  It's one of those stories where the girl is warned by her mother to not venture into the woods, but she does so anyway.  Bad things happen.  Cut to next chapter and the whole thing repeats with the next generation.

But the story here is only a small part of the novel.  Behind the magic and the monsters lies two mother and daughter relationships with much more everyday magic and drama.  It's a story, for example, where cutting your mother open and eating her heart can be both literal and figurative.  And that fuzzy elision between reality and fantasy leads to some fantastic prose that feels deep and meaningful.

The story's complexity, vast cast, unclear direction, and jumpy narrative makes the book hard to read.  I did so very slowly, but I was left with a clear sense that I would only understand the story through re-reading it a few more times.  That's too much like work and the tale simply didn't interest me enough to put in the time.  A hard pass on this for me due to its demanding storytelling, even though I enjoyed the beauty of the writing.