Cackle by Rachel Harrison

A darkly funny, frightening novel about a young woman learning how to take what she wants from a witch who may be too good to be true, from the author of The Return. All her life, Annie has played it nice and safe. After being unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching position that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. She’s stunned by how perfect and picturesque the town is. The people are all friendly and warm. Her new apartment is dreamy too, minus the oddly persistent spider infestation. Then Annie meets Sophie. Beautiful, charming, magnetic Sophie, who takes a special interest in Annie, who wants to be her friend. More importantly, she wants Annie to stop apologizing and start living for herself. That’s how Sophie lives. Annie can’t help but gravitate toward the self-possessed Sophie, wanting to spend more and more time with her, despite the fact that the rest of the townsfolk seem…a little afraid of her. And like, okay. There are some things. Sophie’s appearance is uncanny and ageless, her mansion in the middle of the woods feels a little unearthly, and she does seem to wield a certain power…but she couldn’t be…could she?

Chick-lit but with a Tim Burton atmosphere.

There is a touching, sweet friendship between the two women. I also enjoyed the very Muppet-y spider.

This is a fast read, nothing very complex or anything that you have to think about too hard.

It's not a horror novel, as people have said. I'm looking for spooky books t0 read this October and am striking out all over the place.

I will take the good reads genre nominees with a big grain of salt in the future.

Cute book though.

This is a reread of one of my favorite books of all time.

This book was so poetic. The writing style is great and it also made a lot of sense in character, seeing how Annie was an English teacher. That's one thing I liked a lot, the second being how uneasy the book made me feel after Sophie showed up. Just for a bit, before I got to know her. The description, everyone's reactions to Sophie, told me there's something off.

I enjoyed Annie's journey a lot. We started off in the middle of her pity party and accompanied her in her journey to something new. A new job and a new place. And Rowan sounds like a really nice little town with friendly people and really good coffee, who wouldn't want to live in a place like that?

But even in this new place Annie continues her pity party and she is thinking and drinking and crying over her ex so much and so often. Surprisingly, though, that didn't annoy me as much as it normally would. I attribute that to the writing, because, okay, I get it, long relationship, you didn't see it coming, fine. But Annie kept making things harder for herself, she kept trying to hang on to something that was not there anymore.

On the other side, there's Sophie, and Sophie was great. She did everything right, she tried to help Annie and make her see her own worth. I may not completely agree with her methods, but no one's perfect.

I think the book falls in the feminism category, it is esentially about being your own woman, about making your own decisions and about not being on your knees for the first man that shows you attetion. I liked that. Annie was definitely this type of person, thinking she can't ever be happy without being tied up to a man. And when Sam dumped her, with no warning, she was lost and depressed. Sophie did a wonderful job at trying to show her, to teach her that happniess doesn't come from outside. I really liked Sophie for this.

Overall the book was great. It was recommended to me by my best friend and I am going to go and give thanks again for it because I really, really liked it. More than it, I want to read 'The Return', also by Rachel Harrison. 'The Return' is the first book the author published and I saw it was generally well received so I want to check it out. But until that, definitely give 'Cackle' a try. If you like everything empowering, witchy, and don't absolutely dislike spiders, it is a great book.