In the enchanted kingdom of Brooklyn, the fashionable people put on cute shoes, go to parties in warehouses, drink on rooftops at sunset, and tell themselves they’ve arrived. A whole lot of Brooklyn is like that now—but not Vassa’s working-class neighborhood.
In Vassa’s neighborhood, where she lives with her stepmother and bickering stepsisters, one might stumble onto magic, but stumbling out again could become an issue. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters—and sometimes innocent shoppers as well. So when Vassa’s stepsister sends her out for light bulbs in the middle of night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission.
But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and a ferocious cunning. With Erg’s help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch’s curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. But Babs won’t be playing fair…
Pros – Babs (I will never not consider Baba Yaga a Pro in a book), the visuals of this book, Erg
Cons – The surreal nature sometimes makes it hard to understand just what happened, Vassa can be blind, dead things
Spoiler – If you know the original Russian fairy tale of “Vassilissa the Beautiful” you can guess how this will turn out.
Note – I got only one warning for y’all – if you have a weak stomach when it comes to dead things being described, be wary.
For the Sake of Reading 