My initial reaction upon finishing Comfort Me With Apples was “wtf was this.” I’m not sure what I was going to rate it or say about it before my book club meeting, but something one of the other members said during the meeting sort of flipped a little switch in my brain and clarified my feelings and thoughts about it.
This was a weird effing book. Especially if you go in thinking you know what the main premise is, but you really don’t as it turns out, like I did. This was marketed as SPOILERS a Bluebeard retelling END SPOILERS (at least that’s how I first heard about it) and the synopsis makes it seem like some sort of semi-fantastical suburban satire, and it sort of is that also, but those two things are really only side dishes to the main event, which I won’t talk about except in the spoiler tags below.
There was so much stuff shoved into this hundred page book it took me a day or so to form opinions about it beyond that it was weird, and that I felt disturbed in my brain. I also historically have a hard time with allegory, and there’s a lot of that going on here. But ultimately, I did like this, and I really enjoyed the book club discussion we had afterwards. I don’t think anybody disliked it, and there were a lot of people there.
For those wanting some spoilers to light their way: SPOILERS This is essentially a creation story reimagining bent into a satire. The main character is the wife Adam had before Eve, because in this scenario Adam is also Bluebeard, keeping bits of his other wives in his basement END SPOILERS. There’s lots of other weird to shit to be found here also, so if weird shit is your thing, you might be in luck!