The Tangleroot Palace: Stories Review

I'm such a fan of Marjorie Liu (author of Monstress) that when I saw this book on NetGalley I didn't even read the synopsis before requesting it and I would do it again.

Instead of being another graphic novel like I was expecting, it ended up being a collection of short stories written throughout the years, alongside a short comment by the author, giving the story a bit of context both to when it was written and to how it had aged.

Sympathy for the Bones

In this story perfect for your dark cottagecore loving heart, a girl raised by a witch slowly learns her mother's trade.

This is a very disturbing story touching on themes such as abusive families, death and grief but it is more importantly a story about a young woman taking control of her situation and building the life she wants.

It reminded me a bit of Spinning Silver and For the Wolf tone-wise in how it refused to make apologies for bad people and harmful beliefs and didn't force girls to make themselves smaller and wait to be saved.

Briar and Rose

This sapphic retelling of The Sleeping Beauty might have been my absolute favourite out of all of them.

Albeit one of the simpler and shortest tales, the characters in it felt as real and complex as if I had spent an entire novel with them. In fact, I wish I could have.

The ending was beautiful and all I could have wanted and I would love to see this adapted in any form from a graphic novel to an animation.

Call her savage

I would read an entire series in this universe and then binge-watch the movies. Think Star Wars meet The Man in the High Castle meets The Mortal Engines.

This was one of the most complex and longer stories, following a war hero going on one last suicide mission to kill her former lover.

It touches on themes such as colonialism, race, war, revenge and jealousy as two people that could have had a love story in a better world meet to kill each other after years apart.

When the ending came, I was not ready for it.

The last dignity of man

This felt like an Ao3 fever dream and I loved every moment it hurt me.

In this story, a lonely young billionaire is obsessed with Superman so he models himself after Lex Luthor. After striking up a conversation with a homeless man, he gives him a job in his company and slowly falls in love with him, looking forward to any interactions or attention from his crush.

This was a story about loneliness and pain and I spent the entire time rooting if not for these two characters to be together then for them to find some peace and love through their friendship.

I finished it knowing only one thing: I need more.

Where the heart lives

This was the first story set in the Dirk & Steele universe but you don't need to have read it beforehand as this is a prelude to those.

This felt like a dark academia setting: we have the huge gothic mansion, the found family, and magic that is never explained (although that might be because I haven't read Dirk & Steele). We also have women standing up for themselves in a sexist world, mention of abusive families and a slow burn romance.

After the blood

The second tale in the Dirk & Steele universe is set in the future, in a post-pandemic world where all technology failed and magic and vampires exist.

Our heroine lives close to an Amish town and deals with both the good and the bad of their culture.

Once again, I didn't understand the magic system and world enough for this story to become one of my favourites but I loved the themes it dealt with from discrimination to community and most importantly it was a tale about different kinds of love and I adored how romantic love was not seen as the best or more important just one type.

Something else I truly loved was our heroine and how the other characters interacted with her. She was always the person with the gun, the defender, the physical threat against those that would hurt her and those she held dear and I really liked seeing a woman portrayed in such a way.

The Tangleroot Palace

A princess rejects the responsibility others put on her to marry a monstrous man and decides instead to run away to a magical forest to find a solution to her kingdom's problems or at the very least to avoid them.

This reminded me a lot of A court of Thornes and Roses series, particularly when it came to flawed, human parents, the importance placed on friendship and the stories we tell about ourselves to the world in order to protect what we love.

Once again I didn't really connect with the magic system but I liked the feminist spin on marriage and the heroine's quick wit.

Conclusions

I had never read anything from Marjorie Liu before apart from her Monstress series so I went into this book with high expectations but afraid I would be disappointed.

What I found were seven wonderful short stories, six of them headed by heroines, most of them following queer characters. No matter where or when, what these stories also had in common were that they were about love: unrequited, vengeful, romantic, familial or between friends and community and how that makes a difference in the world.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for this DRC.

Rating: 5/5