Arachnophile

Arachnophile by Betty Rocksteady
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Alex and his wife are having problems. When Alex falls in love with the woman next door, things escalate. Did I mention the woman next door is a giant spider?

That magical time of year when the New Bizarro Author series launches is upon us and I will soon have all the books in my clutches. While deciding which one to pick first. I noticed this one was about giant spiders living alongside humans. Sold! After all, I take spider photos at every opportunity.

While I expected this to be a cool book, I in no way expected to love it this much. Arachnophile is a unlikely love story between a man and the giant spider that lives across the hall. While it could have been played for laughs, it's actually touching at times and very well thought out.

One of my pet peeves with some bizarro books is that they seemed slapped together and don't have much internal logic. This one is pretty great. The logic of the world is well done. I liked how Alex's racism, or speciesism, I guess, against spiders was portrayed. Also, and this is going to sound creepy, Betty Rocksteady made the spider's embrace seem really sensual.

Arachnophile is a surprisingly sensitive, well written love story. It just happens that one of the characters is a giant spider. Five out of five web-wrapped stars.

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