The Poison Apples

Lily Archer lives in New York City, where she reads the dictionary for fun and secretly hankers for a pet penguin.  She has known many stepmothers; some kind, others wicked.

As you probably know, more than 50 percent of marriages in America end in divorce. And more than 75 percent of divorced men end up remarrying. That means there are thousands—millions!—of stepmothers out there. Stepmothers in North Dakota. Stepmothers in Florida. Thin stepmothers and fat stepmothers. Rich stepmothers and poor stepmothers. Beautiful stepmothers and ugly stepmothers. Good stepmothers and bad stepmothers.

            This book is not about the good stepmothers.

            We’re not saying good stepmothers don’t exist. We know they do. We have faith. We know somewhere out there are stepmothers who love and care about their stepdaughters, stepmothers who give good advice and make goofy jokes and play Monopoly and rent slapstick comedies and take their stepdaughters out for Ethiopian food. In fact, there are probably thousands of girls out there with really stellar stepmothers. Those girls are welcome to write a book about how great their stepmothers are.

            We are not those girls.

            We are the Poison Apples.

            We all happen to have Incredibly Evil Stepmothers.

            So. To any stepmothers who may feel that the stepmother population is unfairly represented in our book: We don’t know what to say to you. Sorry? Honestly we have no idea why we ended up with such horrible stepmothers. Fate? Karma? Bad luck? In any case, we had enough good fate/karma/luck to meet one another at boarding school and form a family. Because the existence of the Poison Apples helped us realize something: You have to take your fate/karma/luck into your own hands. You cannot let the evil stepmother win.

            This is our story.

            To the good stepmothers: Keep on keepin’ on. We hope to meet you someday.

            To the bad stepmothers: You have been warned.

Signed,

The Poison Apples

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