Review: My True Love Gave To Me (Anthology) edited by Stephanie Perkins

If you love holiday stories, holiday movies, made-for-TV-holiday specials, holiday episodes of your favorite sitcoms and, especially, if you love holiday anthologies, you’re going to fall in love with My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories by twelve bestselling young adult writers, edited by international bestselling author Stephanie Perkins. Whether you enjoy celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah, Winter Solstice or New Year's there's something here for everyone. So curl up by the fireplace and get cozy. You have twelve reasons this season to stay indoors and fall in love.

First off, Happy Valentine’s Day! And what better way to celebrate than with an anthology of love and fluff filled stories. Whilst this is technically a Christmas book, I think that the fluffiness contained within these pages is more than enough to satisfy any need for smushy love stories today.

The full list of authors is impressive: Rainbow Rowell, Kelly Link, Matt de la Peña, Jenny Han, Stephanie Perkins, David Levithan, Holly Black, Gayle Forman, Myra McEntire, Kiersten White, Ally Carter and Laini Taylor. A smorgasbord of incredible Young Adult authors from across a multitude of genres.

With every anthology you end up with a bit of a mixed bag of stories with some that you wish were much longer and had their own books, and others that you end up skimming or skipping entirely. Due to the incredible array of authors you also end up with fantasy stories getting cosy next to contemporary which can end up as more than a little confusing to change mindsets so quickly for each story. It might have worked slightly better had the order been rearranged, but that is a minor quibble and something that may not even bother most people. That said, having such a diverse range of authors with their individual styles, meant that there were a truly wonderful collection of stories filled with people of all races, ethnicities, religions and sexualities.

It’s bookended with two of the best stories, starting with Rainbow Rowell’s “Midnights” which tells a love story set on New Years Eve over several years and several midnights which just melted my heart into a pile of goo right from the start. It was a fantastic start to the book, but it also set the bar stupidly high which not all of the other stories lived up to. And then that ending with Laini Taylor’s “The Girl who Woke the Dreamer”. Oh my. I mean I love Taylor’s book so I was expecting something good, but this one completely blew me away. It was haunting and gorgeous and so completely different to anything else in the anthology. It sends you away on a truly incredible high.

The middle is a mixed bag, with some truly wonderful stories like Stephanie Perkins “It’s a Yuletide Miracle, Charlie Brown” which will give you all of the feels a massive silly grin on your face by the end, and some that I didn’t even reach the end of. The fantasy stories feel a little out of place, but once you get past that Holly Black’s “Krampuslauf” and Kelly Link’s “The Lady & The Fox” are gorgeous and really add a different feel to the anthology.

Sadly for me the stories that let the anthology down were David Levithan, Ally Carter and Jenny Han, which was tragic given that Levithan’s was the only LGBT story in the anthology. I just didn’t connect to the characters in the same way as I did with the other stories.

This is a great anthology that is wonderful to dip in an out of when you need some guaranteed fluff and romance in a wide variety of styles and settings. I read it over Christmas and it was a wonderful piece of escapism around the holiday season. But given the content I also recommend it as a book to read today. It’s a wonderful collection of tales from some of the best YA authors writing at the moment and will leave you with a lot of the warm fuzzies.

Review: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Publication Date: 10^th February 2015

Thanks to Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review

The poverty stricken Reds are commoners, living under the rule of the Silvers, elite warriors with god-like powers.
To Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red girl from The Stilts, it looks like nothing will ever change.
Mare finds herself working in the Silver Palace, at the centre of
those she hates the most. She quickly discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy Silver control.
But power is a dangerous game. And in this world divided by blood, who will win?

There is a huge amount to love in this exciting new debut. Dystopian future where the colour of your blood segregates you? X-Men style powers and a whole lot of throw downs? Oh yes please.I thought this was a great debut, fast paced and full of brilliant ideas. There were a couple of stumbling blocks, but on the whole this was fantastic.

I loved Mare. She was a resourceful and determined and unfailingly brave. She has a few moments later in the novel where I wanted to shake her for not thinking things through, but on the whole she was a great heroine.
I also loved the boys. Thankfully this isn’t your typical love triangle (for reasons I won’t spoil here) so if the idea of the love triangle is putting you off, I highly advise trying the book anyway, you will be pleasantly surprised.

But most of all I loved the abilities, the range and breadth and how much they added to the story. Seriously, any type of abilities, be it X-Men or Graceling or anything inbetween, and I am sold. They were woven into the story brilliantly and added a whole other element of danger and intrigue. I would almost have liked to see them used more, but on the whole I think it was fantastic.

Some of the secondary characters could have done with a little more development, we weren’t really given enough time or space to get to know them so their actions sometimes felt a little forced whereas with a bit more development everything would have flowed much more smoothly.
But whilst I would have liked that, the pacing was really good with the right level of tension to keep you storming through the story.

However, three things stopped it from being a five star read for me. Firstly how obvious the ‘twists’ were. I spent the majority of the book waiting for both of them to happen, which took away a lot of the tension. I was still on the edge of my seat for most of it, but I knew what was coming and it became more of an ‘I told you so’ than an ‘oh my god I did not see that coming’ which was a shame.

The second thing was how incredibly near sighted Mare was. This plays into the first point, but I found it really frustrating when she was sneaking around getting up to hijinks and turning off the cameras as she went. Random patterns of blank spots are going to be easy to track where the person is going and who it is. It just pushed the limits of my gullibility trying to swallow that part. She should have been caught out by that right at the start, and instead she ended up feeling virtually invincible which just made me want to shake her.

And finally the fact that so much time was spent on the angsty teen plots and not really enough on the rebellion and the war. It felt like that was just a late addition to up the stakes on everything else, which was a shame and I’m hoping that will be rectified in the next book. The rebellion itself just felt a little bit weak. There was no rhyme or reason to it, just random sneaking around, not particularly well thought out plans and arbitrary attacks that anyone with a modicum of sense could see were just going to make the problem worse and not help in the slightest.

These things aside, Red Queen was a really fantastic read. Everytime I put it down I wanted to pick it straight back up again. It was engaging and fast paced and full of some brilliant ideas that work into a great debut novel and a promising start to the series. 

Review: The Anatomist's Wife by Anna Lee Huber

Scotland, 1830. Following the death of her husband, Lady Darby has taken refuge at her sister's estate, finding solace in her passion for painting. But when her hosts throw a house party for the cream of London society, Kiera is unable to hide from the ire of those who believe her to be as unnatural as her husband, an anatomist who used her artistic talents to suit his own macabre purposes.
Kiera wants to put her past aside, but when one of the house guests is murdered, her brother-in-law asks her to utilize her knowledge of human anatomy to aid the insufferable Sebastian Gage--a fellow guest with some experience as an inquiry agent. While Gage is clearly more competent than she first assumed, Kiera isn't about to let her guard down as accusations and rumors swirl.
When Kiera and Gage's search leads them to even more gruesome discoveries, a series of disturbing notes urges Lady Darby to give up the inquiry. But Kiera is determined to both protect her family and prove her innocence, even as she risks becoming the next victim...

So after my truly terrible experience with ‘Jackaby’, I was back to square one in my search for books like the ‘Lady Julia’ series by Deanna Raybourn. Until that is, I came across Angie’s review of ‘The Anatomist’sWife’ and without further ado I ordered it for the next day.

It is a very rare and utterly wonderful feeling to sink into a book and adore everything about it. To actually want to slow down your reading and savour the words. And then to discover that the book is the first in a series and there are several already published so you can continue to enjoy them at your leisure instead of the torturous wait of a year that new releases leave us with. ‘The Anatomist’s Wife’ gave me that feeling in spades. I haven’t felt so absorbed, captivated and enthralled by a book and savoured every page since I discovered ‘Silent in the Grave’ – and my love of that is well documented.

Everything about this book was perfection. I loved Kiera from the start. I loved her backstory that slowly came out – piece by terrible piece. I loved the setting, her family, the atmosphere of fear and terror that seeped into everything, and most of all I loved her tempestuous relationship with Gage. There are so many similarities with the ‘Lady Julia’ series, but not in a bad way, merely the time period, the subject matter and the intriguing and wonderful relationship between the heroine and the investigator involved.

The writing is sublime, the pacing wonderful and the slow climb of tension to the terrifying peak when all is revealed deftly handled. It is a quiet book, one that builds beautifully and is engaging and effecting. I loved that we were introduced to Kiera after the trauma and spectacle of her husbands death and the spectacle that followed. We find her at a point of exhaustion – everything is too much and beyond the capabilities of her recovering mind and spirit. And it was so wonderful to watch her come alive, to confront her past and her demons, to come to terms with it and be able to begin to heal, but also to be able to embrace what her past has taught her, and to begin to seize life again. And of course part of that was her relationship with Gage. I loved that she wasn’t afraid to stand up to him, she never succumbed to thinking he knew best – in fact to start with she is convinced that he has no real idea what he’s doing which was both amusing and brilliant to read. They are such a perfect pair and their friendship is tackled so wonderfully – another brilliant example of the slow burn and how effectively it can be utilised.

I cannot wait to read the rest of the series, one which is now a firm favourite based merely on this first book. I want to find out more about Kiera and see where her new found confidence and gumption takes her next, and of course, see her next meeting with the wonderful Mr Gage. This is a beautiful book, quiet, horrifying and at points genuinely terrifying. I savoured every page of it and cannot recommend it enough.

Review: Jackaby by William Ritter

“Miss Rook, I am not an occultist,” Jackaby said. “I have a gift that allows me to see truth where others see the illusion--and there are many illusions. All the world’s a stage, as they say, and I seem to have the only seat in the house with a view behind the curtain.”
Newly arrived in New Fiddleham, New England, 1892, and in need of a job, Abigail Rook meets R. F. Jackaby, an investigator of the unexplained with a keen eye for the extraordinary--including the ability to see supernatural beings. Abigail has a gift for noticing ordinary but important details, which makes her perfect for the position of Jackaby’s assistant. On her first day, Abigail finds herself in the midst of a thrilling case: A serial killer is on the loose. The police are convinced it’s an ordinary villain, but Jackaby is certain it’s a nonhuman creature, whose existence the police--with the exception of a handsome young detective named Charlie Cane--deny.
Doctor Who meets Sherlock in William Ritter’s debut novel, which features a detective of the paranormal as seen through the eyes of his adventurous and intelligent assistant in a tale brimming with cheeky humor and a dose of the macabre.

Oh Jackaby, you had so much promise and you really didn’t live up to it. But then, maybe I’m just a picky customer. Feeling decidedly in need of something close to Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia series, Jackaby seemed like a pretty good bet. Mysteries! Deaths! Crime! Supernatural! Sleuthing! Victorian! Sherlock meets Dr Who? Oh yes please to all of the above!

So I dove straight in expecting to be blown away, but instead was mildly put out by the most ridiculous of things. Abigail Rook is supposed to be an English girl – admittedly she has been travelling for some time by the time the story begins, but still, she is a well bred English woman. So why does she insist on narrating and speaking with so many Americanisms? And not only that, but modern ones too? It was enough to make me weep with despair and my poor husband try and wrench the book from my hands. That one very idiotically simple thing virtually ruined the book for me. It put me in such a rubbishly grumpy frame of mind that enjoyment was pretty much squashed. Which is tragic because it could have been so very, very good.

There are so many brilliant ideas in this novel. Some were a bit of a stretch for me – the third floor was pushing my brain a little bit simply because I was expecting one type of book and was being given one that had more magic in than I was expecting. And as a result it could have been something brilliant. But the modern Americanisms in her thoughts and speech combined with a stupidly easy to spot murderer left me feeling more than a little disgruntled.

For fans of the supernatural and mysterious deaths with some wonderful fokelore and ideas woven in, this book is definitely worth a read, but be warned going in that if you are picky about English ladies speaking like English ladies, this book may well drive you up the wall. 

Review: All Fall Down by Ally Carter

Publication Date: 5^th February 2015

Huge thanks to Netgalley for sending me a copy in return for an honest review.

This exciting new series from NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Ally Carter focuses on Grace, who can best be described as a daredevil, an Army brat, and a rebel. She is also the only granddaughter of perhaps the most powerful ambassador in the world, and Grace has spent every summer of her childhood running across the roofs of Embassy Row.
Now, at age sixteen, she's come back to stay--in order to solve the mystery of her mother's death. In the process, she uncovers an international conspiracy of unsettling proportions, and must choose her friends and watch her foes carefully if she and the world are to be saved.

I absolutely love Ally Carter’s previous series, both Gallagher Girls and the Heist books, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her latest offering and get to know a whole new world. Unfortunately my anticipated love affair with ‘All Fall Down’ didn’t quite go as I’d anticipated.

The concept is great, the world is wonderful, the writing is up to Carter’s brilliant standard, but sadly there were problems. The biggest one being Grace herself. I never really felt like I connected with Grace, which is I think due in part to the fact that Grace is the most unreliable narrator I have ever come across in fiction. By about a third of the way through the book I just didn’t trust her at all, which meant that my enjoyment of the book became severely compromised.

It comes across as for a much younger audience, perhaps on that transition line for those just coming into young adult fiction. In part due to the style, but mostly again due to Grace. She never struck me as a sixteen year old teenager, she felt as though she’d gotten stuck at age thirteen. Understandable given the circumstances, but a little bit frustrating to read.

It also reads more like a film script than a book in places, due to the flashbacks that Grace keeps on having. This sort of works, but it mostly just made me feel like it was meant to be a movie, and actually became a little bit frustrating the further in I read.

I absolutely loved the characters surrounding Grace, her oddball team of espionage amateurs were fantastic, and really I just wanted more of them! The only character I wasn’t really sold on was Alexei, because like Grace we never really got to see a huge amount of character – is he good, is he bad, is he just playing her or spying on her? All questions we may see answered at a later point in the series, but for a first book I felt entirely wrong footed by too many elements, that made me question whether I would really want to invest more time in the series.

All in all it was an intriguing premise that worked in some areas and fell flat on its face in others. It’s a good set up for things to come, but there were an awful lot of awkward parts and some serious issues with Grace and her likeability and general trust developing between her and the reader. There’s a lot to love though, and the pacing means that it’s a fast and tense read that will leave you with no idea where things are going from one page to the next.

Review: The Last Leaves Falling by Sarah Benwell

Publication Date: 29th January 2015

Huge thanks to Random House UK for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

And these are they. My final moments. They say a warrior must always be mindful of death, but I never imagined that it would find me like this…
Japanese teenager, Sora, is diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). Lonely and isolated, Sora turns to the ancient wisdom of the samurai for guidance and comfort. But he also finds hope in the present; through the internet he finds friends that see him, not just his illness. This is a story of friendship and acceptance, and testing strength in an uncertain future.

I should probably be upfront that Sarah is in fact a very dear friend of mine, so whilst I would be gushing about this book already simply on its own merit, the fact that it was written by Sarah just makes it even more awesome.

There is a big surge of diverse young adult fiction hitting the shelves which is a welcome breath of fresh air, and Sora’s tale set in modern Japan is no exception. Add to it that the story itself tackles death, euthanasia and features a disabled protagonist and ‘The Last Leaves Falling’ quickly sets itself apart as something other than your average YA fiction. The truth is it is so much more.

Sora is a tragic and compelling protagonist, at times buoyed up by those around him, sometimes sinking underneath the weight of inevitability, but his narrative had me racing through the book. It is a quiet, raw tale full of the tragic sense of time crashing too fast that comes with such a story, but that in no way hinders the storytelling, or makes it feel like a waste of a book. The prose is so beautifully constructed that you are at once struck with the inevitable end, desperate for any way to alleviate it, but knowing that there is nothing that can be done except to be with Sora through his journey and listen to his story.

The cast of characters that surround him really lift the tale up, injecting it with moments of humour and lightness in amongst the dark. I loved watching Sora slowly begin to let his friends in, to allow them to see him and then to form such a strong support system with them. It truly turned the story from a quiet dirge into something filled with quiet beauty. I loved the additional threads of their own separate stories, each of the three trying to tackle their own problems and drawing strength from the others when it all became too much.

Yes it tackles hard issues, but Sarah handles them with a deft grace that leaves the reader enthralled by the story and utterly wrecked by the emotions within. It is tragic but underpinned with lightness and a feeling that all is not lost, no matter how dark things can get. Quiet hope and dignity suffuse the decisions and actions as Sora comes to terms with himself and the legacy that he will leave.

This book stayed with me well beyond turning the last page. I had questions and thoughts and took quite some time to process through all the issues raised and feelings brought into question by Sora’s tale.

Mixed into all of this, Sarah captures the everyday internet culture that almost all teens are used to these days – something that is strangely left untouched in most books. I loved watching with Sora these teens go about their daily lives, the issues and heartaches that all feel as though they are life and death at the time. It’s something that everyone can relate to, either because they themselves are going through it or they’ve been through it in the past. But at the same time the Japanese culture creeps in and it was so wonderful to see those little touches that marked this book out from so many generic UK and US teen stories. It was like looking in a slightly skewed mirror, the same but so many little differences that make it unique – the mythology and culture and little details that really brought this tale into full technicolour.

This book will destroy you. It will creep into your mind and your heart and your soul and it will slowly pull you apart piece by piece until by the time you reach the last page you are an uncontrollable sobbing wreck. I thought this might just be me, but just look at some of the reviews already springing up about Last Leaves and you’ll see that everyone is having this reaction. It is an incredible book, an important book, and the one book that I will be saying to everyone, if you only read one book this year, let it be this one.

You can read my interview with Sarah here

And find her on Twitter here!

Buy your copy from Amazon or The Book Depository now!

Other great reviews for 'The Last Leaves Falling':

Queen of Contemporary

Serendipity Reviews

Fluttering Butterflies

Thirst for Fiction

Author Q & A with Sarah Benwell

I feel so incredibly lucky to announce that today on the blog, I have an interview with one of the most exciting debut authors this year, Sarah Benwell. Sarah is an incredibly talented author whose debut novel 'The Last Leaves Falling' will be released in the UK tomorrow - here to tell us a little more about the book, the research that went into it, and her writing process.

For anyone who hasn’t yet heard about your debut novel ‘The Last Leaves Falling’ can you tell them a little bit about it?

The book follows Japanese teenager Sora, who has ALS, as he deals with that diagnosis… I am terrible at this. Here’s a handy blurb:
Japanese teenager Sora is diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease). Lonely and isolated, Sora turns to the ancient wisdom of the samurai for guidance and comfort. But he also finds hope in the present; through the internet he finds friends that see him, not just his illness. This is a story of friendship and acceptance, and testing strength in an uncertain future.

What inspired you to write this story? Can you tell us about how the original idea evolved into the novel readers will have in their hands tomorrow?

Last Leaves started out as a very, very different book. I was discussing book concepts with a writing buddy, and – as it often does when you’re with friends – conversation drifted. To Japan, the creepy sadness of Aokigahara, and from there, to loneliness, and coercion, and the particular Japanese trend towards suicide pacts.The statistics are horrifying, and Last Leaves started out exploring why.

In the original, the book started with Sora, Mai and Kaito making that pact. The story was about them reaching that end (whether or not they ultimately went through with it). But it turns out the story was all wrong for the characters in my head. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell a story principally about letting go, any more than my characters wanted to live it. Eventually, the story’s focus shifted, to choice, control, and dignity.

The moral and legal debates surrounding end of life choices and the right to die are – correctly – impassioned. We’re all connected to it. Whether we’ve watched someone fight or languish, or have simply wondered what if this were me? Whether we’re for or against it or somewhere in between. Of course we are all passionate. It affects us all.

Debating is good. The issues are complex and the potential for harm if we get it wrong is very, very real.

Last Leaves offers one perspective – the voice of one, lone, fictional teenager – but I hope that it’s done in such a way that readers can approach the issues and explore them safely, and make up their own minds.

The UK cover for The Last Leaves Falling

Sora suffers from ALS, your descriptions of both the condition and the effects of the drugs he has to take to combat that are incredibly realistic and really help the reader to connect with the awful situation that Sora is in, what research did you do to help you create this?

A lot of it is about imagining what it would feel like to deal with the pain and physical constraints and not-knowing – taking whatever experience you have and applying or multiplying that. It’s method-acting of the mind. It’s empathy.

But it also felt very important to portray things fairly. It will never, ever be 100% the way everyone experiences these things because no two experiences are the same. But I sought out the voices of people with ALS. And I talked to friends who use a wheelchair, or have limited mobility, friends who’ve dealt with the uncertainty, the pain, the meds.

I asked questions. I asked them to read my work and pull me up on anything I got horribly wrong.

Sure, it can be uncomfortable: it’s hard both checking your privilege (you will inevitably make assumptions or infer things without even realizing) and making yourself vulnerable to criticism, but it’s so important to be as fair and truthful as you can, and to be willing to listen, and to learn.

Luckily, people have been awesome, and this book is so much better for it.

(*Um. This answer sort of morphed into something more than getting physical details right. Whatever. It stands.)

Speaking of research, the setting is wonderful – from Sora’s family flat in the city to his grandparent’s out in the country, what research did you do to create this beautiful piece of the world that Sora and his friends inhabit?

Some degree of cultural immersion, I guess. While visiting Japan is still waiting on my bucket list, there’s a lot you can do to expose yourself to a place without visiting. I’ve had Japanese housemates, and several conversations about their homes. I’ve watched a lot of Japanese movies and series, seen photographs and read all the Japanese literature I could get my hands on. Details are everywhere. And this goes for the cultural details too.

When I was done, I asked a Japanese friend, and another who lives in Japan, to beta read/ check my work.

Diversity in novels is a hugely important thing, did you start out with the idea that you wanted to create a particularly diverse protagonist, or did it just happen that Sora’s story came to you and happened to fall into the diverse bracket?

You’re right, diversity in books is hugely important. Much as I believe this, though, I never sit down thinking ‘I must write something diverse’, or even ‘how can I get diversity into this story/ onto the shelves?’ It just happens naturally. My world isn’t populated by white, straight, cisgendered, neurotypical, able-bodied people, so why would that be all I write?

Other people, places and cultures are my crack. I’m fascinated by the similarities and differences between us all. So my stories explore that, which lends itself nicely to diversity, but it’s not a conscious, forceful thing, just the things I love.

The US cover for The Last Leaves Falling

The title and cover are absolutely stunning, you must be thrilled with the cover art (both UK and USA editions) how did you come up with the title for the novel?

Yes yes yes yes yessss. I love both covers with all my heart.

The title was a tricky thing. It started out as Death Wish – playing into the book’s ending, and nodding towards Japanese horror and anime cultures. But it was felt (rightly, I think) that this wasn’t doing justice to the story.

I suck at titles. Really, really. All credit for THE LAST LEAVES FALLING as a title goes to Kayla Whaley and her epic distillation skills.

What was the hardest part of writing ‘The Last Leaves Falling’ for you?

There were some difficult scenes, inevitably, but I think the hardest thing was actually the fear. All that research and reaching out to other people is because I really care about getting things right. Particularly where ALS and the wider portrayal of disability in books is concerned.

When you’re writing about any marginalized group – or any group of people to which you don’t belong – you have to be aware of their experiences, of the representation so far, of tropes and attitudes and bug bears, of the history you’re walking over.

It was particularly scary in regards to Sora’s disability. There is not nearly enough representation of disabilities in literature, and what there is is often met with fear and skepticism by disabled readers, who have long put up with awful tropes and stereotyping and being used as plot devices. Add to this that Last Leaves looks at assisted dying, that it broaches difficult questions about rights and control, and I was nervous about getting it right. I’d like to open up worlds and experiences and discussion, and I absolutely want to do no harm.

And the best/most rewarding part?

All of it? As difficult as it sometimes was, writing this book has been an absolute privilege. I’m incredibly grateful for all the help I’ve had, and hope I’ve done it justice. I think I have. I’m proud of the result.

What do you hope readers will take away from the book?

I think I’d like to leave that up to you guys. But I wouldn’t say no to making people think.

Can you tell us anything about what you’re working on next?

South Africa. Music. Heartbreak. Girl-girl kissing. :D

Do you have any advice for any aspiring authors reading this? 

Research, research, research. And don’t be afraid. Or do, but write your story anyway.

So that's all from Sarah! Thank you so much for coming over and taking the time out of your crazy schedule to talk to us! 'The Last Leaves Falling' is an absolutely incredible book, but I shall wait until its release tomorrow to gush about it properly when I will be posting my review, so check back then to hear more!

You can pre-order the book on Amazon here

And follow Sarah on twitter for more updates and writerly musings!

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.
Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.
At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.
Until one day, he does…
As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

Holly Black is the Queen of revealing the true terrifying natures of the Fae.

Every book she writes plays host to a whole array of strange and fantastical creatures that are the darkest versions of faeries imaginable, and they are utterly spellbindingly beautiful books. It is an incredible book, showcasing that Holly Black becomes even more talented with each book she writes. It showcases everything she has become known for – flowing prose, strong female characters, and a warping of the world around us until anything seems possible and even the most frightening things are real.

‘The Coldest Girl in Coldtown’ ushered in a new age of Black’s books, and an even more engrossing series of novels. Standalones featuring heady and terrifying new worlds, ‘The Darkest Part of the Forest’ isn’t quite as chilling (no pun intended) as ‘Coldtown’ but it branches out to give us a peak at Fairfold and the fae terrorizing its citizens.

It’s a dark novel full of secrets, lies and lost memories, featuring one of the most unreliable narrators I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. The narrative skips back and forth between past and present, offering glimpses into each of the main characters lives and secrets, but ultimately following the story of Hazel, whose secrets and lies and deepest darkest desires are what act as the catalyst for the events that unfold. It explores the relationships both with herself and the two people closest to her – her brother Ben and her brother’s best friend, Jack.

Everything is kept hidden from the reader, the book holding onto its secrets to make you work to piece the whole of the puzzle together, and work I did, tearing through the book in a matter of hours. I loved it. The quiet terror and determination of the town to completely ignore and disregard all the magical things happening around them. The gradual unfurling of Hazel’s character and all the choices that have shaped her into the person we are introduced to and the relationships that are built back up into working, functional things.

This is an incredible new novel from an author who seems to have no difficulty creating unique works of art with each new book. They are always raw and full of human emotion and foolishness, beautiful highs and terrifying lows and often places that most authors shy away from. Black deals with difficult or taboo subjects with finesse and brilliance and I cannot recommend her books enough, and ‘The Darkest Part of the Forest’ is no exception. For new and old fans alike, this latest offering will not fail to delight and terrify.