User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
Check out this review (and more) over on my blog!
Thank you so much to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC in exchange for an honest review! Quick Stats:
Overall: 5/5 Stars
Characters: 5/5
Setting: 5/5
Writing: 5/5
Plot and Themes: 4.5/5
Awesomeness Factor: 5/5
Review in a Nutshell: It’s official. I’m adding this book to my "books I will not shut up about" list.
// Content Warning: Violence, Death, Mature Content, Self Harm (for Magic/Religion), Child Abuse, Abuse, Animal Death, War Themes, Murder, Gore (Graphic), Amputation, Torture, Antisemitism, Cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing //Release Date: 6/8/2021
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Page Count: 432
Premise:The Wolf and the Woodsman follows Evike, a magic-less pagan woman with a Yehuli father, making her an outcast in her village. When the Holy Order of the Woodsman comes to take a pagan girl as a sacrifice, her village betrays her and volunteers her to be taken. But, on the journey to the palace, she and the Woodsmen are attacked, leaving only her and the captain alive. But he isn’t who she originally thought. The two of them are forced to rely on each other to survive, but as they journey together, they realize they do have something in common: their desire to prevent the cruel prince from taking the throne.
This book is amazing, and because of that, my thoughts about it are fairly chaotic. So, we’re going to ignore my normal reviewing format in favor of trying to string together these rambling thoughts.
The Wolf and the Woodsman is a fantastic debut and an absolutely captivating story.
If you want:
- enemies to lovers
- huddling for warmth
- ruthless protagonist, secret cinnamon roll love interest
- intricate worldbuilding
- forbidden love
then you need to read this book.
The Wolf and the Woodsman is stunning. You can tell the amount of research and thought that went into crafting this world and these characters. The different cultures in the book have clear real-world influence, from Hungarian history to Jewish mythology (I'm not an ownvoices reviewer, so I would highly suggest reading ownvoices reviews discussing those aspects of this book).
This novel feels atmospheric and dark, showing a brutal world full of violence and gore, but still had moments for hope and love inside of it. The relationship in this book was beautiful, and the two main characters on their own were incredible and will stick with you long after you close the book.
- Conclusion -Pros- Great characters, fascinating world, amazing writing
Cons- if you aren’t a fan of gore, this might be a hard read for you (I usually don’t care either way about gore, so this didn’t really bother me)
Overall- 5/5 stars.
I loved every minute I spent reading this book, and I can't wait for more people to experience it.Follow Me Here: Blog ||Tumblr || Bookstagram || Twitter|| Reviews
Rating: really liked it
kinda brave for marketing to compare this to two really successful books. definitely creates high expectations, which can be dangerous.
in my opinion, is this as lyrically beautiful as
‘the bear and the nightingale?’ nah, not even close. is the writing reminiscent of
‘spinning silver?’ sure, both are pretty dense and laboriously slow-paced.
i like the idea of the story. i think the combination of jewish and hungarian mythology is really interesting, but i didnt enjoy the execution of it. i actually think there is too much of it. every other page, the characters seem to be taking a break to tell a story about some god or the creation of magic. readers who enjoy fairytale-esque stories probably wont mind this, but it really caused the main plot, which i was trying to enjoy, to drag for me, personally. and as the story went on, i slowly found myself caring less about it.
dunno. maybe i just wasnt in the right mood to read this, but i do wish i had liked it as much as i loved the idea.
↠ 2.5 stars
Rating: really liked it
this book. has everything?? a nuanced and brutal view of the violence of nation-building and the complexities of cultural identity, AND ALSO a prideful, tortured prince brought to his knees--his 𝓴𝓷𝓮𝓮𝓼--by his doomed and fragile love--
it has the unsettling-but-compelling gore of henderson's The Year of the Witching, the folkloric lilt of The Bear and the Nightingale, and the moral complexity of Seeing Like a State. i'm......obsessed.
Rating: really liked it
[2.5/5]The Wolf and the Woodsman is Reid's debut fantasy about a young woman from a remote village and a disgraced prince who must work together to preserve the kingdom from the prince's violent, religious zealot half brother.
And this book literally took me too long to finish. It has a good start and I was hooked at the beginning, but then it gets lengthy and I started to get bored.
Plot: This book just has a lot to unpack. I've never been so absent-minded in reading a book, that I don't think I truly pay attention to its world-building. I was informed that the author literally studied ethnonationalism religious history which reflected in her writing that was indeed profound. The stories of the tribes and their beliefs were well written but the information started to get repetitive and long-drawn; especially when Évike keeps on narrating the same folklore, over and over.
This book was also supposed to be a mix of
Spinning Silver as well as
The Bear and the Nightingale but mind you it does not even come close to measure what it's comparing. I'm not sure if this is just me?
I don't think it's just me but I definitely failed to see the resemblance, thus the book fell short in being impressive. I just wished the book would end sooner since nothing happened for the majority part of it. Not until the last 40 pages where the plot started to pick up again.
Writing Style: This is where my major problem comes from and it's not because the author writes poorly. It was decent and expository. However, the author style of using the same word or phrase over and over again is becoming apparent that it started to annoy me.
"...cheeks still burning"
"...him and his flustered, prayerful blushing"
"My cheeks flush"
"The barest flush of his cheeks"
"No, he agrees, cheeks flushing faintly"
"...a blush deepening her exceptionally pale face"
And trust me, the list doesn't stop there. I don't know how many times do the characters blushed/flushed/warmed their cheeks in every conversation they have. It feels like that is all they do to a point it is becoming their default. I am utterly flabbergasted.
Romance: Definitely did not dig into the romance. I understand Évike does not have the best upbringing but I believe, instead of being deprived, that woman is simply horny. Get back to the repetitive writing style with one horny character. Insufferable.
I am literally impressed with how Évike managed to think about how Gáspár's on every second she could; how his warm body was closed to her or for when they kissed. That narrative repeated for almost every chapter, it's exasperating.
"...struggling not to think of his body flush against my own"
"...remembering the line of his body against mine"
"...I didn't imagine his body pressing along the length of mine..."
"My body remembers the shape of his, from so many nights curled together"
You both are out there in a cold with nothing but the cloaks. Isn't it sensible to find warms in each other's bodies? Yet Évike's mind always seems to have wonders of its own.
Characters: This also brings me to say, none of the characters here is likeable nor interesting. I have nothing to bring to the table. Not Évike, not even Gáspár.
In short, this is a disappointment. This book could be for you, but not for me.
Rating: really liked it
an adult inspired fairy tale-esque book ??!! GIVE IT TO MEEEEEE!!!
Rating: really liked it
Since ARCs of my book are beginning to enter the world (and I am henceforth banning myself from Goodreads, which is a space for readers, not authors), I thought it would be a good time to provide some grounding and content warnings for THE WOLF & THE WOODSMAN.
I've pitched this book as having a "magic system based on body horror," which is I think apt - and so, naturally, there are a lot of graphic, on-the-page depictions of gore. (I've listed out the various iterations of that below).
I think it's also worth noting that this is fundamentally a book about nation-building, which I depict as a violent process that requires constant, aggressive forms of propaganda (aka, fairytales) in order to maintain. Religious persecution, cultural genocide, and ethnic cleansing are at the core of this book. My aim is, obviously, not endorsement, but rather a realistic representation of the oppression and marginalization experienced by ethnoreligious minorities. I am anticipating that some will categorize this book as grimdark, though I'm ambivalent to that descriptor myself.
TL;DR: Gore and genocide abound. Also, this book is not YA; it is adult. Take care of yourselves, and stay safe!
Content warnings:(view spoiler)
[- Gore, including graphic descriptions of dismemberment, amputation, mutilation, and immolation
- Torture, including whipping
- Self-harm, including self-amputation
- Animal death (graphic; the animals are not pets)
- Antisemitism
- Cultural genocide and ethnic cleansing
- Physical abuse by parents and parental figures
- Graphic descriptions of vomiting (hide spoiler)]
Rating: really liked it
I absolutely loved this – my favourite book of 2021 so far, which has shot straight to my list of all-time favourites. Ava Reid paints a rich and complex picture of a kingdom steeped in ancient magic, straining along seams of religious and cultural tension. From the first page to the last, every facet and detail is beautifully wrought.
Rooted in history and myth,
The Wolf and the Woodsman is a stunning debut – a powerful and haunting tale of a young woman’s will to live, of love flowering in defiance of tyranny. Every single facet and detail, from the first page to the last, is so beautifully wrought, from the lyrical descriptions of nature to the tortured, slow-burn romance. It will twine like a dark forest around your heart.
Rating: really liked it
dnf'ing because i am ethically, intellectually, and aesthetically offended by the idea that you can slip a young adult pitmad manuscript in an adult hardcover, add a bit of sex and a sprinkle of gore (in the same puerile prose), and not touch the style or substance at all. it's not the worst young adult novel i've ever tried to read, but it is written childishly, for children—both in its stilted sentences and in its self-righteous conviction that the story's simple moral allegory is doing Very Important Work.
lipstick on a pig, baby.
Rating: really liked it
I received a copy of this book to review. This in no way changes my opinion of the book. Rated 4.5/5 stars! This is the kind of story that seeps into your very bones.
It's both haunting and beautiful, brutal and magical. It's so many contradictions in one, and yet it all just works. The mythology is so prominent within the story, and you can really feel the atmosphere seeping into your skin as you're pulled in.
This isn't a story for the faint hearted - while seemingly whimsical with its magic and romance, everything comes with a sharp edge. There are some gory scenes peppered throughout, the cause of each scene being so inherently interwoven into the story that it's not something to skip over. And you wouldn't want to - it's all part of the story.
But amongst that, you have a main character you can't help but love. Not in an endearing-automatic-adoration way. But in the way where you see the faults, the quiet fierceness, the determination, and can't help but admire her as she makes her way through the world and everything it throws at her. I adored reading about Evike, and she's not a character that will be easily forgotten.
Will also note that the audiobook for this book is wonderful, the tone of the narrators voice seeming to match Evike's perspective so well. The direct way of speaking, while also acknowledging such magic and emotion through the story...they really brought the story to life audibly. Also a massive help for anyone wanting to work on pronunciations (note - there's a guide in the back too).
I actually already want to reread this one, convinced there is so much more to find within that just went over my head. In fact, I
know there is, based on other reviews and from what the author has said themselves. But I can tell this is one to marvel at, while being entertaining all in one. I really loved it, and can't wait to see what else Ava Reid has to write in the future!
Rating: really liked it
I am so so sad that this didn't work out. With all the comparisons with Naomi Novik and Katherine Arden I was sure it would be my favourite. Now I'm worried about
For the Wolf, another upcoming release that is compared with Novik and Arden. ( UPDATE: For the Wolf was as bad as this one )
The entire plot of this story revolves around heroine trying to save the people who severely abused her all her life. Personally, I found that extremely triggering and can't continue with this book. I strongly believe that
it's not the responsibility of the abused to save their abusers. Any book that argues against this simply goes into my hate-list.
If that wasn't bad enough, the characterisation is also awful. Simply put,
the main character doesn't read like someone who has been abused her whole life. If anything, she reacts like a brat who always had everything she wanted. She's rude. She says everything that comes to her mind before she thinks about it. She doesn't give a single thought about angering her captors. Just to be clear, I don't have a problem with her because I think she's unlikeable. I have a problem with her because there is no way someone who has been bullied her whole life would act like this.
Here's the thing, people, all people, are extremely adaptable to their environments. That means that if you're in an environment that every time you talk, there could be the risk of physical abuse ( which through her memories we see that's the case ) you end up thinking very carefully about what you say. And you'll continue to do that even after you leave that place. I expected someone with her background to act very differently. If not broken, then at least she should've acted like a very cautious person.
Now I see why the author might have wanted to write her as someone with a lot of rage inside her. That could be expected from someone in that position. A more skilled author could've written her as someone with a lot of suppressed anger, who doesn't show it and can also act very cautiously to avoid immediate pain. Something I learned from this book though, is that Reid is not a very skilled author.
----
pre-reading:
OMG OMG it's here!
I've heard Novik comparison and I honestly don't need to hear anything else.
Rating: really liked it
a beautifully wrought and surprisingly romantic tale that is rich with real-life political allusions. rtc!
> 4 stars*
why yes, I am absolutely obsessed with the fact that so many dark woodsy books with wolf in the title seem to be coming out in 2021!!
okay fine maybe it's like . . . 2 books . . . this one and For the Wolfa note: a lot of people are marking this as YA but it's actually adult pals <3 just a heads upthank you to the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for a review!
Rating: really liked it
DNF 30% - this is a hard no from me.
The Wolf and the Woodsman is everything I dislike in YA fantasy (the first person present tense narration, the libidinous teenage couple in the foreground) plus a dash of the stuff I dislike in adult fantasy (mutilation, gore, religious zealotry). The most interesting bits of Hungarian folklore are relegated to side notes, the writing is a mess, and my favorite character is an exploding chicken monster.
Oh, and the libidinous teenage protagonist? Evike is actually 25 (going on 16) but still has mean girl problems, a penchant for pissing off people who save her life, and an internal monologue so tortured that it takes her three paragraphs to eat a bowl of stew. And that's nothing compared to how many paragraphs are devoted to thinking about boning her captor / secret prince / traveling buddy Gaspar.
Maybe a better writer could have carried off the story, but Ava Reid confuses verbosity for lushness and commits terrible crimes against figurative language. Individual sentences may not seem that heinous ("The memory of her telling is perfectly lucid, crystalline, and it shines in my mind like a bit of broken glass"), but they compound like interest on a bad credit card and drag the whole story down.
I don't think I'm imagining the note of regret in his voice, nor the dark pall that casts over his face, but it does nothing to calm the fury and horror boiling in my belly. What little gratitude I had toward him for saving my life slivers away, like a crescent moon turning new. His dainty flushes and proud nose, the pliant tenor of his voice - all of it is a veneer for his barbarity.
First of all, I don't think this is how the phrase 'cast a pall over' works; secondly, the moon metaphor does absolutely nothing here; and thirdly, are we really supposed to find 'dainty flushes' attractive?
More imprecise language from my reading notes: "We move farther in until I am drowned up to my waist." This is
not how drowning works. Although Evike seems to think with the organs between her legs, so maybe she also breathes with them? Hmm. "Its breath reeks of burning flesh and rotted wood and a few tears prick at the corners of my eyes, futile and doomed." Can something be futile without also being doomed?
Ignore the comparisons to Katherine Arden and Naomi Novik. There might be interesting mythology, history, and religion buried deep in
The Wolf and the Woodsman, but it's not worth wading through the turbid prose and unlikable characters for.
Rating: really liked it
Now a Goodreads Choice nominee in Fantasy! “If you stare long enough into the darkness of the forest, eventually something will stare right back.”I’ve been looking for a good escapist fantasy I could really sink my teeth into. I’m not sure exactly how
The Wolf and the Woodsman came up on my radar, but once I read the description I just knew I had to have it. I mean, just look at those comp titles— The Bear and the Nightingale, Spinning Silver?? As a debut??? I literally had no choice.
Évike is everything you could want in a heroine. She’s an outsider in her pagan village, as the only girl who has grown up to have no powers. So when the feared Holy Order of the Woodsmen make an appearance, demanding the same familiar sacrifice of one “wolf-girl” from her community, it’s not a huge surprise that they don’t hesitate to offer Évike up to be taken. She’s bound and taken away to be presented to the king of Régország, who follows the Patrifaith, and eventually face a likely death.
But nothing involving Évike ever seems to go as smoothly as it’s supposed to. The majority of their long journey back to the palace is through heavily wooded areas where all kinds of sinister creatures are known to roam. Further complicating matters, Évike meets Gáspár, who challenges what she believes she knows about the domineering religion in Régország. To survive, Évike will have to make sacrifices of her own, some more extreme than she could ever imagine, and face difficult truths about who she is and where she comes from.
As present as magic is in this novel, religion plays just as significant a role. Though the names and customs are changed, you can feel the echos of real history’s power dynamics playing out in this fictional world. The Yehuli are representative of Jewish populations in Central/Eastern Europe, and the Patrifaith is the influence Christianity was exercising at the time. Pagan villages like Évike‘s also existed, much to the disdain of the expanding Christian empires. Though with her mixed Yehuli and pagan heritage, it’s up to her which parts of her identity she will hold on to and which she will discard completely.
I have a bit of a soft spot for authors who have been told that their stories don’t belong. More often than not those stories in question feature characters that have been made to feel the same way. And I think a lot of us have held those feelings too, at one time or another. Évike is many things, but she starts as an outsider in her own community, and no matter where this story ends up taking her, that will always be a part of her identity. And the beautiful thing about Reid’s writing and fantasy in general is that you don’t have to be have the same cultural background as a character like Évike in order to identity with her. This is not a ‘clean’ fantasy where everything follows an easy formula. Expect a conflicted reading experience.
I loved my time with this book. It’s equal parts mesmerizing and vicious, equipped with the full sting of an unforgiving world. There’s some dark and brutal elements, including body horror, violence and general gore, but Reid also creates a starkly beautiful setting, full of warmth and intricate world-building. My only regret is that it’s a standalone, the ending felt somewhat abrupt. But that may just be me wanting to see more of this world. Inspired by Jewish folklore and Hungarian history, by an author of the same heritage,
The Wolf and the Woodsman is interwoven with magic, blood and betrayal. You’re not going to want to miss the chance to pick it up and read it for yourself.
*Thanks to Harper Voyager for my finished copy!**For more book talk & reviews, follow me on Instagram at @elle_mentbooks!
Rating: really liked it
[dismemberment, amputation, mutilation, whipping, self-harm, antisemitism, ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide, physical abuse by parental figures/parents, vomiting, animal death, torture. (hide spoiler)]
Rating: really liked it
Contrary to the blurbs from the publishing company, this book is nothing like “Bear and the Nightingale” or “Spinning Silver.” I repeat, if you are looking for the glorious escapism of “Bear and the Nightingale,” the fine craftsmanship of “Spinning Silver,” or an exploration of belief in “City of Brass:” this is not the book for you. If you’re looking for a half-baked body horror/romance/magical adventure/ commentary on religious persecution/Game of Thrones fanfiction then this book is for you. And I hope you enjoy it.
If you aren’t looking for that then: Buckle. Up. I’ve got things to say.
First up, I want to explain my two star review because this book as a whole was not good. But I really wanted to give it one and a half stars because it did interesting things that I wish the author took time to develop and explore because they were actually really promising. The body horror magic system. This was really really cool. Like, I truly enjoyed seeing where it would go (it ending up going...somewhere?) and I did enjoy that themes of religious persecution were a major part of the book. As there were parallels to medieval Catholicism and Judaism, and how the Jewish people were treated terribly and kicked out of country after country. She calls them Yehuli and I found their story very compelling, and ultimately wanted them to be the focus.
The thing I hated most about this book was it’s awful first person narrator: Évike. Or as she calls herself incessantly, “wolf-girl.” She’s awful. No wonder she was bullied mercilessly in her village. Okay that’s a joke and a bad one at that. No one ever deserves to be bullied. But if anyone *did* deserve it, it would be her. She’s so flipping MEAN. Like actually mean. She prods and pokes and goads and blames everybody but herself and she didn’t change. She’s a 25 year old brat who makes terrible decisions. She is chiefly mean to our Woodsman, Gáspár, who is an angsty prince just trying his best, and is constantly being insulted by wolf-girl as he keeps saving her life. We’re supposed to fall in love with them as she makes fun of him as they trek to the frozen north to do...something. Also she’s supposed to struggle with her identity but like....she doesn’t???
A request: STOP MAKING “DIFFICULT WOMEN” CHARACTERS PLAIN OLD ASSHOLES. IT’S NOT FEMINIST IT’S AWFUL. TOUGH WOMEN CAN ALSO BE NICE.
Onto the next reason I disliked this book: the treatment of Gáspár. He never got to become a fully realized character, which was a shame because he was much more interesting then wolf-girl as he is not only a shunned prince but he is of mixed race- which is something that was never really addressed. I read this as him being the only dark-skinned person in this country, and his treatment in it flummoxed me. I am a white woman who is going to try to talk this through, and I acknowledge that I may not be the best person to talk about this, but I’m going to try.
To begin: His mother is constantly referred to as being dark-skinned and being from the south, so I assumed that meant he is Black or Hispanic or just of a more Mediterranean skin tone in this vaguely Eastern European fantasy country. He is also referred to as the “black prince” and his “blood blackened” and having olive skin. Which to be fair, “black prince” is an sobriquet used to refer to a fierce reputation or status as the “black sheep” of the family, not their skin color. But it was never fully addressed in the book why he was called that exactly, and I was left with many uncomfortable questions about it. Was he called that because of his darker skin? Are we to assume that it’s the fantasy world’s racism? Do we conflate his outsider status with his skin color or his independent character? If so, why was this never addressed in any meaningful way? Why did Gáspár never get to talk about having a skin color darker than the people in country he rules over? Did he experience any racism? Or are we to just assume that he experienced racism because of our own reality- and is that in and of itself racist? I would have assumed that this was to be addressed within the world itself, and by wolf-girl herself as she called him the “black prince” to his face with an implication that this was negative. Why does she not apologize? Or is this just me bringing this reality into this fantasy? I don’t really have an answer, and that is very troubling to me. In a more skillful book, this questions would have be asked but also answered in some way. Maybe it was and I utterly missed it?
To make a long paragraph short: the treatment of the only character of color was problematic and gave me so many unanswered questions. And I don’t think the author’s intentions were bad, I think of this as a victim of poor writing and not thinking every decision through.
And thirdly, and most hilariously, was its very clear inspirations from the hit tv show “Game of Thrones.” Because this was actually insane. I, like many other people, enjoyed the show immensely and elements of it have stuck with me. Here are somethings from the show that I found in this book that made me think this began as a GOT fan fiction:
-One-eyed religious zealot with a flaming sword
-praying to The Godfather of Life (Lord of Light ahem) and things magically happen
-wild woman with a bow (Ygritte) is taken by a man (Jon Snow) in a special group of soldiers who can take no wives and father no children
-the Woodsman (Night’s Watch) wear flowy capes
-someone literally says “winter is coming”
-someone literally says “bend the knee”
-someone literally says “widows wail”
-someone literally says that everyone south of the north is a southerner
There are also probably a ton more references that I missed but you get the picture.
This is a book to skip.
*Update 4/16* So I stumbled upon a preorder campaign for this book and there’s art available with the two main characters are featured and Gáspár’s skin tone is very dark and it makes me all the more confused about his treatment in the book.
