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Book Review: What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine

What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine

Harper, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-0062684134

Available: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle edition, audiobook, audio CD

 

What Should Be Wild is a flawed, if gorgeously written dark fairytale. Julia Fine has outdone herself in establishing a disturbing, unwieldy, and wild Gothic setting for her story of  Maisie, a girl born with the power of life and death in her touch. The women of the Blakely family are believed to be under a curse: many of them have terrible stories that led them into the dark wood behind the family home, Urizon, never to be seen again. The story alternates between the present day, with Maisie narrating, and third-person narratives about the other Blakely women who disappeared, who are now trapped in a timeless dimension in the wood where things are just starting to change.

Not without reason, Maisie has been kept in isolation from the rest of the world by her anthropologist father and the family housekeeper. Unable to touch without killing, she is starved for affection, and has to work to suppress her urges to touch the things and people around her, following rules strictly enforced by her father. Her solace is in stories, especially local history and customs, folklore, and fairytales. These stories, and the structure imposed on her by her father, are the only patterns she has for connecting to the world around her– in short, she is naive, sheltered, and unable to imagine people who don’t follow the patterns of the narratives she knows.  When she discovers the family housekeeper’s death and runs away to process it, she discovers on her return that her father has disappeared to search for her. Matthew, the housekeeper’s nephew, steps in to accompany her when she decides to search for him. They then encounter Rafe, who claims to be a colleague of her father’s also looking for him– that both he and her father have been searching for a way to enter the wild wood where the Blakely women are trapped. Up to the point that Maisie encounters Rafe, her first-person narration is really interesting. It gets us inside her head, as an unusual child with perceptions that are far different than the norm. At that point, Maisie’s naivete becomes more and more frustrating, as it becomes quickly obvious what the characters’ motivations are, and they become pretty one-dimensional for most of the journey.

When the search takes the three of them to the city, both men disappear from the picture, and Maisie is left in a horrific situation. She is drugged and trapped, without means of escape, while a man drains her of blood for a mysterious purpose, and after several weeks he realizes that her power can be used to his financial benefit, as when she “kills” an animal, it enters stasis rather than decaying. The terrifying months of being drained and having angry animals released into the room she’s locked in are horrific to read about and jarring compared to the rest of the book, but Maisie’s lack of agency and desperation, and her connection to the wood behind Urizon, start to affect the actions and events occurring among the Blakely women and the growth of the wood.

The stories of each of the Blakely women trapped in the wood, written in third person, are interspersed throughout Maisie’s story. This helps make them a little more real: otherwise they are really just a group of bodies and names. Each woman or girl in the wood in some way fell outside the narrative of conventional womanhood: too ill, too unattractive, too stubborn, too disobedient, too old, too foreign, too promiscuous. Yet, falling outside the narrative of conventional womanhood doesn’t mean they don’t have their own stories, although the stories have become more of tales cautioning people against entering the wood, than local history connected to any particular name. Maisie, too, has her own story connected to the woods, and it starts out much like a quest narrative– but the actual ending doesn’t require the kind of challenge I had expected and is rather anticlimactic.

I had some frustrations with the way characters were portrayed in this book. With its strong connection to a fairy-tale style of writing, I wasn’t expecting all fully developed characters, especially in the woods and the stories of the Blakely women, since most fairy tale characters are stand-ins for archetypes. But this is a novel, not a fairytale, and a little more depth and consistency with the characters of Matthew, Rafe, and Peter would have been appreciated. The book also had some confusing moments and left many unanswered questions. For instance, Maisie’s dog and her relationship with him was very odd, and the overprotective Matthew suddenly leaving Maisie when he knew she was vulnerable was surprising. The actions of the unknown girl in the forest were baffling.

This book has been described as a feminist fairytale, and it certainly does hit you over the head with its repeated focus on women’s lack of agency and the way they have been forced to suppress their desires in favor of fitting a pre-existing narrative of femininity. That is a strong and important message. But I really felt the lack of any  fully (or even mostly) supportive male characters was a disservice. Every single man in this book was trying to control some woman’s body or actions, if not physically, than by patronizing, threatening, or manipulating them. This was true even for Matthew, who was the most sympathetic male character. Given the treatment of all the women in this book, the curse of the Blakely women appears to be not that they were so desperate to escape the men victimizing them that they’d rather spend eternity in the wood but that hundreds of years later, while women might have evolved, men’s treatment of them pretty much hadn’t changed at all. While the fairytale here appears to have a happy ending for Maisie, the story of the women in the wood, and the world, is ongoing.

Despite any issues I have with it, this is an unusual, compelling, and memorable story, with lush and beautiful writing. It doesn’t move quickly, but you will find yourself lost inside Fine’s dark, wild, wood, and in her tale, if you care to enter. Highly recommended.

 

Contains: body horror, cannibalism, animal cruelty, murder, torture.

Reviewed by Kirsten Kowalewski

 

Editor’s note: What Should Be Wild is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards. 

Graphic Novel Review: Monstress Volume 3: The Haven by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda

Monstress Volume 3: The Haven by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda

Image Comics, 2018

ISBN-13: 9781534306912

Available: Paperback, Kindle, comiXology

In Volume 3, Maika Halfwolf discovers more about her mother’s plan, herself, and her past, just as Zinn (the Monstrum living within her), is putting together their own plan. War between the Arcanics and humans is imminent. Maika may have no choice but to work with Zinn just to survive the entities close at her heels. Ren and Kippa still follow Maika in her quest as they make it to Tear Shed in the Pontus Waters, a place of refugees and neutral ground. There Maika reluctantly makes a deal with the Royal Engineer to help repair the region’s shield wall, which resembles a Monstrum itself. The Engineer, and others, are convinced that because of Maika’s bloodline, she will be able to make the repairs to the shield. In exchange, Maika and her allies will receive sanctuary in Tear Shed. While all of this is going on, the Cumea are plotting, the Blood Queens are closing in, and enemies and allies alike are on their way. Maika’s bloodline also opens the laboratory and archives of the Shaman-Empress, a place that has been locked for centuries. What greets Maika and Zinn is not only unexpected, but leads to major revelations for the Monstrum. Ren also commits the ultimate betrayal that results in Kippa’s abduction. I have no shame admitting that I cried when that discovery came to light. As with the two previous collected volumes, Professor Tam-Tam helps provide further context and history of the world of Monstress.

There is so much going on in this volume. I actually had to go back and reread sections of the previous two volumes to make sure that I was following everything that was going on. Most people would probably count this against Monstress, but I don’t see it that way. The world and storylines are so intricate that it is easy to miss something, unless you are paying close attention. As someone who likes to read and reread comic series, I appreciate this, and I am wondering when I do revisit the series what else I am going to pick up on that I missed before. I’m sure that there will be things on my next reading that will also fall into place based on a full reading. Liu is a great storyteller who has created such an immense world and tale that I don’t think it can all possibly be taken in with only one reading of Monstress.

I am so in love with Takeda’s artwork, so much so that I even requested from my favourite comic shop to pull her alternate covers for The Power of the Dark Crystal series for my box. That’s another series I recommend, but that is a story for another world…another time… Highly recommended.

Volume 3 collects issues 13-18.

Contains: blood, gore, nudity, PTSD, sexual situations

 

Reviewed by Lizzy Walker

Editor’s note: Monstress Volume 3: The Haven is a nominee on the final ballot for the 2018 Stoker Awards in the category of Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel. 

Book Review: The Night Weaver (Shadow Grove, Vol. 1) by Monique Snyman

The Night Weaver (Shadow Grove, Vol. 1) by Monique Snyman

Gigi Publishing, 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1643163031

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

 

Seventeen-year-old Rachel Cleary lives in the isolated community of Shadow Grove (it’s unclear how isolated, or how large, it actually is, as it has suburbs, a trendy downtown, three grocery stores, multiple chain stores, and a rundown nine-story apartment building, but also wooded areas and farms)  next to a mysterious wood that people know better than to explore. Disappearances and strange deaths, especially of children, go without investigation by the sheriff’s department and are apparently unnoticed by the town’s population… except for the local high schoolers, who have organized to protect younger children and impose a curfew, and Rachel’s eccentric neighbor, Mrs. Crenshaw.

Mrs. Crenshaw’s delinquent nephew, a good-looking Scot with an impenetrable accent, happens to be in town. While he and Rachel are driving home from a party, they are attacked by a creature he recognizes from Scottish folklore, a Black Annis (also known as the Night Weaver), which steals and eats children. Although Mrs. Crenshaw tells Rachel the town council has conspired to eliminate all records of past incidents, it turns out that Rachel’s deceased father, a historian who didn’t believe in computers, has boxes of handwritten journals on the history and legends of Shadow Grove that are stored in her attic. They discover a pattern: the disappearances have happened before.

Then Rachel notices that her mother, and a number of other women in town, are behaving oddly: they have all emptied their closets and dressed in gray. She decides to consult her estranged friend Greg, whose family has strong roots in the town, and see if together they can find additional information about the Night Weaver and, possibly, what both of them have been calling the “moms’ club.” Greg realizes the factor all the women have in common is that they participated in the same grief support group, and after Rachel witnesses what appears to be a nighttime visitation to her mother of her father, they discover together that the Night Weaver feeds on grief and despair. Rachel and Greg realize that the Night Weaver is manipulating the members of the “moms’ club” into taking and delivering children to it, in order to have visitations from their deceased loved ones. And then a drug-dealing fairy prince named Orion gets involved, and things start to get REALLY convoluted.

Before I ever started this book, I knew the author, Monique Snyman, was from South Africa, and I was curious to see what she would come up with. Interestingly, she chose to set her book in the United States (I’m guessing Michigan, although she never actually says where it is located). Her premise is original– I hadn’t heard of the Black Annis, and the idea of a creature that plays on the feelings of members of a grief support group is interesting to me (although on a personal level, I have difficulty suspending my disbelief that grieving parents would intentionally cause the same kind of grief to others) I also liked that the high school students were portrayed as independent and resourceful (for the most part). There is also some very impressive full-color artwork representing the Black Annis in different places in the book, which definitely added to the creepiness factor.

However, I also found some real issues with the book. The first noticeable issue was that the book is written in present tense, which is jarring at times, especially at the beginning. The second is Dougal’s nearly impenetrable Scottish accent. I understand this is supposed to reinforce his background, but it really disrupted the flow of the story for me to have to translate in my head before I could move the story forward.

Outside of these two issues, the setting is problematic. Snyman refers to Shadow Grove as an isolated small town– to me, that evokes a setting like Twin Peaks. And the story itself seems intimate. The town has a single law enforcement official (a sheriff) and a relatively small group of people are involved in the actual story– my mental picture was maybe a few thousand at most. But what she is describing is more like a small city, which can’t be terribly isolated if it has multiple grocery and chain stores and most certainly would have federal agents on the ground with so many missing children.

Snyman also seemed to leave her various male supporting characters at loose ends. I like that Rachel is the leading character, and that the supporting male characters aren’t all necessarily love interests, but when Rachel moved on from working with Dougal (whose bad-boy persona dropped pretty quickly) to Greg (who she had a history with) they just kind of stopped whatever it was they were doing until the next time they were needed for a plot point. It’s still sort of unclear to me why Snyman had Greg lead Rachel to Orion and then leave her alone with him.

There were also a few comments and incidents that rubbed me the wrong way. Early in the book, Dougal makes a reference to spoiled American girls and Rachel says. “Well, that’s mildly racist.” I’m surprised an editor didn’t catch that, as “American” is not a race.  Shortly after meeting Rachel, Orion, the drug-dealing fairy prince, pins her up against a wall, against her will, drugs her, and takes her cell phone.  Afterwards, he claims it’s because he needs to do this in order to share essential memories, but starting these two out with a nonconsensual assault made it hard to believe they could be equal partners in defeating the Black Annis.

Despite these problems, I found Rachel’s relationships with Dougal, Greg, and Mrs. Crenshaw interesting enough to want to learn more about these characters. As this is the first book in a series, I expect that Shadow Grove and its denizens will be fleshed out and smoothed over more successfully in future volumes, and it will be interesting to see where Snyman goes with it.

Editor’s note: The Night Weaver is on the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Award in the category of Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel.