First of all, can I just say how happy I am with this photo? Not to spoil the story, but it is focused on light vs darkness, so some symbolic photography is going down.
Wild Wood is the first book in the Wild Wood Chronicles written by Colin Meloy, the lead singer of The Decemberists, a band I really like. I borrowed it from my best-friend Madie's older sister Caitie's friend Felix, so it took a fair amount of effort to get my hands on this one.
It's the story of a girl named Prue, who ventures into the Impassable Wilderness, an imaginary forest in Portland, Oregon. Accompanied by her classmate Curtis, they set off to find her baby brother who was kidnapped by a murder of crows. What they find is a sub-society on the brink of war, inhabited by bandits, talking animals and a particularly terrifying governess. The book is 560 pages long, and I know a lot of people think it's really slow, but I flew through it in two days.
What I Loved:
The Language - it's extremely imaginative and I found myself having to google a few words.
The Characters - Colin Meloy so descriptive, a movie practically played in my head.
The Illustrations - These are so pretty, the book is broken up every fifty pages or so with an illustration like the front cover, all with the same woodland style.
The Plot - An American Narnia, I'd call it. I won't spoil it, but even if you don't like this book genre you can totally enjoy this one.
What I Didn't Love:
The Hipster-ness on the Main Character - This is only a little thing, and it's only really present in the first few pages but doing yoga, flicking through old vinyl and riding a one speed, cherry red bicycle was a bit far-fetched for me. I did love her personality though, that was great.
Overall I it was an ace book, and I'm looking forward to reading the other two in the trilogy. Also. the author made spotify playlists for each book, so go check them out too. 3.8/5
