The Darkest Part of the Forest

Title: The Darkest Part of the Forest
Author: Holly Black
Genre: YA Fantasy/UF
Rating: 4/5
Cover: 9/10

"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?" 

***

I have been reading so many books with faeries in them lately (I'm calling it my Fantasy Run), this seemed like the obvious continuation.

Now, Black did an amazing job of creating an intriguing, fun world.
But, there was just something missing to make it amazing. Don't get me wrong, I loved the pairings, and even did a full happy dance to the positive LGBTQ+ representation. Severin was bi and Ben was gay? Loved it, really did, and like I mentioned to someone a while back, this wasn't a gay character just for the representation; it was an actually properly fleshed-out gay character, with good character development, and actual point in the plot. So, kudos to Ms Black for that.
I also want to make my relief over the lack of a love triangle very, very clear. Yes, thank you for writing a good YA book that doesn't have two guys fighting over a girl (or, you know, a guy and a girl fighting over one guy, as it would have been in this case.)

I guess it was just that, for a story that deals with scary, trickful faeries, they didn't feel all too scary at all. It was more like funny pranks - oh well take years off your life, but not by killing you, no, by training you to be an awesome soldier. The scariest part, honestly, was Sorrow - and while I really liked the symbolism of how she was "defeated", it was also a bit of an anticlimax, and sort of made the ending very predictable.

Overall though, an enjoyable read. For my introduction to Black's books, I was pleasantly surprised.

Reluctantly Charmed

Title: Reluctantly Charmed
Author: Ellie O'Neill
Genre: Magical Realism
Rating: 4/5
Cover: 8/10

I was given a copy of this book by the publisher via edelweiss in exchange for an honest review.

"Kate McDaid is listing her new-year’s resolutions hoping to kick-start her rather stagnant love life and career when she gets some very strange news. To her surprise, she is the sole benefactor of a great great-great-great aunt and self-proclaimed witch also called Kate McDaid, who died over 130 years ago. As if that isn’t strange enough, the will instructs that, in order to receive the inheritance, Kate must publish seven letters, one by one, week by week.

Burning with curiosity, Kate agrees and opens the first letter – and finds that it’s a passionate plea to reconnect with the long-forgotten fairies of Irish folklore. Almost instantaneously, Kate’s life is turned upside down. Her romantic life takes a surprising turn and she is catapulted into the public eye.

As events become stranger and stranger – and she discovers things about herself she’s never known before – Kate must decide whether she can fulfil her great-aunt’s final, devastating request ... and whether she can face the consequences if she doesn’t.

Witty, enchanting and utterly addictive, Reluctantly Charmed is about what happens when life in the fast lane collides with the legacy of family, love and its possibilities … and a little bit of magic. "

***

Reluctantly Charmed was a delight to read; easy and sweet, the book flowed well through the ups and downs of Kate's life.

O'Neill does a fabulous job of getting Kate's character across at all times. The narrative twists and turns, lose and filled with digressions at times, which is exactly the kind of person Kate is presented as being: always a little confused by life, but happy to go along with it. The line O'Neill treads with the narrative is a thin one between cute, good characterisation and an overwhelming amount of telling instead of showing; she successfully manages to keep it always on the good side of it throughout the novel.

I loved the fact that, for all that it starts off as a funny, quirky novel about what would happen if fairies were real and suddenly wanted to reconnect, in the end it posed much more important questions about freedom, about humanity and human nature. Seeing Kate grow was a beautiful process, aided by an extremely colourful secondary cast of characters.

Definitely worth a read to anyone looking for a fun, whacky novel that will sweep you away to a charming world.