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Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood

16 reviews

emily_mh's review against another edition

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dark medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

I started off LOVING this Jane Eyre retelling. I thought that Blackwood did such a good job at creating Rochester’s desperation in Magnus and the dialogue between Andromeda and Magnus felt as dramatic and devoted as it did in the original. The setting was also really intriguing. However, I liked the book less and less as time went on. There was a lack of context historically and geographically which made it difficult for me to place the book. The romance became the sole focus to the detriment of the more interesting cleansing-the-household plotline. And also the drama in that romance was SO contrived; at some points I didn’t even know what they were disagreeing about. Most importantly, I don’t think it worked well as a Jane Eyre retelling. There was a lack of atmosphere, and also none of the themes of coming-of-age/character development that really makes Jane Eyre stand out to me. Also, the romance in the original is an important part, but not the ONLY part, which is kind of how it ends up in this book. Moreover, I don’t think the toxic relationship between Andromeda and her mentor is given the gravity that it deserved. I also thought that the whole concept of disabilities coming from the attraction of the Evil Eye was super problematic. 

I would by no means say this was bad, it just didn’t live up to the expectations it set and instead presented an average, slightly gothic instalove romance. As a side note, I did listen to the audiobook and thought it was okay. 
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kayladaila's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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ellariawrites's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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internationalreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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caseythereader's review

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Thanks to Wednesday Books for the free advance copy of this book.

 - Y'all know I'm a JANE EYRE lover, so as soon as I heard this was a YA fantasy retelling, I ran to grab a copy. And yes, WITHIN THESE WICKED WALLS delivers!
- I love how Blackwood kept all the pieces of the original story but rearranged them a bit, and it all still works wonderfully. Slight tweaks to relationships, and of course the entire idea of Andromeda being a debtera, relocate this story to the fantasy space quite smoothly, while maintaining the basics of the original characters and plot.
- I was gripped by the action and the imagery. Some of those manifestations are gonna stick with me for real.
- The one thing I wish there was more of was backstory on how the church came to be involved in the debtera process. It felt like there could have been a whole prequel novel here with Jember's experience and Andi's training. 
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ceallaighsbooks's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“Eventually I got used to monsters. Eventually I learned that the world was scarier than anything the Evil Eye could manifest…” 
 
TITLE—Within These Wicked Walls 
AUTHOR—Lauren Blackwood 
PUBLISHED—November 2021 (read as an eARC from NetGalley) 
 
GENRE—YA fantasy; retelling 
SETTING—a haunted castle in the desert of Ethiopia 
MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—haunted castle, possession, childhood trauma, Coptic Christianity, romance/love, found family 
 
WRITING STYLE—⭐️⭐️⭐️—typical YA style but funnier than most 😂; very strong Mexican Gothic vibes too! 
CHARACTERS—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
PLOT—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
BONUS ELEMENT/S—I loved the inspiration drawn from Coptic Christianity in this story and the religiousness of the MC felt really natural and unforced and it was nice to see a Christian represented in a story with none of the religiousness-related flaws—which is similar to Jane Eyre, but I felt that Jane’s religiousness felt a bit forced and came across as moralizing which Andromeda’s never did. 
PHILOSOPHY—⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
 
This book was a really cute and interesting retelling of Jane Eyre. I think the author did a great job of reimagining the main themes as well as the characters from the original while putting a completely different spin on the plot of her retelling. In particular I loved how she mirrored the banter between Mr. R. and Jane in the interactions between Magnus and Andromeda and I actually thought her banter was funnier and more clever—their conversations were some of my favorite parts of the book for sure. 
 
Something I thought was interesting, and may have just been a projection of my own interpretation / opinion of Jane Eyre, was that I think Blackwood split the character of Mr. R. into two characters—Magnus and his father—and all the positive qualities of Mr. R. were in Magnus, while the villainous tendencies (i.e. Mr. R.’s treatment towards Bertha—who I think was supposed to be [REDACTED SPOILER] in this book) were attributed to his father. I actually really liked that and think it worked very well to address the problematic aspects of the original book. 
 
But you definitely don’t need to have read Jane Eyre to read this book though—this book works perfectly well as its own fantasy novel. The magic system was really interesting and I loved Blackwood’s use of Coptic Christianity and the Ethiopian setting as the foundations for her worldbuilding—especially the reimagining of silver Coptic crosses as magical amulets—which is actually what they kind of are in real life so that overlap is really cool. 
 
The second half of the book felt a bit sluggish to me though and I had trouble with the pacing of some of the events but the ending was excellent and I love how everything wrapped up. I would definitely read another book by Blackwood, especially if she continues with more retellings! 
 
“But there was nothing to fear here . . . only memories. Those could only hurt you if you let them.” 
 
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 
 
TW // blood, gore, scary supernatural events, childhood trauma, homelessness, 
 
Further Reading— 
  • Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • the Dead Djinn series, by P. Djèlí Clark
  • The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

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