Reviews with content warning for Murder - O canto mais escuro da floresta

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O canto mais escuro da floresta by Holly Black

9 reviews

ceruleanshelves's review against another edition

4.5

“Once, there was a girl who vowed she would save everyone in the world, but forgot herself.”

i'm starting to think there will never be a holly black book i don't love.

in a town that lives alongside faeries and magic in a wary truce, there lies a horned boy in a glass coffin never waking... until one day he does.

“They loved him because he was a prince and a faerie and magical and you were supposed to love princes and faeries and magical people.”

one thing i especially loved about this book was the camaraderie with the main cast. as black notes in her annotations, these are the nicest people she's ever written lol. hazel and ben are one of the best sibling pairings i've read (side-eyeing taryn), and even the parents in the town have some of the best examples i've seen in fantasy.

“You and your sister are very dear to each other. To show your regard, you give each other lovely bouquets of lies.”

it was also fun to see black write a friends to lovers romance, still with its Folk whimsy and tension. i could definitely tell she wrote this right after The Coldest Girl in Coldtown bc the horror influences were a little elevated from her usual writing, the Folk and the danger a little creepier.

“Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite proud of themselves.”

a holly black world would be terrifying to fall into, but also so wondrous.

“I need to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life and start figuring out the one I have.”

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noellegrace8's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

I really loved this plotline. I started with Folk of the Air, not knowing this was the first Elfhame novel. I'm glad I read it in the order I did, because I think I would have put down this installment if I weren't already so invested in the world of Elfhame. I loved that this had a small-town folktale vibe. The legends surrounding the boy in the glass coffin and the folk in the forest were perfect. I also loved Sorrow's story and description. Again, a truly clever tale.

I was disappointed at how quickly the action was resolved and how we got such a bird's-eye-view of Severin and Ben's relationship with him. In my opinion, Ben would have been a far better main character choice than Hazel. Hazel was basically the Wish.com version of Jude Duarte. And Jack was, unfortunately, not very well developed. Altogether, the characters in this book either fell flat or weren't explored enough. I also really dislike the high school approach, mostly because it always focuses on partying and stupid decisions, which I couldn't even relate to while I was actually in high school.

I give Lauren Fortgang 4/5⭐. Sometimes she had it down so well - the vocal choices, the gender switching, all of it. Other times, like with Severin, her voice did not really match the character and description well.

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