Reviews with content warning for Rape - Daughter of the Forest

Daughter of the Forest is a retelling of the Six Swans fairy tale - six brothers are turned into swans by their evil stepmother. Their sister Sorcha flees and must sew six shirts for them out of a barbarous weed in complete silence in order to break the spell. Her journey to complete her task spans years of heartbreak and suffering, and takes her far from her homeland into the land of her enemies, the Britons.

I first read this book in either 2001 or 2002, as a pre-teen/young teen. I picked it up at my local library, where I used to spend everyday after school. I went on to read the rest of the Sevenwaters Trilogy and loved these books so very much. I credit them with getting me into the fantasy genre. I spent a long time away from fiction, not feeling like I had the time to read fiction because who has time to read for fun as a grown up? I'm happy to say I finally found the time to re-read this after a long time away. These are my thoughts re-reading this book after TWENTY (yikes) years:

Juliet Marillier is still a brilliant writer and gifted storyteller. Beautiful, moving prose. Characters you will love with your whole heart and characters you with hate with every fiber for your being.

But I have found that I was not nearly as comfortable with some of the plot points as I was when I first read this book, as a kid. I don't know if this is because some of these things went over my head, if I just forgot the impact they made on me at the time, or if my sensitivity has changed after so much time and life has happened. In any event, here are some major content warnings you should be aware of, that I will put behind a spoiler tag:

This book features graphic sexual assault of a child, animal abuse, and animal death.

These books will always be so special to me. However, they are in the same vein as A Song of Ice and Fire, where very bad things happen to good people with little respite. And that's no longer my idea of a good time. Read with care.

Content Warnings

maises's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

"They were a part of We, and I of them. Now I was alone, and I must manage without them, for to fail in this task was to lose them forever."

This Six Swans retelling was a journey, and it was definitely more than arduous, but I enjoyed it so so much. Sorcha’s entire journey was extremely difficult. Maybe it could have felt a little excessive, especially when every next struggle hit her as soon as she felt the last one, but for some reason I could ride through it because I knew how this would end from the start (I realized a bit too soon that this was a Hans Christian Anderson retelling rather than a Grimm one when there weren't any baby-eating accusations, thank u sm).

Overall, I think this retelling was an interesting exercise that reflected on suffering for a loved one. Needless suffering is huge in classics like this, since old fairy tales specifically reward suffering like penance. But every hardship Sorcha endured never really had any rhyme or reason to it, and I think that just made the payoff from her pain actually feel like a relief has been lifted from my own shoulders, just as a reader. I don’t recall feeling so enthralled at a climax I knew the exact outcome of before! Also the villain(s) were pretty villainous. I appreciate when fiction has bad guys so bad that I want to dive into the pages and choke out somebody.

I was actually extremely touched at how realistic the Sevenwaters siblings felt, both as characters and in their relationships with one another. By the time Sorcha sets out on her quest to save them, it doesn’t feel at all strange that she would go through so much for their sake. There were a few times during the book that some brothers’ actions did annoy me though, but I think most of the time they were good.

Characters I really loved: Sorcha. “After all, I was but fourteen years old” and immediately I wanted to kill every man in this book. Finbar, kinda. I shed a tear when Finbar said he had a swan wife and kids he had to abandon. Let him see his bird babies! I liked Red okay but yeah she was kinda too young for him ummm… Red’s two besties were the best characters in that little town. They deserved the best and yet… And that one chef lady who stayed at Sevenwaters all that time. I liked the other brothers enough. I loved their love for each other and their sister, even if the ending spelled out the worst for a lot of them… Doomed sibs are the best. Sorry.

AND OK! I did actually gasp at Simon’s last scene with Sorcha! Sorry to be a second lead syndrome girl but they should have had a chance!!!! “Don't leave me. What cruel game had they been playing with all of us? What twisted path had we been following, like blindfold puppets in some wild dance? Had we no will? Had we no choice?” Like what was thatttttt! She nursed him to health and he only thought of her in the fairy folk world are you joking!

So I do not really think I am all that interested in the rest of the Sevenwaters books, firstly because I think this is already a strong standalone Six Swans retelling (and I think the only retelling in this series?), and secondly because I am not the biggest fan of second generation main characters… However, I do have Son of the Shadows so if it comes to that…! In any case, I may be browsing Marillier’s backlog soon to try out something else.

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bukheeta's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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prunechips's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

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

5.0

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effyapples's review against another edition

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challenging dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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comityoferrors's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

A seventh child of a seventh son pursues her fae-crossed destiny, despite the loss and torture along the way. A fae-retell of the Six Swans mythology set in Ireland, in the middle of conflict between the Irish, the Britons, and the invading Norse forces.

I liked the story well enough, but the narration and characters were not what I hoped. The writing isn't bad, but IMO it's just "good" and the author writes in a way that feels like it should be great. There were some vivid and impactful scenes that I really loved, but others fell short or even detracted from the overall story due to baffling differences in characterization. In particular, Conor didn't seem to have a consistent characterization in the final acts --

for most of the book he was portrayed as the kind and level-headed brother, one of the most willing to accept that Britons are people too and the only one trusted to help Finbar and Sorcha rescue Simon. He took particular care to check in with Sorcha and comfort her during the solstices that they met. Then, suddenly, he's extremely hostile to Red and Red's family just for being Britons, and he doesn't spare even a second to check on his sister who extremely narrowly escaped being burned to death and who is obviously bonded with the unthreatening people who are offering shelter and kindness to the whole set of siblings. He had also been really aware of Sorcha's sacrifice for most of the book, but when returned to (permanent) human form, he's too preoccupied with hatred for the Britons to do anything except pick fights with the Britons and insist that they mistreated her? Where the fuck did that come from?

It was very jarring and made his ending feel a lot less satisfying.

Unfortunately, Sorcha also felt weirdly characterized to me. She was simultaneously precocious, careful, brilliantly learned in lore and mythology...and too stupid to recognize anything about people and mythological structures, except for the times where she was uncannily tuned in to those exact topics. She was whatever the plot needed to move forward at the time. It also bugged me that so much of her later characterization was that: 1) she suffered for men, willingly and unwillingly, and that's a really noble womanly trait :) and 2) btw she was SUPER hot the whole time! Like, every other minor character commented on how wildly beautiful and shapely she was. I think there were a small handful of times that characters praised her intelligence or resilience or compassion, and that was usually in addition to praising her obedience and physical attractiveness

(from YEARS OF LITERAL STARVATION)

. The narrative focus on entirely the wrong reasons to love Sorcha was off-putting.

Despite all that, I did mostly enjoy this book lol. I like most anything set in Ireland, especially ancient Ireland, and it's obvious Marillier did her homework with the setting. I appreciated the message of harmony and humanity from the main conflict in the story. I actually did like the romance, or at least I liked

the romantic interest, Red

. I thought the ending came together nicely, though I'm not really sold on reading any follow-ups at this point. The depiction of PTSD

from rape

was largely accurate to my own experience, and I felt genuine empathy for Sorcha's pain as she processed that.

I think I was ultimately let down by my high hopes for what this could have been, but that doesn't mean the end result isn't worth reading -- just be sure to go in with the right expectations.

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jmitchell20's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional sad slow-paced

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

3.5

I enjoyed the story and all the folktales elements of the forest and the fairies entwined with real life, but for me, it just moved along too slowly. Also the narrator's voice drags a little so ai sped her up to 1 20x

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inflammatory's review against another edition

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4.5

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