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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
Reminiscent of Narnia with the woods full of talking animals, an evil queen and a sacrifice. It wasn't quite as magical and it surely wasn't what I would call a middle grade novel.
I hate to admit this, but I think I have to just stop trying with this book. I've had it half finished in my Kindle for a year and a half.
I am devoted to Meloy's songwriting talent, and the Decemberists are one of my favorite bands. No contest. The trouble is, the delightful whimsy and hyper-literate wit that makes his songs so brilliant doesn't sustain over hundreds of pages of narrative.
I was bored. I'm kind of disappointed in myself for it, but there you go.
UPDATE (1/16/18): I've been reading the Wildwood Chronicles with my 4th grader, who loves the idea of a hidden magical realm alongside a real city we can Google. I've long been a fan of Colin Meloy's quirky troubadour writing as the frontman and songwriter for The Decemberists, but my relationship with these books is complicated. Meloy writes prose like he writes song lyrics, often without regard to established metaphor, and flagrant re-defining of words and images. For fans of the band, it's stylistically like a more narratively cohesive Hazards of Love. What that meant for me as a reader, though, was that I take more away from the book when I'm reading it aloud, performing it, because it feels like singing along with something from The Crane Wife or Hazards.
We went straight into Under Wildwood, without question.
I am devoted to Meloy's songwriting talent, and the Decemberists are one of my favorite bands. No contest. The trouble is, the delightful whimsy and hyper-literate wit that makes his songs so brilliant doesn't sustain over hundreds of pages of narrative.
I was bored. I'm kind of disappointed in myself for it, but there you go.
UPDATE (1/16/18): I've been reading the Wildwood Chronicles with my 4th grader, who loves the idea of a hidden magical realm alongside a real city we can Google. I've long been a fan of Colin Meloy's quirky troubadour writing as the frontman and songwriter for The Decemberists, but my relationship with these books is complicated. Meloy writes prose like he writes song lyrics, often without regard to established metaphor, and flagrant re-defining of words and images. For fans of the band, it's stylistically like a more narratively cohesive Hazards of Love. What that meant for me as a reader, though, was that I take more away from the book when I'm reading it aloud, performing it, because it feels like singing along with something from The Crane Wife or Hazards.
We went straight into Under Wildwood, without question.
Had a really hard time getting into this one but ended up loving it.
I love the concept, but hate how it's presented. The writing is... I don't know quite how to describe it... Muted? Like it's trying too hard to be hipster. A twelve year old rides a fixie? Hmmm
Narnia and Redwall combine forces for a delightful little novel
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
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:
Complicated
If you are familiar with the band The Decemberists, you are probably aware that they are a folk-tinged indie band, known for detailed story-telling, lyrics that you might need to look up in a dictionary, and themes that are sometimes creepy, macabre, and well, down-right effed up. Now, armed with that knowledge, if I told you that lead singer (and chief songwriter) Colin Meloy had written a YA fantasy novel, you would doubtless come up with some reasonable assumptions; namely that this book would probably be some combination of creepy, macabre, or screwed up, with lots of big words. It turns out, however, that those reasonable assumptions would actually be fairly wrong. I know, right? Go figure.
Prue McKeel is just your average Portland pre-teen: she rides a bike a lot, frequents coffee shops, does yoga, and looks after her baby brother, Mac. Her life ceases to be normal when, during an outing in the park, Mac is abducted by a murder of crows. Yes, the birds. They scoop him and fly away with him, disappearing into the “Impassible Wilderness,” which, as far as anyone in Portland knows, is exactly what it sounds like. When Prue and her classmate Curtis venture into the Wilderness in search of Mac, however, what they find is a another world, one peopled with talking animals, Bandit Kings, and a whole lot of political intrigue. Naturally, our heroes get wrapped up in the goings-on in Wildwood (which is what the residents call it) and find that there is not only more to the Impassible Wilderness than they thought, but that there is also more to them, as well.
This is your standard “normal kid ends up in fantasy-land” kind of book. It has only a few brief instances of anything creepy or macabre, and the vocabulary was, to my way of thinking, nothing terribly strenuous, even for the target audience. The story is pretty slow to get started (Meloy likes to use a lot of words, even if they’re not big, fancy ones) but about halfway through it definitely picks up. The characters are pretty usual; Prue’s plucky and determined, Curtis is the type that stumbles into being a hero, and the various individuals they meet in Wildwood fall along a typical spectrum. There’s not a great deal of character development, but apparently this is the first in a trilogy (of course; aren’t they all?) so there will be time for that later, perhaps. I think what I appreciated most about Wildwood, actually, is that it sets up its world very well. It’s a story unto itself, and the story resolves at the end, but there are plenty of unanswered questions and potential for later material. I sort of feel as though you can tell this is a first novel in that it’s a bit clumsy at times, but it certainly has promise. If nothing else, I’m interested to see if Meloy puts enough songs (there are one or two in Wildwood) into the subsequent books to get a full album out of them. Ultimately, I’m as yet undecided on whether or not I will pick up the next book, mainly just because I don’t like committing to series, but I think Meloy has promise. If he can improve upon his story and his characters, and maybe use a few less words, he might be on to something.
Prue McKeel is just your average Portland pre-teen: she rides a bike a lot, frequents coffee shops, does yoga, and looks after her baby brother, Mac. Her life ceases to be normal when, during an outing in the park, Mac is abducted by a murder of crows. Yes, the birds. They scoop him and fly away with him, disappearing into the “Impassible Wilderness,” which, as far as anyone in Portland knows, is exactly what it sounds like. When Prue and her classmate Curtis venture into the Wilderness in search of Mac, however, what they find is a another world, one peopled with talking animals, Bandit Kings, and a whole lot of political intrigue. Naturally, our heroes get wrapped up in the goings-on in Wildwood (which is what the residents call it) and find that there is not only more to the Impassible Wilderness than they thought, but that there is also more to them, as well.
This is your standard “normal kid ends up in fantasy-land” kind of book. It has only a few brief instances of anything creepy or macabre, and the vocabulary was, to my way of thinking, nothing terribly strenuous, even for the target audience. The story is pretty slow to get started (Meloy likes to use a lot of words, even if they’re not big, fancy ones) but about halfway through it definitely picks up. The characters are pretty usual; Prue’s plucky and determined, Curtis is the type that stumbles into being a hero, and the various individuals they meet in Wildwood fall along a typical spectrum. There’s not a great deal of character development, but apparently this is the first in a trilogy (of course; aren’t they all?) so there will be time for that later, perhaps. I think what I appreciated most about Wildwood, actually, is that it sets up its world very well. It’s a story unto itself, and the story resolves at the end, but there are plenty of unanswered questions and potential for later material. I sort of feel as though you can tell this is a first novel in that it’s a bit clumsy at times, but it certainly has promise. If nothing else, I’m interested to see if Meloy puts enough songs (there are one or two in Wildwood) into the subsequent books to get a full album out of them. Ultimately, I’m as yet undecided on whether or not I will pick up the next book, mainly just because I don’t like committing to series, but I think Meloy has promise. If he can improve upon his story and his characters, and maybe use a few less words, he might be on to something.
Technically, I didn't finish this book, but I made it 200 pages in, and I wanted to be able to rate it. The entire time I read this book, I kept feeling that it was very familiar. While I believe it is true that there are no entirely new ideas out there, I do think that old ideas can be made original. _Wildwood_ did not do that. My first thought was that it reminded me of _The Book of Lost Things_ by John Connolly, which is a wonderful retelling of fairy tales. Then, I kept feeling like I was reading a slightly different version of _The Chronicles of Narnia_ set in present-day Portland. I'm very disappointed that this book wasn't more original since I had started reading the third book first before I realized it was part of a series. While I'm sure there are people who will love this book for it's obvious reliance on the fairy tale genre, I was underwhelmed.