Reviews

Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier

lady_smith's review against another edition

emotional reflective 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? N/A

5.0

sakibat's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious 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? No

4.0

ginkgo's review

4.0

I liked:

• Brothers! Liked that each one has individuality
• Celtic everything. The forest. The garden. Stories. Songs and herbs. 
• Dogs. DOGS ARE IMPORTANT. especially in
  healing process
• A lot of unpleasant reality - how tedious and awful was her work, how cruel and awful is war. Felt pretty much real. 
• Faeries, ofc. "Oh it isn't FAIR? Like what, LIFE?" "You don't want to help your brothers, lazy girl?" Funny people, aren't they.
• Her poor one-winged brother. I've always thought about his tragic fate.

I disliked:

• How young she was.
  Especially SA - was this REALLY necessary? Realistic - yes, I guess, but she was 14, for god's sake 💔
• The
  triangle
  thing. Totally unnecessary. Though faeries have a soft spot for
  torturing Simon.
  It's just their thing.
• Animal cruelty.
  DOG DIED. ANOTHER DOG WAS SHOT. ANIMALS - donkey, cats, raven -  WERE MURDERED. GARDEN WAS. DESTROYED.
  Once again, I maybe understand that the reason was the existential need
  to experience all kind of loss
  , but I've felt it too. 
• Plus rape. It was a lot.
• And this one is personal - how fast things get
  steamy
  at the end.
  Beautiful confession, and then 16yo takes this 23yo to her bed, her previous sexual experience AWFUL, and he's talking about wanting her for years - since she was what, 14, scrawny and hurt, on the run and captive? Kind of disgusting. Off-putting at least.

Overall a lot of things I liked, felt real too often, I haven't slept this night, no regrets. 

kathryns303's review against another edition

emotional

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Rape

maryrayneee's review

adventurous challenging emotional 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

3.75

mcfoster's review

4.0

A delightful retelling of an old fairy tale with well-researched Celtic elements included. I'm keeping an eye out for the next one in this series.

annashiv's review

4.0

Very dark. Too dark for my liking honestly, but if you can get through it, it's good. It's a tale well told, but difficult to get through by content alone. It's just always awful for the main character until the end, and it could have used a little more levity on occasion just to give the reader a breath of air. While I fell in love with the characters and thought it a great book overall, I don't think I can continue with the series as I assume they will all be just as heavy if not more so, and my poor heart is too weak for it.

footnotesinyourstory's review against another edition

loved the writing, the setting & the characters to some extent (even if they felt a bit too mature for their age). it felt a bit too slow-moving as well.

the graphic rape scene

was too much for me, especially as it felt a bit too abrupt. maybe it was my fault for not heeding the content warnings.

i also found out from other reviews that the main couple has a significant age gap when the fmc is still a child, so personally not very into that either lol

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape and Sexual assault

Moderate: Animal cruelty and Animal death

cosymilko's review against another edition

5.0

The retelling of the Six Swans myth/fairy tale into a full blown fantasy novel with no sugar coating.

Sorcha was supposed to be the seventh son of a seventh son. Instead she is the image of her mother who died bringing her into the world. Her father has lost his heart and his world and throws himself into campaigning and spends little time around the children until they are able to bear a sword and heed his words.

Sorcha's six brothers raise her as best they can. A wild healer with a great knowledge of herblore Sorcha helps the villagers with her skills.

Around Sorcha's 13th birthday their father returns home with his new betrothed. This woman is powerful and evil and will stop at nothing to have the children gone. She casts a spell that turns the six brothers into swans and it is up to Sorcha to weave six shirts from the thorny Starwort plant and to place them on the swans to break the spell, all the while she cannot tell her story and cannot communicate in anyway.

Her path is hard to walk but leads straight and true.

I loved this book so much. The six swans is one of my favourite fairy tales and this retelling in a much more realistic way is beautiful and poetic. The suffering Sorcha must endure, the feelings the brothers must understand and the love she mustn't see are all beautiful in their own way.

midora's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring sad tense medium-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