Reviews with content warning for Confinement - O Rei de Palha

This book wrecked me in so many ways, but it is such an important read that I want to cling to this story and breathe it until it is written in my bones.

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notpresent22's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.5

This book is complex and not for the faint of heart. But in the end it’s a fascinating love story between two young boys as they struggle with a world that is letting them down. It’s the kind of story that makes you desperate to learn what happened after the final page but will likely never get an answer to.

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podanotherjessi's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging tense slow-paced

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

4.5

This book is such a fascinating exploration of co-dependency. The progress is somehow so slow and yet incredibly sudden. You know why August does what he does, all the while wishing he'd do anything else. I'd like to have had some perspective from Jack, but all and all a wonderful read.

Characters: 9
Plot: 8
Setting: 8
General appeal: 9
Writing style: 10
Originality: 10
Ending: 7

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense

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

4.5

THE WICKER KING is a tale of compulsion, mental illness, loyalty, love, and consent; finding how far a king and his knight can go to save the world without burning up.

I loved reading this. The two main characters are so intertwined, so vivid and resonant that it took me half the book to realize that only one of them was actually a POV character. The way the story is told in one to two page sections made it feel like I could take a break anywhere if I needed to, if it ever got too intense for me. Instead I barely paused, inhaling it in a single sitting.

The story is very focused on the MCs and their intense relationship, but has a few secondary characters and devotes enough time for them to feel like full characters. In a book so focused on the interior worlds of just two people it would be easy to have other characters be ill-defined and mere window-dressing. Instead their reactions to the MCs both established the secondary characters in their own right and helped to build up the MCs by commenting on things they were unable or unready to consider. Some of the secondary characters are also love interests, and they're handled in a way that maintains their agency even as they are allowed less and less space in the MCs' world. The photos, documents, and slowly darkening pages helped with world-building and mood, but even without that assistance this story is absorbing and fascinating. There were two worlds to build, and both were excellently laid.

This is primarily about someone having difficult telling apart fantasy and reality, and the best friend doing his best to help. There are voices of reason trying to provide stability at various points, but the extent to which they do or do not succeed is crucial to the story, so take care of yourselves and check the CWs before proceeding.

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piperlee's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

This book feels difficult to review. Maybe it’s one that I’ll have to mull over for a while before I really get a grasp on it. The book itself is dark and almost tragic, following the story of two teen boys, both neglected by their parents, who fall deeper and deeper into codependency and unhealthy patterns until everything seems to crash down around them.
I didn’t love the story itself or the writing style, but I still felt drawn to the book - I think because of how the author writes such complexity into the characters and their relationship. I expected the focus of the story to be on Jack’s hallucinations and how August helped him cope, but the story really centered on the nature of their friendship and how it evolved as Jack grew more and more lost in his own world.
As I read, I was worried that the author was romanticizing Jack’s mental illness and his unhealthy and borderline abusive relationship with August. But as I kept reading, I saw that the author was simply portraying the real consequences of neglect and codependency and allowing us to uncover the dark nature at the same pace as the characters. While difficult to read at some points, I found this creative writing style also drew me in.

For me, the best part was the author’s note at the end - without it, the book would have felt incomplete. In the note. K. Ankrum describes her intention in how she portrayed the characters and scenarios, highlighting the seriousness of neglect and the future relational damage it can create, as well as demonstrating how failure of other adult figures to address signs of need in students can only create more damage. I found the note really insightful and helped me to see the story in a different light.
Also! I loved the mixed media inclusions as well as how the pages changed color as Jack plunged deeper into his own world. Details like that are my fav.

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