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thepastelnerd 's review for:
Wildwood Dancing
by Juliet Marillier
Wildwood Dancing is very good, but...I didn't love it.
I really wanted to, and I was excited by the raving reviews about the romance and the enchanted other kingdom. The novel definitely features these moments, but it didn't quite deliver 100% for me. I wanted much more of the Other Kingdom than we actually saw, and I found the romance and really the plot in general to be disappointingly predictable.
I also hated the character of Cesar. You're really supposed to as the reader, but I hated him even more cause he took up soooo much attention and bookspace. With him and a couple other plot points, I spent the first half of the book disappointed because it exemplified one of my least favorite tropes: things just went from bad to worse and then to worst.
The story improved in the second half since the plot points that had been dragging on finally came to their respective heads and got resolved. However, it also brought to light another big factor for me liking the story less than I wanted to: the two female leads. This story could have been a fantastic opportunity to celebrate women overcoming all kinds of trials with sisterly help and their own strength and ingenuity. And while there was a bit of that, I felt mostly that the women just suffered more and more without much if any power to fight against the evils around them and then were ultimately only saved because of the men. While I understand that women have been historically mistreated more than men and that individual women do sometimes need the help of others, including men, to stand on their own two feet again, the two most important women in this story felt almost always helpless.
The second book focus more on Paula, perhaps the most promising of the other sisters, as she travels to a country where women's rights are still questioned in the modern day. People say it's as good as or even better than Wildwood Dancing, so I might pick it up at some point. But it's time for me to move on to something I'm hoping will deliver on its promises to a greater degree.
TL;DR: There's some good writing and magic in this story, but not enough for me, and pacing and character problems prevented me from enjoying the book more than I did.
I really wanted to, and I was excited by the raving reviews about the romance and the enchanted other kingdom. The novel definitely features these moments, but it didn't quite deliver 100% for me. I wanted much more of the Other Kingdom than we actually saw, and I found the romance and really the plot in general to be disappointingly predictable.
I also hated the character of Cesar. You're really supposed to as the reader, but I hated him even more cause he took up soooo much attention and bookspace. With him and a couple other plot points, I spent the first half of the book disappointed because it exemplified one of my least favorite tropes: things just went from bad to worse and then to worst.
The story improved in the second half since the plot points that had been dragging on finally came to their respective heads and got resolved. However, it also brought to light another big factor for me liking the story less than I wanted to: the two female leads. This story could have been a fantastic opportunity to celebrate women overcoming all kinds of trials with sisterly help and their own strength and ingenuity. And while there was a bit of that, I felt mostly that the women just suffered more and more without much if any power to fight against the evils around them and then were ultimately only saved because of the men. While I understand that women have been historically mistreated more than men and that individual women do sometimes need the help of others, including men, to stand on their own two feet again, the two most important women in this story felt almost always helpless.
The second book focus more on Paula, perhaps the most promising of the other sisters, as she travels to a country where women's rights are still questioned in the modern day. People say it's as good as or even better than Wildwood Dancing, so I might pick it up at some point. But it's time for me to move on to something I'm hoping will deliver on its promises to a greater degree.
TL;DR: There's some good writing and magic in this story, but not enough for me, and pacing and character problems prevented me from enjoying the book more than I did.