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alice_digest 's review for:
Wolf Hollow
by Lauren Wolk
3.5 Stars. Shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal 2017.
This one was alright. I'm struggling to have strong feelings about it.. it might just be a little too "young" for me although it does deal with some quite scary bullying and mob mentality. Annabelle is a quite sweet and well meaning twelve year old girl growing up in a rural American town during the second world war. Toby is the strange man who lives in the woods. He's a veteran of the first world war and wanders the woods all day with three guns strapped to his back. Her family have always been kind to him and they have sweet friendship, despite the fact he barely speaks. Betty, a clearly troubled girl, arrives in the town and begins to bully and threaten Annabelle. When Betty goes missing her lies seem to point to Toby being behind her disappearance, but Annabelle knows that can't be true.
There isn't much wrong with this book and it was a pleasure to read, it just didn't really grip me. I think perhaps the main issue I have is that Betty is never really that well realised. She's a little bit two dimensional which made it difficult to care about her fate. This is actually quite a complex book and the motivations of a lot of the characters might be a little challenging for younger readers, but at the same time I applaud this book for not talking down or simplifying the story too much... or having a sickly "happy ever after" cop out ending.
It's a nice read.. but I'm not super excited by it.
This one was alright. I'm struggling to have strong feelings about it.. it might just be a little too "young" for me although it does deal with some quite scary bullying and mob mentality. Annabelle is a quite sweet and well meaning twelve year old girl growing up in a rural American town during the second world war. Toby is the strange man who lives in the woods. He's a veteran of the first world war and wanders the woods all day with three guns strapped to his back. Her family have always been kind to him and they have sweet friendship, despite the fact he barely speaks. Betty, a clearly troubled girl, arrives in the town and begins to bully and threaten Annabelle. When Betty goes missing her lies seem to point to Toby being behind her disappearance, but Annabelle knows that can't be true.
There isn't much wrong with this book and it was a pleasure to read, it just didn't really grip me. I think perhaps the main issue I have is that Betty is never really that well realised. She's a little bit two dimensional which made it difficult to care about her fate. This is actually quite a complex book and the motivations of a lot of the characters might be a little challenging for younger readers, but at the same time I applaud this book for not talking down or simplifying the story too much... or having a sickly "happy ever after" cop out ending.
It's a nice read.. but I'm not super excited by it.