A review by fishy27
The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid

adventurous slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.5

The Branding: Why is this book marketed as adult? It felt very much like a poorly written YA novel outside of the gore. When I picked this up, I expected it to have been branded as an adult book because we’d be getting a complex exploration of history, religion, nation building and politics, and oppression. I thought we were getting a book that felt like a fairy tale–flowery and lush prose that devolves into something much darker.

Instead, we got flat characters, a boring plot, a world that doesn’t make sense, and multiple gory depictions of violence. While I have no problem with violence, the gore felt like the only part of this book that would have been inappropriate for younger audiences. The book lacked the nuance and complexity that I would expect in an adult novel, and I was disappointed at the end of the book because it didn’t feel like Reid contributed a compelling story to the literary collective with this one.

The Plot: What a snoozefest. The first half of the book is the two main characters on a “side quest” that ultimately amounts to nothing–they return to the king in Kiraly Szek empty handed. Then, at the end of the book, they go back in search of the same item and find it with no trouble. 

For the first half of the book, I expect that we were supposed to experience a few things: 
  1. Build out the world and the monsters living in it, both fantastic and real
  2. Give the main characters alone time to fall in love 
  3. Allow time for the main character to grow and mature before she reaches the capital

Put simply, it was an extremely weak execution of critical elements of what the book should have been.

Once they arrive in Kiraly Szek, Évike meets her father, who is Yehuli. It’s very clear that the father/daughter relationship and highlighting Yehuli culture is the heart of the story for Reid. It’s the most enjoyable relationship in the book and the Yehuli culture is beautiful.

The latter half of the book is a lot of “things happen around the main character and she reacts to them.” Action was rushed and the epilogue was not the resolution this story deserved.


I also had a weird feeling about Évike’s magic. She has it for part of the book, much of which she doesn’t even use it. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be an allegory for, like, “when she has evil magic, she is evil and mean, then she is changed by its sacrifice”... but it just felt like a weak plot device.

When she first gets her magic, she doesn’t use it much at all. There’s no experimenting with it to learn how it exists, she just all of a sudden knows how to wield it and what it can do. She could burn flesh and erode steel, the latter of which was very convenient in getting herself out of a locked room.

Then, she sacrifices her magic in order to be able to kill the turul. Why? Because she had nothing else to lose, and you can’t kill your main character? I feel like Évike dying would have been a much better story. If I was supposed to feel some type of way about her cursed magic other than confused, it flopped.


The Prose: At some points, I felt that the prose was bringing the story to life. But those points were rare. I can tell Reid is or will be a great writer, but the prose, overall, really fell flat for me. There was so much repetition in dialogue, with characters literally saying the exact same thing over and over again. There are a lot of examples of this sprinkled through other review on Goodreads, but the one that caught my attention was “it felt like the work of a trickster god” when she could’ve just said “cruel joke.” None of the religions in this book even HAVE a trickster god or anything like it.

The one thing that really got me was the term “wolf-girl.” I had HOPED this was a slur, that I wouldn’t have to read it over and over again. But alas, I was wrong, and Évike calls herself a wolf-girl ALL the time. Why can’t they just be wolves? Did we really have to call them wolf-girls??

Overall, Reid tries a bit too hard to make her writing lush, and it becomes unintentionally ambiguous and confusing.


The World: This is set in Régország, which is just Hungary. The Empire of Merzan is the Ottoman Empire, and the northerners, called the Juuvi, in Régország seem to be Finnish? I don’t understand why the book needed to be set in a fantasy world when the author just used code names for everything. I also couldn’t understand why the Juuvi were even in this story. Why are they Finnish? We meet two characters while they are in the north, and only one of them is Juuvi. It added literally nothing to have these characters.

We also have the issue that the country itself. Some of the place names, like Ezer Szem, Kiraly Szek, and the various territories are in Hungarian. However, others are in plain English–Great Plain, Little Plain, and Black Lake. What? Why is it not consistent?

Speaking of place names, I repeatedly tripped up on “kiraly szek,” which is supposed to mean king’s throne… but szek is not a word. There should be an accent with the e that was just discarded. Did a single Hungarian read this book before it was published?

Languages spoken through this book are also extremely confusing. Am I to understand that everyone is communicating with each other in Hungarian? That seems to be the case based on the “Te nem vagy taltos” and “Te nem vagy harcos.” If that’s the case, then, why don’t they have any problem talking to the Juuvi? Finnish and Hungarian are in the same language family, but they’re certainly not mutually intelligible. Also, Évike is made fun of for not knowing how to write. Does anyone know how to write? And if so, why? How? In what world would ANYONE expect a pagan girl to know how to read and write? What value does that have?

I have so many questions about the magic system that just never get answered. The whole shtick about magic in the Patrifaith (Christianity) and the pagan faith is that they require sacrifice of some sort. Why was Évike able to chop of her finger and get magic? Can anyone do that? She got magic from one of her pagan faith’s gods, but can anyone in the Patrifaith make a sacrifice and get magic? If so, why are the peasants suffering so much when they could be forging things and healing each other? Is all the magic different? The pagan and Patrifaith magics seem pretty similar, but Yehuli and Juuvi magic are their own things. Can anyone do those types of magic? Do those require a sacrifice too? Why was Évike able to do Yehuli magic?


The Characters: The characters were truly the worst part of this book.

Évike has been bullied and abused by both her peers and elders for her whole life. She lived as an orphan and an outcast in her village. Yes, she’s a traumatized person who’s experienced terrible treatment.

But she is absolutely insufferable. She’s 25, but if you told me she was a decade younger than that, I’d believe you. She’s so mean to everyone around her, especially Gáspár while they’re travelling alone. When they’re not giving each other the silent treatment, she’s goading him into arguments, challenging his faith, and straight up attacking him with the most sensitive information she can get her hands on.

I understand that being mean is a trauma response, but at the same time, she’s completely unreasonable. She does not mature at all through this book. Sure, she decides to work with Katalin, her abuser, at the end, but there is really no critical thought put into that decision. I would have expected for Évike to be struggling with a false sense of allegiance to her village and people. Maybe Évike has to struggle and learn what it means to be the bigger person in terrible situations, grieving through that. But no. That’s not what happens.

Évike is just extremely unlikeable and has, like, no redeeming qualities.

Gáspár had so much potential not just as a love interest, but as an individual character. He was the heir to the kingdom, and he was notably, I believe, the only person of character. I want to know what his life was like. How was he treated by people, and was it informed by his race? How did he view himself? How did his position affect his faith? I want to know what his life was like and what he thought about those things. What did he think about the practice of stealing girls from villages?

Instead, we got a one-dimensional character that is either stone faced or flushing. His character would have been a really interesting way to build the world, to tell readers about what it was like to be an Other, even with power, for the author to say something interesting about intersectionality.

Zsigmond was a wonderful character, and again, you can tell that the Yehuli were the heart of Reid’s passion project in this book. The Yehuli culture, tradition, and characters were delightful, thoughtful, and 3-dimensional.


The Romance: There was not a single second while I was reading that I gave a single fuck about this romance. It probably has a lot to do with the fact that I didn’t give a fuck about the characters involved, but more importantly, I didn’t understand why the romance was blooming in the first place.

There was a weird and uncomfortable dissonance between the enemies to lovers trope and instalove. Évike was horny, like, the whole time, thinking about how she wanted to fuck this guy that she doesn’t like… all the while, she’s like “wow his disappointment hurts more than I thought it would.” She can’t decide whether she loves him or hates him, and she treats him like shit the entire time. She’s 25 but acts like a mean teenager.


Overall, I’m very disappointed with this book. When I picked it up, I was expecting to adore it, to rave about it, to be ready for a re-read almost immediately. This just wasn’t it. I think Ava Reid got a little “lost in the sauce” as they say. She tried to execute on some really big stories, but she got too caught up in her own research and making the stupid romance plot line work that the whole thing crumbled.
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