A review by bluestjuice
Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick

4.0

Much better than I was expecting it to be. YA fiction can be pretty hit or miss, in my experience, but this collection of seven interwoven vignettes caught my interest early on with its Twilight-Zone-esque ominousness, and I enjoyed speculating on the eventual form the entire would take as I worked my way through the remaining stories. I appreciated that, although some parallels and motifs seemed overplayed (which is a common complaint of YA fiction in general), there were also details here in each layer that simply added richness. The eventual unraveling of mysteries was a bit underwhelming, but the book on the whole would bear a repeat read simply to review the evidence in light of new discoveries. It's clever and evocative and a solid piece of work.

A couple of additional points: I loved that the painting Midvinterblot is a real painting. I'm also glad I didn't know that until I read the author's note in the end, because it was more fun to peruse it in detail after having read it described in detail, first. Secondly, I want to kick whomever designed the cover for the copy I received from the library (edit: a totally different cover than the one linked here on Goodreads), because it has basically nothing to do with anything in the book, particularly, and I think this book deserved a more compelling cover (edit: like this one, which is heavily influenced by the aforementioned painting! Why would you ever change that. Ugh.).