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A review by beforeviolets
The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohamed
A quaint dark little woodsy fairytale about colonialism, power, and grief.
I loved how bizarre and prosey and confusing the writing was, it added a lovely dream-like logic to the journey through this world and this story and was properly disorienting while still easy to digest. The atmosphere was rich and haunting in all the right ways. The themes this book played with were really fascinating, and I appreciated the open-endedness of many of its strings.
I think the only critique I have is that it felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop for much of the story. There was a clear setup here about different relationships to land: the inhabitants of the ancient forest where people go to die or lose themselves, the folks of the village who have lived in cautious fear of the ancient forest, and the king's men who have come to conquer the lands and understand little of the forest. And maybe I missed something, but I felt like I was waiting for some reveal or some twist about power or land ownership that never really happened.
If anyone else read this and Gets It, please let me know if I missed something. But I did enjoy my little time with this story, and I'm intrigued to read more of Mohamed's work.
CW: colonization, blood & gore, grief, child death (past), dead bodies, death of parents (past), death of illness (past), death of loved one (past), war (past), alcohol, animal abuse (off page), emesis
I loved how bizarre and prosey and confusing the writing was, it added a lovely dream-like logic to the journey through this world and this story and was properly disorienting while still easy to digest. The atmosphere was rich and haunting in all the right ways. The themes this book played with were really fascinating, and I appreciated the open-endedness of many of its strings.
I think the only critique I have is that it felt like I was waiting for the other shoe to drop for much of the story. There was a clear setup here about different relationships to land: the inhabitants of the ancient forest where people go to die or lose themselves, the folks of the village who have lived in cautious fear of the ancient forest, and the king's men who have come to conquer the lands and understand little of the forest. And maybe I missed something, but I felt like I was waiting for some reveal or some twist about power or land ownership that never really happened.
If anyone else read this and Gets It, please let me know if I missed something. But I did enjoy my little time with this story, and I'm intrigued to read more of Mohamed's work.
CW: colonization, blood & gore, grief, child death (past), dead bodies, death of parents (past), death of illness (past), death of loved one (past), war (past), alcohol, animal abuse (off page), emesis