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A review by jdhacker
The Country Girl's Guide to Hexes and Haints by Mer Whinery
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75
Much that I said to Whinery's first full length novel, Trade Yer Coffin for a Gun, applies here, but if anything more strongly.
Country Girl's Guide feels like an even more 'grown up' novel than Coffin, while simultaneously being a coming of age story. Whinery has seemingly mastered King's knack for showing us characters both young and old 'come of age' through trials both horrific and terribly mundane a small town...though in a forlorn corner of Oklahoma instead of the new england states.
For readers familiar with Whinery's work, connections abound to previous stories as a whole regional mythos and history if clearly being constructed. An entire alternate world in fact, masterfully constructed of nostalgic references changed just enough from the world in which we live to create a sense of unreality but close enough to still pull us in to our own dust covered remembrances.
What I was perhaps most unprepared for was the sadness and loss that I think tugs at the hearts and minds of readers of a certain age, that King and Bradbury so perfected in stories where innocence and childhood are lost.
Oh yeah, and there are great monsters and fantastically written action scenes as well!
Country Girl's Guide feels like an even more 'grown up' novel than Coffin, while simultaneously being a coming of age story. Whinery has seemingly mastered King's knack for showing us characters both young and old 'come of age' through trials both horrific and terribly mundane a small town...though in a forlorn corner of Oklahoma instead of the new england states.
For readers familiar with Whinery's work, connections abound to previous stories as a whole regional mythos and history if clearly being constructed. An entire alternate world in fact, masterfully constructed of nostalgic references changed just enough from the world in which we live to create a sense of unreality but close enough to still pull us in to our own dust covered remembrances.
What I was perhaps most unprepared for was the sadness and loss that I think tugs at the hearts and minds of readers of a certain age, that King and Bradbury so perfected in stories where innocence and childhood are lost.
Oh yeah, and there are great monsters and fantastically written action scenes as well!