A review by booking_along
Wild is the Witch by Rachel Griffin

adventurous emotional reflective relaxing 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? Yes

4.25

It is a beautiful book. I highly recommend it! If you want animals and nature, an adventure hike through the wildness and a different kind of magic system? Go for it!

Lets start with the format - the audio book and how that was done: 
I enjoyed listening to the book. The Narrator was good. She read in a nice pace, she slightly changed her voice -but not into the extremes that it felt overdone - when other people spoke, and made them easily to identify. 
Honestly the only thing that i didn't love about the Narrators narration was that sometimes she overdid a few moments when a character would speak. For example if the book stated that a character would calmly answer, the Narrator instead narrated the character speaking almost panicked - too loud, almost too shrill in some aspects. BUT that only happened at the most a handful of times. So its not really a negative thing, just something that i noticed and found a bit of a strange choice to go so directly against what the book directly stated. 

Now unto the book itself. 
The story was beautiful -for the most parts. 
I loved how nature and animal loving this book was. 
The Book was filled up with love for nature and animals in a way that the reader can almost feel it around them while reading. How everything is described -from the feel of animals feathers or the look in their eyes or how the nature is talked about, how trees sound in the wind, or how the earth smells or feel... it all is very beautiful if you as the reader also enjoys nature/animals a lot. 

I also loved the relationship between the mother and daughter in this book. 
It was so nice to see a parent and a child just be happy to have each other and be there for each other. 

Also the way the LGBT+ relationships where woven into the story was also exactly as i want to see it. Like any other romantic relationship. Just happiness for the couple, happy people found each other and are happy together, want to spend their time and lives together, and other people around them happy for them for having found that love. 
Sadly that is still something that has to be pointed out and isn't the norm, as it should be, but the author did such a great job in normalizing any and all formats of love that its fantastic to see and i want to see it like this everywhere please. 

I really loved how magic was written in this book. How it worked and how Iris used it and how it was described. How it worked for her to form a deeper connection to animals or how magic was found in nature. How it worked with the nonmagical world, how it could help or amplify what we know, or shift some things, but just like anything else could not just be pulled from nothing to perform complete miracles... it was really well done and i enjoyed those elements a lot. 

I enjoyed the main characters - for the most part. 

Both Pike and Iris had good and bad factors. But it made them better characters for the most part. I personally dislike Iris for some things -i will get into those in a second- but for the most parts, they were good characters to follow.
Their relationship was interesting, having to learn how to get along and deal with each other because how different they are to each other. 
That Pike is very much logic, being prepared and learning ahead to know the facts and details so that any situation can be approached in a way that he things is the best way. 
Iris on the other hand is very much more in the way of lettings things just come and flow along as they come. She is very much someone that is constantly looking for negative options, but she can also find beauty in the smallest things. Thats an interesting combination, but somehow it works for her character. 

For me personally i think that Pike and Iris relationship evolved a bit too fast, especially with how they start out, what we learn about them throughout the book and how the story goes along. 
I just found it a bit strange that it ended the way it did, and i think i would have liked it better if they would have just learned to accept each other and enjoy each others company with the option for more at the end, instead of how the book ended with them. 
I do understand why the author did it how she did it. But i think it was a bit too much of a whiplash relationship for me. 


Okay and now on to what i really didn't enjoy about this book: 
Iris was sometimes a hard character to like. She focuses so much of this book on her and how she would have to deal with consequences of something that she was responsible for. Very few thoughts actually really were spared to think about everyone else. Sure it was mentioned that she didn't want it to happen like that, but she never picked the options that could make it easier for others if she could choose to make it easier for herself. 
For example once her curse is boned to the owl, she should have gone to her mother. Or to her mothers girlfriend. Right away. She should have called some other witch. Somebody who knew more, understood it all better and made it easier fix the situation with help of people that understand that kind of magic and how to resolve it better. 
Its constantly mentioned how afraid  Iris is that the curse will the unleashed and what horrible consequences it can have not only on Pike but also on the entire area and the people, animals and nature in it and that she is so afraid of what the curse could to do it all. BUT she never actually does anything about it in a way that makes sense, because her next thought is not to try to find a solution but rather to think about herself and how she can't talk to someone about it because she -Iris- can't be punished for this, she can't lose her magic, that would be horrible. 
Excuse me? You just cursed someone and the curse was bonded to something that makes the entire situation escalate into something that you feel like you can't handle and might hurt a lot of people and even kill them horrible. Your thoughts should not be "poor me if this gets out, i will lose what i love!" your thoughts should be "i have to help everyone because its too late and do everything i can and bring everyone i know that might be able to help into this to help me find a solution before bad things happen, no matter the consequences to me!"

And i actually think the entire book and how it is written could still have worked very well with that slight change. Everything could have happened basically identically, but less overly dramatic and with a huge amount of less lying from Iris's part. But i guess it would have been a bit less dramatic if people around Iris would have actually known what was going on and would have been able to help. 


The other think i absolutely hated was how Iris lied to Pike. Look i get it, she had a huge trauma happening to her. I can not imagine what it must be like to see someone you know well burn to death in front of you. That must have given her some very deep psychological scares -and this book does not even once mentioned that she might have gotten help for that so that was a bit of a different question mark for me, but okay, not the point of this story, i get it. 

But its different if you dislike a person and don't tell them about you - thats fine! 
But before you get into something more with a person that you literary cursed either into death or into a completely different life? You tell that person whats going on, especially if they asked you at least three times if something is going on they should know about. 

I just have issues if a relationship is build on lies from one person, while the other one shares a lot of their struggles. 
Again i understand that every person has their own timing and needs to be the one to decide when and how to share their histories and issues. BUT that does not include something that directly involve someone else. 

What i am trying to say is that i think that Iris was not the best character in the sense how she handled her situation. 


And that might sound like i disliked the book. I clearly didn't. I really enjoyed a lot about it. 

It was a great book sharing that sometimes its really hard to overcome the past, especially if something bad happened. That sometimes you behave irrationally because of fear or frustration. And that can have consequences. 
It was all done well in those aspects. 

I just think to fit into those themes, Iris should have behaved more trusting in people she knew would be willing to help her -for example her mother and later one Pike - and not wait until she had absolutely no other choice but to finally confess. 


All in all i think its a beautiful book. It could have been a bit better in some aspects, but seen as a whole, it was well done. 
I will reread this book and enjoy all the animal and nature aspects all over again, and i am sure i will love the magical aspects of it just as much the next times reading it as this i did this time around. 

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