You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by ellieoffrell
Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
5.0
I’ve heard it said that girls can’t keep secrets. That’s wrong: we’d proved it.
Can I tell you how much I loved this book? I'm gonna tell you how much I loved this book.
Wildwood Dancing has been on my TBR since I was in middle school. I'm 19 now!! That's a long time!
I say it in every review, but I'm really into fairytales. I always have been. I actively seek out good retellings and I have done so for years. I always intended to read Wildwood Dancing, but there was always a reason why I didn't. There was another, newer book out; the bookstore didn't carry it; I couldn't afford it at the time…the list goes on. I finally got off my lazy ass and asked for it for Christmas--my laziness was foiled!
Then it took me till April to read it. Laziness not foiled.
But it was so good. I'm almost glad that I didn't read it when I was younger. I don't know if I would have had the patience, or the understanding, or simply the cerebral development required to truly appreciate a book so good.
The center of this book is Jena. She's fifteen, the daughter of an ailing merchant, and has four sisters. Each of the sisters has her own personality and interests, but my favorite hands down is Jena. She's the sensible one. The reliable one, the one who shoulders the weight of her family when her father must leave to preserve what's left of his health. Jena carries this book.
“Sometimes you’re so sensible, you make me angry.”
“Someone has to be,” I said, swallowing my annoyance. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. To look after things while Father’s away.”
When their father leaves for a warmer climate, the sisters refuse to give up their monthly visits to the Other Kingdom, where the fae and their realm gather on the full moon to host their revelry. The sisters have always gone ever since they found the portal in their bedroom when they were children. It's their special time--when they can dance and laugh and play. But then the Night People come.
The Night People are this world's vampires. They're shady (ha ha) and mysterious, and not even the Queen Ileana knows exactly their motive. Jena's older sister Tati becomes infatuated with one of them, and that my friends the beginning of the end. She's distracted and lovelorn, and not at all helpful when it comes to reining in the sisters' greedy cousin, Çezar. With the girls' father out of the way, he invades their space and makes their business his business.
With the Night People and Tati's emotional distance, Çezar's bullying, and the potential razing of their beloved Wildwood, Jena's only comfort and friend is her pet frog, Gogu. But even there, all isn't as it seems…
“You’ve upset him,” I said. “Frogs have feelings, too, you know.”
I loved Jena. I loved her practicality, her pragmatism, her willingness to stand up for herself and take matters into her own hands. She was smart, even when rendered powerless, and I really respected her. I also LOVED the take on The Twelve Dancing Princesses that Wildwood Dancing took--it's set in Transylvannia, and the love and lore that went into this retelling is evident on every page.
The relationship with the sisters is very good. Don't get me wrong, I DID think the sisters had a great relationship. Buuut, I was upset with Tati, the eldest. She was supposed to be the sweet one, the mothering one, but most of the book she spent pining! I won't spoil, but some of her decisions and her lack of ANY support or action made me really frustrated with her as a character. Jena is the standout in this novel--as is her growth and her, ahem, other relationships.
But I’m going to play the tease. Let’s talk about the antagonist! Çezar, oh boy. HE WAS SUCH A DICK!!! Oh my God. He’s the kind of asshole you don’t even realize he’s an asshole till you get stuck with him for an extended period of time. Then you see it. You see. This guy is fucking nuts. He makes the sister’s lives--especially Jena’s--a living hell. He does it subtly, integrating himself into their business affairs, but then. THEN. He takes where nothing is given, including far more things than managing accounts and ledgers.
"The real monsters aren't folk from the Other Kingdom, Çezar. They're men like you: men who won't stop grasping for power until they've destroyed everything. You think you're going to put an end to the folk of the forest. But if you don't take a step back, you're going to end up destroying your own life."
Gogu was the best. He was Jena's companion but always very much his own, erm, frog. He was the snarky commentary, the wit of the book, always gracing the reader with a blatant and unsympathetic comeback to any ridiculous notions from our antagonists.
“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Love makes people do some odd things. I mean, Jena loves Gogu best in the world, doesn’t she? A frog. That’s just about the weirdest thing you could imagine.”
It's pretty obvious when, in a fairytale retelling, a girl has a pet frog the outcome of said relation. BUT for the sake of not being accountable for potential spoilers, I won't mention anything else. About anything. Not even the possible teeny weeny POSSIBILITY that Gogu the frog may or may not be AN ADORABLE LOVABLE LOVABLE PERSONBOYFROGTHING AND ALSO MY FAVORITE CHARACTER.
I love this book. I love the story, the way it was slow-burning and slow-building like a Jane Austen novel. There is so much intricacy and depth and feeling in the pages. This style may not be for everyone; I know a lot of readers don't find the idea of classical-type storytelling interesting, per se, but if you just stick out the kind-of-wordy beginning, PLEASE, you will probably end up loving it!
That's my biggest problem, other than Tati--the slow beginning. It's not fast. I was a little bored, I'll admit. I had to FORCE my sister to keep going. On the front cover of my copy, an author lauds the book as a page-turner and I laughed LOUDLY when I started. Because it was quite dull. BUT I swear, I revoke that laughter! I was very happy to be proven wrong. Once you're into it, Wildwood Dancing is SO hard to put down.
When you're forced to put it down, your mind wanders back to it. You need to know what happens. It's this sort of all-consuming world, you feel like you're THERE, feeling the wildwood wind and smelling the coffee and stepping on the cold tiles of their family mansion's floors. You feel the warmth of the kitchens and the eery, otherworldliness of the Night People's realm. You need to know who reaches their happiness, if it's even attainable; you care so much for the characters, you even find yourself pitying the ones you hate. When immersed in this new kind of world, you can understand why the sisters are drawn to the wildwood, even with its dangers. Its free and fresh and new and yet so like home, you just can't leave it.
Read it. Please?
Can I tell you how much I loved this book? I'm gonna tell you how much I loved this book.
Wildwood Dancing has been on my TBR since I was in middle school. I'm 19 now!! That's a long time!
I say it in every review, but I'm really into fairytales. I always have been. I actively seek out good retellings and I have done so for years. I always intended to read Wildwood Dancing, but there was always a reason why I didn't. There was another, newer book out; the bookstore didn't carry it; I couldn't afford it at the time…the list goes on. I finally got off my lazy ass and asked for it for Christmas--my laziness was foiled!
Then it took me till April to read it. Laziness not foiled.
But it was so good. I'm almost glad that I didn't read it when I was younger. I don't know if I would have had the patience, or the understanding, or simply the cerebral development required to truly appreciate a book so good.
The center of this book is Jena. She's fifteen, the daughter of an ailing merchant, and has four sisters. Each of the sisters has her own personality and interests, but my favorite hands down is Jena. She's the sensible one. The reliable one, the one who shoulders the weight of her family when her father must leave to preserve what's left of his health. Jena carries this book.
“Sometimes you’re so sensible, you make me angry.”
“Someone has to be,” I said, swallowing my annoyance. “I’m just trying to keep you safe. To look after things while Father’s away.”
When their father leaves for a warmer climate, the sisters refuse to give up their monthly visits to the Other Kingdom, where the fae and their realm gather on the full moon to host their revelry. The sisters have always gone ever since they found the portal in their bedroom when they were children. It's their special time--when they can dance and laugh and play. But then the Night People come.
The Night People are this world's vampires. They're shady (ha ha) and mysterious, and not even the Queen Ileana knows exactly their motive. Jena's older sister Tati becomes infatuated with one of them, and that my friends the beginning of the end. She's distracted and lovelorn, and not at all helpful when it comes to reining in the sisters' greedy cousin, Çezar. With the girls' father out of the way, he invades their space and makes their business his business.
With the Night People and Tati's emotional distance, Çezar's bullying, and the potential razing of their beloved Wildwood, Jena's only comfort and friend is her pet frog, Gogu. But even there, all isn't as it seems…
“You’ve upset him,” I said. “Frogs have feelings, too, you know.”
I loved Jena. I loved her practicality, her pragmatism, her willingness to stand up for herself and take matters into her own hands. She was smart, even when rendered powerless, and I really respected her. I also LOVED the take on The Twelve Dancing Princesses that Wildwood Dancing took--it's set in Transylvannia, and the love and lore that went into this retelling is evident on every page.
The relationship with the sisters is very good. Don't get me wrong, I DID think the sisters had a great relationship. Buuut, I was upset with Tati, the eldest. She was supposed to be the sweet one, the mothering one, but most of the book she spent pining! I won't spoil, but some of her decisions and her lack of ANY support or action made me really frustrated with her as a character. Jena is the standout in this novel--as is her growth and her, ahem, other relationships.
But I’m going to play the tease. Let’s talk about the antagonist! Çezar, oh boy. HE WAS SUCH A DICK!!! Oh my God. He’s the kind of asshole you don’t even realize he’s an asshole till you get stuck with him for an extended period of time. Then you see it. You see. This guy is fucking nuts. He makes the sister’s lives--especially Jena’s--a living hell. He does it subtly, integrating himself into their business affairs, but then. THEN. He takes where nothing is given, including far more things than managing accounts and ledgers.
"The real monsters aren't folk from the Other Kingdom, Çezar. They're men like you: men who won't stop grasping for power until they've destroyed everything. You think you're going to put an end to the folk of the forest. But if you don't take a step back, you're going to end up destroying your own life."
Gogu was the best. He was Jena's companion but always very much his own, erm, frog. He was the snarky commentary, the wit of the book, always gracing the reader with a blatant and unsympathetic comeback to any ridiculous notions from our antagonists.
“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Love makes people do some odd things. I mean, Jena loves Gogu best in the world, doesn’t she? A frog. That’s just about the weirdest thing you could imagine.”
It's pretty obvious when, in a fairytale retelling, a girl has a pet frog the outcome of said relation. BUT for the sake of not being accountable for potential spoilers, I won't mention anything else. About anything. Not even the possible teeny weeny POSSIBILITY that Gogu the frog may or may not be AN ADORABLE LOVABLE LOVABLE PERSONBOYFROGTHING AND ALSO MY FAVORITE CHARACTER.
I love this book. I love the story, the way it was slow-burning and slow-building like a Jane Austen novel. There is so much intricacy and depth and feeling in the pages. This style may not be for everyone; I know a lot of readers don't find the idea of classical-type storytelling interesting, per se, but if you just stick out the kind-of-wordy beginning, PLEASE, you will probably end up loving it!
That's my biggest problem, other than Tati--the slow beginning. It's not fast. I was a little bored, I'll admit. I had to FORCE my sister to keep going. On the front cover of my copy, an author lauds the book as a page-turner and I laughed LOUDLY when I started. Because it was quite dull. BUT I swear, I revoke that laughter! I was very happy to be proven wrong. Once you're into it, Wildwood Dancing is SO hard to put down.
When you're forced to put it down, your mind wanders back to it. You need to know what happens. It's this sort of all-consuming world, you feel like you're THERE, feeling the wildwood wind and smelling the coffee and stepping on the cold tiles of their family mansion's floors. You feel the warmth of the kitchens and the eery, otherworldliness of the Night People's realm. You need to know who reaches their happiness, if it's even attainable; you care so much for the characters, you even find yourself pitying the ones you hate. When immersed in this new kind of world, you can understand why the sisters are drawn to the wildwood, even with its dangers. Its free and fresh and new and yet so like home, you just can't leave it.
Read it. Please?