A review by graypeape
The Waking Forest by Alyssa Wees

5.0

You know how sometimes you get lucky and you read a book when you're in just the right mood for it? This was that book for me. I really, really enjoyed this book. I'm not going to try and explain the story, but I'll say it is deeply steeped in dreams, and I felt like I was dreaming through the whole thing. At first, the story goes back and forth between a young woman living near the beach with her family, and a witch living in a dark fairy tale type castle in an enchanted forest. Then a little more than halfway through, the stories meet up and have a baby, and we watch this baby grow into a new story. Is it confusing? Sure! But that's okay, dreams are confusing. Is the language lovely and descriptive, while occasionally falling into a purple prose word salad? You betcha! But it totally worked for me, because it made it feel more creepy and dreamlike. There's some definite creepy menace feels going on, sometimes strong, sometimes more background, but always there. A great read for when you don't really care about the story making complete sense, you just want to be drawn into some atmosphere.