A review by se_wigget
A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

 
TW: child abuse, abandonment, gaslighting, manipulation, Stockholm Syndrome, torture, death, murder, gun violence, self-entitled arrogant white male, power-tripping control freak psychopath who needs to be chopped up into bloody little bits 

I decided to read a lot of queer fiction this year. Goals.

I cannot express enough my appreciation for the queer rep (including ace), fat girl rep, and disability rep in this book. Love it.

SPOILERS:
I figured out early in the book that Fuckface—I mean Frank—is a manipulative control freak. Early in the book, I thought he might be a narcissist with BPD, but eventually he proved to be a psychopath. 
Stockholm Syndrome also comes to mind—each girl has some level of it. Elle is a flying monkey with the greatest level of Stockholm Syndrome.

"Timeout" kept having sinister overtones even before the reader see what it means—I kept suspecting it wasn't just sitting quietly in a corner. Sure enough, it's torture. 

This book evokes the self-entitlement of power-tripping men who use the talents of women and get credit for them... and who abuse the women in their lives. That reminds me of the history books Women of Ideas by Dale Spender and Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang by Kirsty Stonell Walker. Abusers, predators, who not only oppress and stunt women’s talent but also take credit for it.

So... this is definitely a high stakes kind of dark fantasy novel. Very dark. Starting a bit before page 300, there’s an infuriating and horrifying scene I found difficult to get through. I ended up skimming forward. Might want to read the sequel to the cozy fantasy Legends & Lattes next, because GRRRRR. 
 
Page 7: Flower magic and a tiny poltergeist. 🌺👻 
Page 336: YES, RECLAIM THE WORD “WITCHES”!

Also, my phone is a piece of trash that kept refusing to paste this review into StoryGraphy & Goodreads. Over and over again. I had to turn on my laptop... just to post one book review.
 
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