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A review by karis321
The Wildest Things by Andrea Hannah
2.0
~~Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC!~~
Yeah, this is just a huge no from me.
This book is such a slog; I was legit bored to tears. This slowness primary stems from the long-winded, multi-chapter worldbuilding dump. You can't just tell the reader everything about your world like that. I wasn't even invested in the main character yet, so why should I care anything about this world? And all of this was before Snow got told what happened to the world after she died. The mossfolk (AKA the original seven from the story) telling her was fine, but Snow revealing everything that came before that out of dialogue killed any interest I initially had in the story.
The characters weren't any better. Snow had some interesting things going in her character, as her arc is basically deconstructing what "fairness" is and growing from that dainty, innocent persona she had for her whole life. This arc should have captured me in theory, but this girl's nonsensical attraction to the evil queen, who is her stepmother's daughter by a father that wasn't Snow's. Their interactions are mostly contained in the last third of the book, and the only thing they seem to have is that they both think the other is hot. But Snow should know better because the queen is, as stated many times throughout the narrative, a replica of the stepmother who abused her! It's just so weird that this is the romance of the book. Not as bad as it could be, but even if there was solid, well-written chemistry, there would still be some lingering weirdness.
The rest - I couldn't care less. The woodsman stand-in was a prop to keep Snow alive until she could wield magic, the mossfolk weren't as explored as they could have been, and the rest of the story, when the info-lore dumping slowed down, just felt like a waste of time.
I think it's safe to say my journey with Hannah's solo books ends here, but I will be reading her co-authored fantasy with Rebecca Mix. Hopefully, that will turn out better than what I got here.
Yeah, this is just a huge no from me.
This book is such a slog; I was legit bored to tears. This slowness primary stems from the long-winded, multi-chapter worldbuilding dump. You can't just tell the reader everything about your world like that. I wasn't even invested in the main character yet, so why should I care anything about this world? And all of this was before Snow got told what happened to the world after she died. The mossfolk (AKA the original seven from the story) telling her was fine, but Snow revealing everything that came before that out of dialogue killed any interest I initially had in the story.
The characters weren't any better. Snow had some interesting things going in her character, as her arc is basically deconstructing what "fairness" is and growing from that dainty, innocent persona she had for her whole life. This arc should have captured me in theory, but this girl's nonsensical attraction to the evil queen, who is her stepmother's daughter by a father that wasn't Snow's. Their interactions are mostly contained in the last third of the book, and the only thing they seem to have is that they both think the other is hot. But Snow should know better because the queen is, as stated many times throughout the narrative, a replica of the stepmother who abused her! It's just so weird that this is the romance of the book. Not as bad as it could be, but even if there was solid, well-written chemistry, there would still be some lingering weirdness.
The rest - I couldn't care less. The woodsman stand-in was a prop to keep Snow alive until she could wield magic, the mossfolk weren't as explored as they could have been, and the rest of the story, when the info-lore dumping slowed down, just felt like a waste of time.
I think it's safe to say my journey with Hannah's solo books ends here, but I will be reading her co-authored fantasy with Rebecca Mix. Hopefully, that will turn out better than what I got here.