sandra_foriers 's review for:

The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson

4.0

adventurous hopeful mysterious sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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In this book, we meet Marinka. Marinka is 12 years old and dreams of a normal life, but her house has chicken legs and moves on without warning. For Marinka's grandmother is Baba Yaga, who guides spirits between this world and the next. Marinka longs to change her destiny and sets out to break free from her grandmother's footsteps, but her house has other ideas... 

I had so much fun reading this book. I wasn’t familiar with Russian folklore or the Baba Yaga story before I read this, so I was intrigued by its premise. And this book certainly did deliver.

What I especially loved, was the fact that the house was a character of its own, with a personality and its own backstory to go with it. The other side characters, like jackdaw Jack and Old Yaga also got plenty of page time and I love that.

Especially because I wasn’t the biggest fan of Marinka herself. Yes, she’s only twelve and no, it’s not fair to have your destiny forced upon you like that. But that does not gove you an excuse to act so self-centered all of the time and it certainly does not excuse you from taking responsibility for your actions. 

I get that children sometimes make dumb decisions, but first of all, 12 years old isn’t that young, I know plenty of children that age who act way more mature. Making dumb decisions is fine, at least if you learn something from them. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here and it made it difficult for me to feel sympathy for Marinka because it were other beloved characters who suffered for her mistakes.

I realise that these things may have been necessary for her growth, but the ending left me feeling like she got rewarded for being naïve and selfish.  

Maybe the best part of this book, was the atmosphere it created, it was the perfect mix of magical, cosy and eerie that I absolutely adore.

All in all, it was a fun read, and I’ll definitely pick up other books by the author in the future.