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A review by stilljennifer
What Should Be Wild by Julia Fine
3.0
I wanted to love this book so much, I really did. It had all the elements I love in a story: strong female characters, magical realism, creepy forests... and yet this entire story just fell flat for me. I found much of it to be a slog and I kept reading because I was really hoping for a giant twist/reveal at the end. Instead, I feel like I caught onto what was happening pretty early on and so I was just finishing it just to say I'd gotten to the end/be proven right.
I didn't hate it at all, but I didn't connect emotionally to any of the women, particularly because I felt like the author was trying so hard to make that happen. There was an overarching lesson that women have been put upon for centuries and often are forced to seek refuge from the harshness of the world, and a lot of stuff about embracing the darker elements of ourselves, yada yada, but it all just felt so heavy-handed that I couldn't take that lesson to heart. I'm a little disappointed, but I think perhaps for a younger audience that's not quite so cynical about the world, this could be good.
I didn't hate it at all, but I didn't connect emotionally to any of the women, particularly because I felt like the author was trying so hard to make that happen. There was an overarching lesson that women have been put upon for centuries and often are forced to seek refuge from the harshness of the world, and a lot of stuff about embracing the darker elements of ourselves, yada yada, but it all just felt so heavy-handed that I couldn't take that lesson to heart. I'm a little disappointed, but I think perhaps for a younger audience that's not quite so cynical about the world, this could be good.