Book Review: ‘The Darkest Part of the Forest’

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By: Fayetta Doll, Staff Reporter

“Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill monsters and feel quite proud of themselves.”

Truer words have never been spoken as these that were found on the back of “The Darkest Part of the Forest” by Holly Black. This book is phenomenal.

“The Darkest Part of the Forest” blends mild horror with faeries in a way that only Black can do. Black—the faerie queen, as her fans have dubbed her—uses mental health and magic to formulate a villain who isn’t really a villain and heroes who have to learn how to take care of themselves.

Black establishes the villain within the first handful of pages with the lines “Townsfolk knew to fear the monster coiled in the heart of the forest, who lured tourists with a cry that sounded like a woman weeping. Its fingers were sticks, its hair moss. It fed on sorrow and sowed corruption. You could lure it out with a singsong chant, the kind girls dare one another to say at birthday sleepovers.”

That singsong chant is as follows, “There's a monster in our wood. She'll get you if you're not good. Drag you under leaves and sticks. Punish you for all your tricks. A nest of hair and gnawed bone. You are never, ever coming ... home.”

This monster makes victims cry tears of moss, it sews grief and weeps for a lost love that was taken from it. Wonder what that means, huh? It’s truly some lovely imagery shared within these pages.

The best thing about this book are the faeries. Granted, I’m kind of obsessed with faeries (side note: the first book I ever read about faeries was “Tithe” by Holly Black, a book that helped sew my adoration) and my idea of a beautiful description and death-dropping imagery involves, primarily, fae-like descriptions. Black has those in spades. 

Another amazing thing about this book are the characters. Hazel, for one, is fantastic. Her brother Ben, is  breathtaking. Severin, the faerie prince with horns … needless to say, he’s the best character. 

This book is full of romance. Oh lord, the romance. Did someone say they needed a bisexual faerie prince? Oh wait, that was me? You’re right, I did need that. And we got it in Severin.

Now, prepare for briefspoilers as I’m about to quote the final passage of the book. It’s too amazing to not include:

“And elsewhere in the woods, there is another party, one taking place inside a hollow hill, full of night-blooming flowers. There, a pale boy plays a fiddle with newly mended fingers while his sister dances with his best friend. There, a monster whirls about, branches waving in time with the music. There, a prince of the Folk takes up the mantle of king, embracing a changeling like a bother, and, with a human boy at his side, names a girl his champion.”

I just—I can’t. I cried, OK, I cried.

Spoiler over! 

Read this book.

I give it 10 out of 10 flowers. 

To Kill a Kingdom

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By: Fayetta Doll, Staff Reporter

This week’s book review will be on To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo. This book left me conflicted but not because it was a concept I loved and an execution I hated or even because the prose was wonderful and the plot was lackluster. No, no, this book had an amazing plot and amazing prose…well, more or less. 

The characters annoyed me to hell and back. They kept talking about being villainous and evil and murderous and infamous, but it was a classic case of telling and not showing. I didn’t truly believe any of the character traits that the characters said they had until around page 158. That—that—was when I started to really enjoy the book. Up until that point the characters were annoying, but I kept reading because I had such high hopes due to the rave reviews I was hearing. Needless to say, I was simultaneously disappointed and vitalized by the end of the book.

So, first let’s line out the reasons I was disappointed. 

The book fell short for because it was pitched to me as a dark fantasy. Key word being dark. Let me warn you here and now, if you are a dark fantasy aficionado then you’ll know this is not dark fantasy. And you will be disappointed, as I was. It wasn’t bad fantasy. In fact, it was really good fantasy with a flushed-out world that I wanted to know more about (which was another reason I kept reading). But I was expecting something lush and dark, especially from the first line.

“I have a heart for every year I’ve been alive.”

Liiiiike. Girl. That’s something that leaves me dying to read more. The moment I read that line and heard it was dark fantasy, this book sailed to the top of my TBR (to be read) list. First of all, that line is badass. More badass than the character would like you to think she is. I’m not saying I don’t like Lira. In fact, I love her. It is a part of her character growth that she views herself as so incredibly murderous. I analyzed her character quite a bit but more on that later.

The second aspect that left me unsatisfied was the prose. It just… it was lush in some places and oh so very not in others. Also, the dialogue didn’t match up with the world. The world could have been so much more detailed and so much darker if it didn’t feel like it was trying so hard to be edgy with its foul language. The cursing just didn’t fit in with the dynamic. In books like Nevernightby Jay Kristoff, the cursing works. But in this it just felt out of place. 

Now for what I loved. 

Specifically, the romance and Elian’s narration and Lira. The main two characters were Lira and Elian, who – surprise, surprise – were paired together. But their romance was so good. I ate it up and I looked up fanart and fanfiction afterwards because it was just so delicious. Their glorious banter. Their transition from enemies to lovers. So well done. That is one of my favorite things and this book does it excellently. I can’t hype up this romance enough. It’s amazing.

Elian’s narration is what made me change my tune on page 158:

“Things were going smoothly. Or rather, they had screwed themselves into a giant mess, and I was getting closer to pressing out the wrinkles.”

One word: yes. Okay, no. Two words: yes, please. His narration was altogether hilarious once I got past the “I’m a badass murderer” act that he was pulling.

Lira. Lira. LIRA. Beautiful. She is the only exception, so far, to my “protagonists that act like they’re badass murderers are always annoying” rule. Because her acting like that had so much depth and purpose to her character stemming from how her mother was abusive and her own sirenism. Sirenism? Point being, she’s a siren.

Also: she’s amazing.

I give this book seven and a half out of ten flowers. I gave it five out of five stars on Goodreads, though. At the end of it and at the end of the day, this is a good book and I recommend it. Just don’t expect intense, genuine dark fantasy.

Illuminae Book Review

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By Fayetta Doll, Staff Reporter

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff utilizes different storytelling techniques such as email conversations and images to detail a creative, fully functional world. This book is a chunky read at over 500 pages, so it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. However, if you do choose to pick up this bad boy you’ll be happy to know that most of the pages don’t include giant chunks of text and instead are tastfully artsy. To quote Kaufman’s site, “[told] through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more.”

To detail out why I loved this book would be giving quite a bit of spoilers so instead I will only say YES. Yes, there’s this one character that is absolutely amazing. “His” name is AIDAN and he has lines such as “like roses in his hands death blooms” on page 275 and “Numbers do not feel. Do not blood or weep or hope. They do not know bravery or sacrifice. Love or allegiance. At the very apex of callousness, you will find only ones and zeros” on page 299, among many, many, many more fantastic lines that leave me gawking and craving more. 

Okay fine, I’ll tell you who this guy is, but you have to promise to still consider reading the book despite the KINDA spoiler, because it isgreat. Anyway, AIDAN is an AI turned sentient who turns against its crew. He is an antihero if ever there was one. “Am I not merciful?” is one of AIDAN’s repeated lines. 

Besides AIDAN, this book features a cast of flushed out characters such as the main two: Kady and Ezra. I don’t usually get interested in those sappy heterosexual love stories (who am I kidding? I may prefer LGBTQ+ romances but I’m a giant sap and love me some romance) but their dynamic is INCREDIBLE. Kady and Ezra’s relationship is so detailed that I got almost too invested in it. By that I mean I cried. Multiple times. 

This book is described as a space opera and needless to say, what do you get when you combine an invasion with a psychologically inhibiting virus with space? Something unbelievably iconic.

I don’t usually read sci-fi, as fantasy is my genre of choice, however even for someone who prefers other genres to sci-fi, I enjoyed the book. There was an excess of cursing (albeit censored) and some sexually implicit and occasionally explicit things, but overall it was a good read.

I give this book eight out of ten flowers. On Goodreads I gave it five out of five stars.