Book Review - Wildwood by Colin Meloy!
Wildwood - Written by Colin Meloy.
I picked up this book unaware of who the author was, judging the purchase of the book almost entirely on the blurb and a few reviews I'd seen on GoodReads. The author, Colin Meloy, is the frontman of the American indie-folk rock band The Decemberists. I'd never heard of this band and still to this day haven't gotten round to giving them a listen... whoops.
Anyway, this book comes in at around 540 pages and within these pages are beautiful illustrations of the story unfolding illustrated by Carson Ellis.
The story tells of a young girl called Prue. One day, whilst taking her baby brother, Mac, out for a bike ride, he gets abducted by a group of crows. Prue must go on a journey to find her baby brother and bring him back to the safety of her family. On the way she picks up a few friends, and a lot of enemies.
The prose of this book is extremely descriptive, and whilst I really enjoyed having this fantastical world pieced together word by word, it sometimes became slightly laborious and difficult to read. Although the landscape and the characters visible description is met, I found it extremely difficult to write this review and tell you about the main character's personality.
Prue felt a very one dimensional character... I knew she liked yoga and peppermint tea, but her personality was lost on me. I found myself completely uncaring for her journey and often counting down the pages until I could find out how the supporting character was getting on.
Curtis, the supporting character, tagged along with Prue on this journey, but ended up taking an entirely different route. I much more enjoyed the action-filled chapters following Curtis, and found that he was not as one dimensional as I found Prue. Throughout the story, I felt that Curtis was described as almost missing Mac more, and that his general story was deeper than first anticipated.
One side to this book that I loved and hated were the illustrations. The illustrations were absolutely beautiful, really adding to the story telling. Having said this, the placement of the illustrations, at times, was infuriating. Sometimes the illustrations would show things that had not yet happened in the story, answering certain cliff-hangers. Personally, I would much prefer it if all of the illustrations were placed in the part of the story where they were being told... If that makes any sense at all?!
Overall I did enjoy this book, but I am unsure yet as to whether I will be going on to buy the next. It definitely felt longer than it needed to be, but the world of WildWood was beautiful and one that perhaps is worth visiting again.
Have you read this? What did you think?
Let me know!
Thanks,
Let me know!
Thanks,
Ellie xx
0 comments: