The Wolf and the Woodsman
Original Grimms’ fairytales vibes. If Frozen were more gruesome and focused on discrimination.
It took me a while to understand the world’s magic system[s] in The Wolf and the Woodsman, but I got it in the end. I think.
I appreciate both Évike and Gáspár as complex and sometimes unlikeable characters. Their changing motivations made sense for their characters — it is difficult to give characters drastic changes of heart without it feeling jarring and only in service of moving the plot forward.
Évike and Gáspár have several reasons to hate each other under the regime of the fanatical king who seeks to divide his subjects along religious and ethnic lines to consolidate his power. Gáspár is already suspicious of the king’s rule and motivations, even as his heir apparent. He shares the king’s prejudices, but knows he needs to examine his beliefs as he watches his even more extreme illegitimate half-brother prepare to grasp for power, but who that kind of time when you’ve got pagan peasant girls to kidnap for their magical properties?
While Gáspár is hiding his parentage under the guise of a woodsman — he’s just a normal man! An innocent man! — Évike has her own damning secret — she does not possess any of the oracular magic her village promised she did when the woodsmen came to take a sacrifice. Bad news for everyone when they reach the capital — but as look would have it, their party is brutally attacked and Évike and Gáspár are the only survivors, now alone with their secrets exposed. To save themselves from their now multitudes of shared enemies, they decide on a tentative alliance for the duration of their shared adventure. They are still figuring out their complicated alliance and relationship by the last page, which felt realistic to me. Their traumatic physical and emotional journeys brought them closer, but it is a trauma bond they will have to keep examining during calmer times to reach a true accord. There are no simple “get to know them and you will find you have more in common than you think” meaningless platitudes in this story.
The criticism I would give myself reading this book is that I read it on vacation. The clash of vibes this story has with margaritas on the beach in 90-degree weather was jarring for me, but the narrative and writing are so compelling I kept going. This book is made for reading under a blanket during gray November rain. I will take my own advice when I go for my inevitable reread. Now I need a cute, silly, fluffy romance to recover from the grisly and emotional turmoil of this book.
