See this review on Goodreads.
This book sidled up to me whispering seductive things like “Polish fairytales” “dark magic” and “bizarrely sexual descriptions of damp leaf mulch”. I thought “I’ll tap that mate,” but before I could put it on my shelf, it sank its paper fangs into me, stuck itself to my hands with evil book superglue, and then SUCKED out my SOUL for 7 hours straight.
NOW IF THAT ISN’T TRUE LOVE I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS.
Internally I was screaming because suddenly it was 6am in the morning and I had a final year university exam two days later, but MY SOUL WAS ALREADY CHAINED TO THIS NOVEL SO THERE WAS NOTHING I COULD DO ABOUT IT.
To say this book was addictive is the understatement of my life. I adored it. If it was a person I would probably get with it. I hoovered it in like a bargain box of Tesco jaffa cakes, until I then realised that it was a TRAP and IT had hoovered me up instead and for seven hours I was crashing my way around inside with a bunch of jaffa cake wrappers, NO way out, and NO RECOLLECTION OF THE HUMAN WORLD.
My conclusion: this book is one of those vampires that when they bite you you go into a weird sex coma which is dubiously consensual but also SO FREAKING GOOD that you come back for more…. and then probably die in the mid-series finale to make a point about supporting female characters being expendable.
This book has everything which I adore: Fairytale overtures. Strong heroines. Deep, absorbing world building. An eerie, beautiful atmosphere, with touches of genuine horror. And a fiery romance which doesn’t shy away from depicting actual sex. #LeGasp #LockUpYourDaughters
So WHY OH WHY OH WHY am I having conflicting thoughts about this book?
Because it’s also full of raging misogyny, that’s why.
Okay, I put my hands up. I knew exactly what I was getting into when the blurb proclaimed it to be about a young heroine being “chosen” to become the apprentice of the mysterious “Dragon”, a mysterious wizard….and also an achingly transparent love interest. (Come on blurb, we ain’t stupid. We can all see where this is going). But don’t worry, it’s okay that the Dragon serially kidnaps women and locks them in towers, because Agnes is like, feisty and stuff!! And who cares that the Dragon is literally a 150 year old paedophile, because Teh Magics make him appear young and handsome!!
Because from the blurb I already knew I was signing up for TWO massively bullshit romance tropes for the price of one (!!! oh goody!!!), it made me more willing to overlook…. lots of everything else.
Incidentally, “everything else”, includes the Dragon emotionally and verbally abusing Agnes, magically dressing her up like his own Barbie doll, isolating her from all other humans, being sexually threatening towards her….. oh…and yelling at her for physically defending herself from a rapist.
Yeah. It’s pretty freaking bad. If you want an low down on exactly how bad, Foz Meadows is, as ever, brilliant.
But because I am a far weaker and patheticer human than Foz… I…uh…. kept reading. Yus.
And that, dear reader, is the story of how, I, erstwhile angry feminist, in the year of our lord 2017 threw out basic ethical standards for the sake of a ripping good yarn.
To be fair, not everything this book does is horribly sexist. The fierce, unconditional bond that exists between Agnes and her best friend Kasia remains the core of the novel when it could, like most fictional female friendships, easily have been thrown aside for the sake of hetero romance. Whoooo!
I also really warmed to Agnes. Although some reviewers found her a bit of a special snowflake, I feel as though this is kinda inevitable for a Chosen One style fantasy plotline. I loved how argumentative, physically unappealing and continuously disgusting she was; at one point she even wipes up her own chunder using the dress she’s wearing, then continues to wear that same dress without washing it for a week.
Agnes is resourceful, brave and highly determined. She puts herself in harms way to help those who rely on magic to survive, and works constantly to fight the villagers’ corner in the face of a sceptical and arrogant Prince. She manages all of this whilst adjusting to life miles away from her remote village, and away from everyone she has ever known (including the Dragon, who like a complete tosser classic fantasy mentor, basically abandons her half way through the novel).
Most refreshing of all for a YA heroine, Agnes is unintimidated by her growing sexuality and fully determined to get the D. No word of a lie, there’s a scene where she creates a series of magical blooming roses and this accidentally gives the Dragon a boner. yaaaAAAAAAAAAAS Agnes!
Raw footage of me and the lads hunting for the D
The main thing which made me fall in love with this book, however, was the world. The Polish setting is a real breath of fresh air in a genre nearly starved of anything that isn’t a West-European high court fantasy, and the details in dress, culture, and landscape are drawn with an absorbing sense of historical accuracy. I’m a total sucker for fairy tale, and the folklore elements of the story — the characterisation of nature as both erotic and dangerous, the implied association between Agnes and Baba Yaga — give this novel a sense of timeless escapism.
Weirdly, I actually noticed more than one reviewer complaining about the Polish, because apparently Agnieszka is A) “hard to pronounce” and B) “a really weird name”. To which I say, A) Google it, and B) uh…. it’s obviously an equivalent of Agnes… so literally what the frick? The magic phrases Novik uses have also been criticised, because apparently when Queen Rowling (and every other author under the sun) spews out Latin gobbledegook magic everyone is fine with it, but GOD FORBID someone create a SLAVIC MAGIC LANGUAGE!!!!
The Wood is far and away the best antagonist from any book I’ve read in 2017… and possibly any YA fantasy ever. Twenty bazillion reviewers have already talked about how deliciously creepy the Wood is. I would say that it’s more than simply creepy, and that on multiple occasions it verges into actually terrifying. The scene where Agnes saves the village from cursed wolves, where they must battle Walkers to save Kasia, and Agnes’ final, solo entry into the heart of the Wood at the climax of the novel…. all these gave me serious goosebumps. Much like the book, the Wood gets under your skin, preys on the back of your mind, and never quite lets you go.
Luckily for my addiction, the film rights have been sold… to be directed by Ellen DeGeneres!!!!!! aAAAAaahhh!!!
For a tragic and avoidable reason (cough the patriarchy cough), this book is deeply flawed. I regret that deeply. But the quality of literally everything else was just… perfection. So I’m going to once again betray my conscience…
FIVE TIGERS!!
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HEY YOU!! Did you too think the Dragon was a creepy pervert? Have I destroyed my angry feminist blogging reputation forever??? Who would you cast in the movie adaptation (apart from evil Groot, obviously??)!! Let me know in the comments! 😀
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