Agnieszka lives beside a giant evil wood, and her people are kept are kept safe by the power of the wizard called the Dragon. In exchange for his protection, every ten years, they must give him a village girl. The girls are returned.

I LOVED certain elements of this book. I’m talking 5-star, holy smokes, bring it on, LOVE. The antagonist is the woods. And it’s quite brilliant – people go into the wood, but they aren’t right when they come out. It’s dreadful and creepy, "they came out with their own faces but murder behind them, something gone dreadfully wrong within."

Additionally, you’ve got a tormented wizard. At first I was disappointed that the Dragon wasn’t really a dragon, but then on the other hand – tormented wizards might be ok, right? How about a tormented wizard who is the strongest wizard in the land and has an amazing library that he’s always in? Awesome points, all around! And then a very strong female witch (Agnieszka, pronounced Ag-Nyesh-Ka) who’s got a totally different kind of magic, and is more sing-song? Cool! But what if she’s there because he’s a total and complete 50-shades-of lighter-grey abusive jerk who kidnaps girls, and then after 10 years of abuse they totally fall in love with him?

Oh. @#%#%^$&$&% $^$$#^$ !@#%@#@#!

Authors can do better than this and I’m getting really tired of it. The beginning of the book was lovely, I don’t find Novik’s style to be as boring as some have claimed. In some areas, there was a bit of ‘telling’ instead of showing, but much of it was written quite well. She has a knack for the dark fairy tale, and the wood was glorious. But she wasn’t as great with action – the same slow (albeit, lovely) writing style was a hinderance to scenes that should have been gripping.

And I really enjoyed the magic – I don’t think I should understand all the words and how to put them together, because you know, I can’t do magic. And I like that Agnieszka was just a boring, plain girl who kept being messy and clumsy (though she talks about her skirts too much). Her particular brand of magic is beautiful, unique, whimsical and descriptive. This is one of those times where descriptive works as a necessary device, and Novik handles it with poise and grace.

So back to the 50-shades-of lighter-grey thing, which is where the whole things falls apart for me. The dragon is an old wizard in a young dudes body. Creepy. He forces her to dress a certain way. Creepy. He forces her to do ‘servant work’ – ie cook, complains about what she makes, and then just conjures whatever the hell he wants anyway. He’s a jerk for the sake of being a jerk, verbally abuses the girl for the entirety of the book and then -boom!- romance aka sex. Did I mention this is a really OLD guy in a young body and she is really a YOUNG (seventeen!) girl. Creepy-creepy. And I don’t mean he’s mean to her like “hey! You burnt my eggs again, try harder!” No, he calls a flat out idiot and:

"The dirtiest thing in this tower is you”
"I do recall the girl neither horse-faced nor a slovenly mess."

She says:

'He was irritated with me every time I came into his library, even on the few days that I managed to keep myself in good order: as though I were coming to annoy and interrupt him, instead of him tormenting and using me. And when he had finished working his magic through me and left me crumpled on the floor, he would scowl down at me and call me useless'

And this

'He was on me in an instant, thrusting me flat down against my pillows. "So," he said, silkily, his hand pressed down upon my collarbone, pinning me easily to the bed . . . I was terrified . . . He shoved me hard against the bed and bent low.
"Don't dare lie to me!" he hissed. "I will tear the truth out of your throat-" his fingers were resting on my neck; his leg was on the bed, between mine.'

Obviously, this is boyfriend material, in a YA book, where the biggest complaint hasn’t been the fact that he’s VERBALLY ABUSIVE but that they had sex. And people are seriously not even mad that she had sex with the abusive guy – that doesn’t even factor in – it’s just the sex part, period. REALLY?

I cannot believe how many times I’ve to say this in 2017: Abuse is not romantic. I'd love to rate this book higher. I won't based on this fact alone.

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Created Dec 21, 2017 at 10:33pm • Submit your own review...