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A review by rowan_reviews
The Grace of Wild Things by Heather Fawcett
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.
The Grace of Wild Things is about a young orphan girl, Grace, who is searching for a witch to teach her how to use her magic - and for a home.
This is a fantasy AU of Anne of Green Gables. I expected it to have more differences between it and the source material - but in many ways, they are nearly identical in characterization and plot points, with magic added. This could have been Anne telling her story and just changing names/adding magic.
I think there was an opportunity here for the author to explore more the background of the witch and Grace and give more depth to why the witch was so irritated by Grace (what if it was that the witch herself used to be young and full of wonder and big words but the world's cruelty slowly stripped it away?) - to give her own spin on the characters and relationships and not just the world. I think a different POV or exploration of the relationship between characters would have made this stand out (I wanted more about Poppy ok)
I can see this being popular with young teens (especially if the like the Netflix show) and it was well written and enjoyable - but there was in the end not much unique about it. I enjoyed the little puzzles of magical ingredients that Grace had to figure out how to solve (like the piece of the moon or day with 25 hours) the most. The ending was a decent wrap up of loose ends, but definitely set up for a sequel.
All in all, it was good but too similar to the source material for it to feel like something I want to read again or to pick up any sequel that might come out.
The Grace of Wild Things is about a young orphan girl, Grace, who is searching for a witch to teach her how to use her magic - and for a home.
This is a fantasy AU of Anne of Green Gables. I expected it to have more differences between it and the source material - but in many ways, they are nearly identical in characterization and plot points, with magic added. This could have been Anne telling her story and just changing names/adding magic.
I think there was an opportunity here for the author to explore more the background of the witch and Grace and give more depth to why the witch was so irritated by Grace (what if it was that the witch herself used to be young and full of wonder and big words but the world's cruelty slowly stripped it away?) - to give her own spin on the characters and relationships and not just the world. I think a different POV or exploration of the relationship between characters would have made this stand out (I wanted more about Poppy ok)
I can see this being popular with young teens (especially if the like the Netflix show) and it was well written and enjoyable - but there was in the end not much unique about it. I enjoyed the little puzzles of magical ingredients that Grace had to figure out how to solve (like the piece of the moon or day with 25 hours) the most. The ending was a decent wrap up of loose ends, but definitely set up for a sequel.
All in all, it was good but too similar to the source material for it to feel like something I want to read again or to pick up any sequel that might come out.