{ This is not a book review: WILDWOOD }

 I suck at book reviews, which kinda really sucks since I'm a bookseller by trade and that sometimes entails people asking me for my opinion about books. If it's a book I really like, I try to pack as much enthusiasm into the "Oh, I LOVE that!" as I can, but I usually find myself sputtering like an idiot when people ask that inevitable question: "Why?"

I have plenty of favorite books, but I'm just no good at telling you why they are my favorite. The best review that I can give for Howl's Moving Castle is that I've read it three times. That's an adequate description to show how awesome it is, right? Right?

Anyway, since I can't write a book review, I'm just going to say this: I liked Wildwood and I'm excited to read the next installment of the series. Since I've kinda gotten a feel for Mr. Meloy as a writer, I'm interested to see where he takes this story about Prue McKeel, Curtis the Cayote Solider and little baby Mac. 

The book itself is beautifully crafted with lovely color
and black and white illustrations 

As a fan of The Decemberists (I may have mentioned them once or twice on this blog...) it was a given that I would buy and read and probably enjoy Wildwood. For Carson Ellis's lovely illustrations, if nothing else. 

The book reminds me of CS Lewis's Narnia series and that's the way I've taken to recommending it to people. I even did the dreaded thing and compared it to Harry Potter, though I meant in a kind of general way. Sure there are those fantasy elements and whatnot, but to me the big thing about Harry Potter is the gravity of the story--decisions are made and consequences are dealt with. I think there is enough weight and, more importantly, enough potential weight to the story of Wildwood to warrant such a comparison. It's one of the reasons why I love Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain books. Yes, they were kids books, BUT they had a deeper meaning to them. 

In the end, the book was a little too long, though I did enjoy most of the segments of the plot. The vocab was a little too elevated sometimes (though that kind of thing is expected from Colin Meloy) but the writing was wonderful. I could see the movie in my mind, as they say. The book had me laughing and cheering and frowning for all the right reasons. The battles were especially tense and gripping. Being a book written by a member of the indie crowd, Wildwood had the potential to be horrendously pretentious (kind of like this non-review) and it did tend that way early on before we get to Wildwood, but all pretensions were lost in the Wood. 

Now, I'm pretty sure all the copies we've sold have been to hipsters and not children, but whatever. Little hipsters in the making, maybe?