What Should Be Wild
by Julia Fine
3/5 stars
⭐⭐⭐
I wanted to love this book.
I met the author at an event, bought a signed copy, and she's an alumnus of the College my daughter went to. I really wanted to love it.
I did love the writing. The prose is beautiful. When she writes about the house and the woods, the words are lyrical and paint beautiful word pictures. So I would give it 4 stars for writing.
Unfortunately, I would give it 2 stars for story, so I split the difference here.
It is a "magical realism" kind of story, which in all fairness is not my favorite genre.
I did like the premise of the main character, who if she touches something, changes its state of animation (alive to dead, dead to alive), but there are some fairly gruesome chapters, that involve extended torture, without consent, and one character is used sexually without consent, and the storyline was sooo convoluted I just didn't love it at all.
I did like the backstories of the historical characters in the Blakely family tree, who all end up trapped in the haunted wood. It was interesting to hear how they all dealt with their circumstances at different points in time.
So I guess if you like magical realism, maybe this is your book, but it wasn't for me.
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