Wildwood: The Wildwood Chronicles, Book I [Hardcover]

I had high expectations for Wildwood. I mean, it's Colin Meloy of the Decemberists: he writes erudite, unique songs that stay in your head forever. Wildwood is his first foray into fiction, a children's fantasy that has shades of Philip Pullman and CS Lewis. It's an enjoyable read and a fine adventure, but it's hard not to wish that Meloy had taken more risks with the story, strayed off the path every so often.

Our young heroine is Prue McKeel, a precocious preteen with an interest in botanical illustration and a baby brother who has been abducted by a murder of crows. And not just abducted, but taken into the Impassable Wilderness, a wooded area in Portland that no one goes into -- and no one has ever returned from. Of course that's not stopping Prue. Accompanied by her nerdy schoolmate Curtis, she plunges into a fantastic world where coyotes, birds, and dogs talk, postmen are armed with double-barreled rifles, and a terrible power struggle is taking place. The stakes: Prue's brother and the fate of all Wildwood.

The plot is pretty basic for a 500+ page book, but there are plenty of interesting characters (plus a memorable villain) and events to keep readers flipping the pages. Colin Meloy's writing is confident, intelligent, and accessible both to his middle reader audience as well as adult readers who know him from The Decemberists. So why not 5 stars? I was frustrated that the true extent of Meloy's imagination seemed confined to brief flashes -- the fate of the Governess's son, a handful of short but quirky character descriptions. And even in a genre known for its pathetic adults, Prue's parents take the cake for being whiny, ineffectual, and dense. Their bad choices are necessary to the plot, but seriously strain credulity.

In plot and tone, Wildwood feels a bit like a loving tribute to classic fantasy adventures by CS Lewis, Lewis Carroll and Lloyd Alexander. Although it contains a few references to Prue's modern day life (yoga, rice milk, computers), it has a distinctively vintage feel. Carson Ellis's many charming illustrations and silhouettes add to the effect.

I don't really think Wildwood is an instant classic, but it's a fast-paced and enjoyable fantasy adventure with a resourceful heroine. I'd come back for seconds.

Wildwood definitely reads in the classic fantasy adventure style. While I enjoyed the book, I felt that a book of over 500 pages could have had a little more depth. I find the hype surrounding the book to be a bit more interesting than the book itself.

Wildwood's author is also a songwriter for a folk group called the Decemberists. Decemberists fans seem to be in raptures over this book. I'm not familiar with the group, so I have no prior bias.

There are a lot of reviews that compare Wildwood to the Chronicles of Narnia. I can definitely see that in the woodsy setting with talking animals and the outdated technology of the Wildwood. I liked these elements. They gave the book a sort of "timeless" feel. The Governess, the book's villain, is reminiscent of the White Witch in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. The problem is, she doesn't seem as strong a character, in spite of having a very intriguing backstory. Perhaps that's because she doesn't have as formidable an adversary as the White Witch had in Aslan.

There are a number of different factions in the Wildwood, and although they eventually unite against the Governess, there doesn't seem to be a real force for good among them. I understand that The Chronicles of Narnia had a strong Christian message and that's not something every author will agree with or want to tackle even if they do. But I got the feeling that this book was missing something that would pull everything together the way the message did for the Narnia books.

As other reviewers have noted, there is a lot of violence in this book. Fortunately, the description of violent acts is very matter-of-fact, without details of the gore. There is also a potentially offensive scene in which the Governess purposely serves a quantity of wine to one of the children in hopes that he will tell his secrets while under the influence. Parents may want to read the book or at least skim through the battle scenes towards the end before deciding whether it is suitable for their child.

To sum up, I found Wildwood a pleasant read but I wouldn't declare it a classic just yet. If a sequel were to be published (and that's definitely a possibility as there were a few questions left unanswered) I would probably give it a try. There was a lot of promise in this book, but I feel like I'm still waiting for the payoff.

Like many others, I was excited by the possibilities of this book. It has an interesting world--a forest on the outskirts of a major city, a forest that people simply do not go into and is a world unto itself. It has a mixture of animal and human characters, much like other well-known, classic children's literature, which provides opportunities for such fantastic wonders. It has more than enough pages to develop and flesh out the world and its characters to make us feel as we ourselves are a part of it. And, unfortunately, like many others, I was sorely disappointed.

As others have stated, despite its massive 540 page length, the reader never really feels connected to any one character. The protagonist, Prue, was a shell of a character, which makes it difficult to rally behind her for the duration. The second central character, Curtis, had promise but the storyline for him was tiresome. At first, it was very much like the Edmund subplot in "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." However, as others have also pointed out, the comparisons between those two books stop there. "Wildwood" separates into two main story lines, both of which became dull and left me hoping maybe the other would get better when it came around again. Other characters introduced through the novel are equally dull and empty. There really wasn't a single character I found myself cheering for or even looking forward to hearing about again. This inability to get behind a character is easily the book's largest flaw, and perhaps the book could have outlived the flaw if it were only 150 pages or so, but certainly not for 500+. Perhaps because the characters themselves really had no emotions toward one another, the reader follows suit.

The second flaw was its storyline. Again, there really doesn't seem to be enough here to justify the length. During several parts, it seemed as if things would never move forward. Worse, once the mystique of the book is uncovered--why Prue and Curtis can enter the forest at all, and why Prue's brother was taken, the book falters even more. The book does nothing with the reasoning that the characters can enter the forest. It merely explains why they--and actually, really only why Prue--could. Once readers learn why baby Mac was taken, it seems to nullify the entire need for the last part of the novel. Prue's quest becomes one of selfishness than of moral necessity. All that's left to cheer for is that the grand evil plot is foiled before it's too late for the forest--but that part of the story is truly of very little concern of Prue's. Her brother is all that really matters. Her parents become absurd characters if they didn't already seem such, and not even in the likeable Roald Dahl way. Nothing really works well here.

The third flaw is its style. The first couple chapters work very hard to give a hip edge to Prue. I'm assuming this comes from Meloy's role in being the frontman of the critically acclaimed band The Decemberists. Maybe he felt that the main character had to be cool in an unconventional, northwestern sense. I found it to be a tremendous distraction. Luckily, all hipsterness eventually fades away, but the more problematic issue remains throughout the entire text. It's diction is far too sophisticated for its supposed target audience. It seemed self-congratulatory in its vocabulary-for-vocabulary's-sake style. There wasn't need for the sophistication. This would be extremely difficult for younger readers to stay engaged, as the diction would prove far too difficult a hurdle, or at least too big a distraction. Maybe, if like Poe's works, the storylines are intriguing enough to pull readers through difficult vocabulary, this wouldn't be an issue, but the storyline doesn't pull the reader through at all.

Others have complained of the story's graphic nature. I would disagree with this. I found no such instances of graphic depictions of violence. Violence certainly happens, as it does in all of our most beloved stories, especially children's stories. I think that we just often forget how violent most children stories really always have been. This is no worse. I also read complaints about strong anti-religious messages. If they exist in here, I never found them. I'll admit that Meloy doesn't appear to embrace a life of faith based on his characters and the events, but I would have a really difficult time trying to argue that he attacks religion. Pullman's novel "The Golden Compass" makes clear attacks, but Meloy's doesn't. It's benign, both in its religious and in its political themes. Those who argue with these points are likely walking the far extremes of the religous and political continuums. The vast majority of readers should find no reason to fear the book's messages.

In all, the book falls markedly short of its goals, whether those goals be the author's, the P.R. team's, or the reader's. I wanted so much to like this book, but I found so much of it so hard to like. It's not a terrible book; it just isn't a good one in almost any sense. As for the modern classic some are heralding this to be...not even close. This one will be forgotten quickly and fall into relative obscurity. That's not a wish on my part, just a prediction.

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