What Should Be Wild
What Should Be Wild is a dark fairy tale about a young girl coming of age and dealing with a family curse. It's moody and atmospheric, and it was a great way to get in the mood for Fall.
The book centers on Maisie, a young girl who can't touch anyone. Contact with her skin instantly kills anything that's alive. It also brings back to life anything that's dead, which is handy when her father is first starting to understand her strange powers. He isolates her, for everyone's protection, and conducts experiments in the hopes of finding a cure. But as Maisie gets older, she starts to chafe at the restrictions placed on her. And when her father goes missing, she decides to head into the wider world and find him.
Meanwhile, the book follows several of Maisie's ancestors who have, for one reason or another, become trapped in the wood behind the family estate. They don't age and nothing in the wood dies. But the birth of Maisie (and her dark shadow who's growing up in the woods) is about to change all that.
I enjoyed reading this book, though looking back on it I'm struggling to remember the good bits. It was certainly atmospheric, and I had a nice creepy feeling while I was reading it. But it was hard to figure out where this was supposed to take place (America? England?). History got a bit muddled.
It didn't help that the ending fell a bit flat. It was disappointingly anti-climactic. I was left feeling that, when all was said and done, the whole thing was a bit too easy. Either that or I missed something major. But overall I enjoyed it. It was just right for late September.
The book centers on Maisie, a young girl who can't touch anyone. Contact with her skin instantly kills anything that's alive. It also brings back to life anything that's dead, which is handy when her father is first starting to understand her strange powers. He isolates her, for everyone's protection, and conducts experiments in the hopes of finding a cure. But as Maisie gets older, she starts to chafe at the restrictions placed on her. And when her father goes missing, she decides to head into the wider world and find him.
Meanwhile, the book follows several of Maisie's ancestors who have, for one reason or another, become trapped in the wood behind the family estate. They don't age and nothing in the wood dies. But the birth of Maisie (and her dark shadow who's growing up in the woods) is about to change all that.
I enjoyed reading this book, though looking back on it I'm struggling to remember the good bits. It was certainly atmospheric, and I had a nice creepy feeling while I was reading it. But it was hard to figure out where this was supposed to take place (America? England?). History got a bit muddled.
It didn't help that the ending fell a bit flat. It was disappointingly anti-climactic. I was left feeling that, when all was said and done, the whole thing was a bit too easy. Either that or I missed something major. But overall I enjoyed it. It was just right for late September.
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