The Wicker King

WOW!!! I'm slightly broken and all sorts of scrambled. This unabashedly poignant book at times had me staring blankly, besot with raw confusion while other times overwhelmed by all manner of heart-constricting Feels. The Author's Note at the end of the book was Everything!! I may have cried more reading that amazing amalgamation of pure Love and Acceptance than anywhere within the story. The meat and potatoes were equal parts obsession and true Love. Unhealthy relationships of various forms and the mental health issues that are both Cause & Effect. The motivators were confounding most of the time but the Author's transparency in the end note clarified much of what had me nonplussed.

On to the format: The chapters weren't really full-on show more chapters per se but more like snippets, still frames, a couple of texts, detention slips, and psychiatric reports...quite often it came off as disjointed which made immersing myself wholeheartedly in any given moment nearly impossible. The altered pictures lent a sense of odd tangibility to the story as well as charm to the unorthodox chapter format.

Overall this book was weird (in a good way), confusing (in a confusing way 😀) and passionate (in both healthy and toxic ways). I highly recommend this read but BE WARNED: there are triggers abound and confusion aplenty which will probably lead you to either LOVE it or absolutely LOATHE it...I predict there will be very little fence straddling.

Enjoy! show less

This book was an experience.
It was strange and interesting and left me questioning the entire time what was real and what was not. Was this world real or was it all in Jack’s head?

Jack and August’s relationship was definitely an unhealthy one which had me concerned at first but I am so grateful for how the author handled it. It was addressed and emphasized on how unhealthy and co-dependent the boys were towards each other and I am so relieved that for once in a story the characters got some type of therapy and help by the end (I cannot count how many characters would benefit from some much needed therapy).
I also LOVED the way the book was written with mixed media- the drawings, the notes, the CD’s, just everything. I especially show more loved how as they book and the characters spiraled into darkness the pages themselves faded to black to emphasize that. It was just such a creative choice and it just enhanced the experience overall.

Definitely an intriguing story and so very different than most books you will pick up. show less

This was an unusual book about two best friends, August and Jack, who have an undercurrent of something much more than friendship, as they struggle their way through absent and emotionally absent parents, mental illness, and the perils of figuring oneself out. Watching August try to help Jack as his visions grew more present was both deeply touching and heartbreaking. An interesting tale with an unexpected conclusion.

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader.

3,5

Foi legalzinho, mas nada demais. Tiveram alguns pontos que eu gostei, porém no geral foi bem mediano.

A obsessão do August pelo Jack e a dinâmica de possessão e domínio do Jack foi bem estranha pra mim e me incomodou um pouco. Por outro lado, gostei bastante da justificativa para as alucinações do Jack. O fato de que eles poderiam ter resolvido tudo antes é um pouco frustrante, se o August tivesse ouvido os gêmeos e a Rina, as coisas teriam sido mais simples, mas talvez seria ainda melhor se um adulto tivesse prestado mais atenção na situação e tentado ajudar ao invés de negligenciarem (no caso dos pais) ou mandarem eles pra detenção e afins (professores e diretor), teria sido evitado algumas loucuras como o afogamento show more do August ou o incêndio na fábrica. No final tudo se resolveu mas o August parecia gostar mais de antes quando as alucinações eram reais ou talvez essa tenha sido minha impressão.

Resumindo, o livro é bom, na medida. Mas não é tão bom assim. show less

Rating: 5/5 Stars
Title: The Wicker King
Author: K. Ancrum

Synopsis:
Jack once saved August's life…now can August save him?
August is a misfit with a pyro streak and Jack is a golden boy on the varsity rugby team—but their intense friendship goes way back. Jack begins to see increasingly vivid hallucinations that take the form of an elaborate fantasy kingdom creeping into the edges of the real world. With their parents’ unreliable behavior, August decides to help Jack the way he always has—on his own. He accepts the visions as reality, even when Jack leads them on a quest to fulfill a dark prophecy.
August and Jack alienate everyone around them as they struggle with their sanity, free falling into the surreal fantasy world that feels show more made for them. In the end, each one must choose his own truth.
Written in vivid micro-fiction with a stream-of-consciousness feel and multimedia elements, K. Ancrum's The Wicker King touches on themes of mental health and explores a codependent relationship fraught with tension, madness and love.

Initial thoughts:
These last few months, I have seen The Wicker King floating around my Instagram feed and I was intrigued by the synopsis and thought the cover looked really cool. I kept putting off reading this book though until I saw that my coworker at the library had purchased it. When I saw it featured on our shelf, I felt it was a sign to finally read this book (even though I hadn’t finished the Illuminae Files yet).
Just from the inside cover, I knew that this books was going to be a wild ride. I also noticed that the pages grew darker as the story progressed. That visual in itself was stunning and I was ready to descend into the madness of the book.

Plot:
What I liked:
Where to even begin with this book. To be honest, I thought that it was a perfect portrayal of mental illness, neglect, isolation, and toxic relationships. The progression of the book was steady and flowed perfectly. I liked how each segment was a page or two long detailing only the importance of things that were occuring within the book. As the book continued, I found myself enamored by the changes that were present in the protagonists as well. Observing the transition, I felt sad for both of the boys as they tried to piece together things on their own to the best of their abilities. The bond that the boys share is almost all encompassing causing many issues in its own way. They lived for each other and ended up hurting more as time progressed and Jack grew sicker and sicker.

What I didn't like:
To be honest there wasn’t anything I can say that I disliked about the book. This was a beautifully written book that pushed at controversial topics in a unique way.

Characters:
August: Issues x10. I was so sympathetic for August and worried about his take on his position in the world. His way of coping and working things out could have been better overall, but he was just as broken as Jack if not more so.
Jack: If August is Issues x10, then Jack is Issues x1000. I was very worried about this kid for the majority of the book as I knew that things were going downhill for him. His character shifted so greatly as the story changed.
Rina: I really liked her character and she was very sensible. I wish that I would have gotten to see more about her overall.
The Twins (Peter and Roger): I liked them and their way of handling things. They both cared so much and wanted everything to turn out well.

Overall:
This is a book that I know I am going to be reading again as time rolls on by. This book was fantastic and held my attention completely. I felt as though I were engrossed in this world that Ancrum was writing out through August and Jack. I felt very sympathetic for the protagonists and found some things in the book hitting very close to home for me. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in thrillers and any kind of psychological stories. It was very well put together and I am excited to read the side story that comes along with this book and look forward to reading more from K. Ancrum. show less

This book was a thing that happened.

August and Jake are best friends. At school Jake is a rugby-playing jock with a cute girlfriend and August is a straight-laced drug dealer who hangs out with the sort of charming weirdos that only ever seem to exist in books, but after school they roam the woods, break into abandoned buildings, and give each other tattoos. August will follow Jake wherever Jake leads him, even when Jake begins seeing visions of a strange and frightening parallel world in which he is king.

Throughout the book, I had the niggling sensation that, much like Jake’s visions, none of this felt real. Jake and August don’t behave like real teenagers, and their relationship is more fanfic than anything else. August’s show more blind devotion to Jake as Jake literally goes mad requires a hell of a leap of faith from the readers. The sheer level of neglect that Jake and August’s parents inflict on them is beyond bizarre – Jake’s parents are away from home for months at a time and somehow believe the situation is completely fine.

Not to mention there’s plenty of plot holes. August deals drugs because his father is absent and his mother is too depressed to do anything except watch television. But when August’s drug operation falls apart, the issue of money never comes up again. August ends up in a mental institution for close to a year, but the fact that his mother has zero dollars to pay bills and buy food never gets addressed.

Because here’s the thing about The Wicker King: everything feels like window dressing to make the characters seem more interesting. August dealing drugs is less about how he needs to sell drugs for money because he’s the sole breadwinner of his household, and more about how August the Drug Dealer sounds cool and flashy in a bad-boy-but-not-too-bad-boy way. Rina Medina has a bonkers name and no character, but she’s cool and smokes so it’s fine that it makes no sense for her to hang out with a pair of high schoolers and allow them to sprawl on her floor at all hours of the day and night.

And so on.

In the end, I couldn’t really believe anything about this book: not the characters, not their actions, not their setting, nothing. And especially not a character with no diagnosable mental illness being held without his permission at a mental hospital for close to a year. show less

Oh wow, I really don't know what to say here.

Half of it is because I read this book a month ago, but part of it is because I needed to PROCESS this.

Because wow, this book is a Lot.

There are some metaphors going on here, some which I don't think I quite grasp, and the relationship between the two characters is ridiculously complex. I feel so soft for them, and so sorry for them and I want to parse out what it means to depend on someone so badly you don't know who you are without them. Yet, the text presents this as both healthy and unhealthy. At once, it is both good and bad, needed and unnecessary.

There's a lot, and I don't know what to think of it, but I know it made my chest hurt, and I know I loved these two boys as much as they show more needed to be love.

I highly recommend. Because it's the kind of book you have to experience. show less