Darkwood

DARKWOOD is beautifully written, compelling, atmospheric, richly imagined...but still unsatisfying. Despite Breen's wonderful, polished writing, I felt like I was reading a sketch or an outline - the bare bones of a story that hadn't been fully developed.

I was drawn in from the very beginning by the eerie setting, the barren outpost of a strange land where night falls instantly and the darkness is so complete it strands every citizen inside his or her home until the sun rises again.

And I loved the book's heroine, Annie. She's curious and clever and loyal, a survivor. Like so many lead characters in fantasy stories, Annie comes from a miserable broken family. Her parents are dead, her sister is dead, and she lives with her alcoholic show more uncle and bitter aunt.

Annie is quiet and obedient, mostly trying to stay under the radar, until she finds out that her uncle is planning to sell her into slavery as a miner. Children are sent to pick precious stones from nooks and crannies where adult bodies will not fit, and they are worked so hard and treated so poorly that few live longer than a year or two.

Rather than accept this horrible fate, Annie runs away. First she plans to save herself - then she decides it's her duty to save all the other children, too. And so begins a series of wild adventures - Annie stumbles rapidly from dizzying highs to devastating lows, chances upon allies who are instantly devoted to her and falls into traps laid by enemies who are always a step ahead. The author lays down obvious clues that Annie ignores for far too long (she encounters the kinderstalk - huge, predatory wolves - five or six times without being attacked...but doesn't stop to question why she's been spared), while Annie warns the king of obvious dangers and he doesn't pay attention.

The thing is, DARKWOOD is pretty short...and a LOT happens. So instead of carefully developing each plot point, Breen cuts corners. And it shows. So even though the writing is fantastic, even though I loved the cast of characters, even though I could drown in the atmosphere, I couldn't get over the weak story. I enjoyed reading, but I was disappointed.

That being said, I wouldn't hesitate to read the sequel. show less

I came across Darkwood like I do so many other books: I checked it in for someone at my library! I couldn't resist the dark eerie cover and the determined expression on the girls face, the wolves in the background, and the cats creeping around her. The story inside did not disappoint. It was an incredible adventure story much in the style of Grimm's Fairy Tales.

I loved Annie's character. She had so much courage! Her and her two cats, Isadora & Prudence, steal away into the suffocating darkness to escape her uncle and the adventure begins---and doesn't stop until the very end! The darkness is almost a character of it's own: when it fell, it falls fast and engulfed everyone in complete blindness. The storylines were amazing, changing and show more twisting throughout the whole book, so that even the characters goals morphed several times. Along the way, Annie finds some very important lost things and discovers alot about her true self.

So many interesting characters help the story along, good and bad. My favorites were the sisters Serena and Beatrice, who take Annie in and care for her like their own, protecting her like mama bears. They are twins but they are physical opposites, one is large and strong, the other is small and slight, but both are so sweet. I couldn't help but love them! As for the bad, there is a character that is named only as the Apothecary who is so terrifying, each of her scenes had my skin crawling!

There is so much here: mystery, adventure, terror, royal intrigue, war, and love! I definitely recommend picking this one up if you get the chance! Check your local library or grab a copy of the newly released paperback! show less

A lot of the fantasy I've read over the last few years seems to all be drawing from the same pool of ideas -- but definitely not this one! This is an incredibly compelling book.

While it's great watching Annie (the main character) learn more about her world and her family, and about her own strengths, as the book develops, one of the things that made this book so amazingly real is that even the minor characters have a lot of depth to them. No one feels like a cardboard prop in this book!

And while it's a dark fantasy in many ways, there's nothing here that feels dark just for the sake of the drama. And compared to a lot of other books I've read recently, I think the author does a wonderful job of balancing the dark side of this world with show more the strong and loving connections between the characters.

On top of that, the author does an awesome job of creating a world in which all of the intense twists and turns in the story make sense -- and so the twists take you by surprise, but they still fit well within the story's world. As a result, it's an amazing book that just pulled me straight through to the end. I plan on handing this book off to some friends who have disappointed with the fantasy they've read lately -- I think this book will get them excited again. :D show less

Summary: In Howland, nighttime is a time of absolute darkness that falls in a minute, a time when normal people don't dare go outside, a time when the mysterious wolf-like kinderstalk prowl their forests. Annie, a young girl living with her cruel uncle and ineffectual aunt, never ventures out into the darkness - until she overhears her uncle's plan to sell her into slavery. She escapes from her house, but the world is full of more danger, and Annie must save herself from a treacherous mining operation, the political schemings of the wily king, and the packs of kinderstalk that are encroaching ever closer.

Review: Darkwood is one of those cases where all of the elements that would normally make me like a story are present - plucky heroine show more in terrible circumstances, help from unexpected allies, dangers where you least expect them, and creepy nightmarish horror menacing from the borders. Unfortunately, although all of these elements were there, they weren't put together in a way that really worked for me. The story jumped from one thing to another so quickly that it was hard to follow, and I felt like story points came out of nowhere, did their bit, and then disappeared again without a satisfactory explanation or resolution. It seemed like there wasn't enough foreshadowing or enough explanation (aft-shadowing?) to bind each of the pieces together into a coherent story thread, and it left me feeling constantly wrong-footed as I tried to figure out how we'd gotten here from where we were not a chapter past. In any individual section, the writing was dark, descriptive, and suspenseful; my problems came when trying to fit the whole thing together. Perhaps I just wasn't in the right mood/frame of mind to really get into it.

The back of the book says it's recommended for ages 10-14, but I think that may skew a few years too young; it's a little creepy and a little too complex for most 10-year-olds, I think. For older readers, all of the elements of a really good story are there, but it never really gelled into something I could fully lose myself in and just enjoy. 3 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Youngish teens who like werewolf stories will find some interesting parallels here, and may not mind the jumpy storytelling style as much as I did. (Kids and their MTV, I tell you. Now hike up your pants and get off my lawn!) Older readers: there are plenty of cool ideas and great scenes, if you're looking for a dark fantasy adventure and aren't too fussed about some frenetic scene-shifting. show less

Darkwood, a coming-of-age adventure, kept me entertained from beginning to end. Thirteen year old Annie is everything a protaganist should be, flawed, but brave and loyal to those she loves. There could easily be a sequel to Darkwood, but I'd be happy with anything else from this author.

Darkwood is an interesting story that starts off with all the ominous threat of deep dark danger that you could expect from the best of the Brothers Grimm. A menacing stranger is lurking about Dour County making dark deals with its inhabitants. Children are disappearing in the night and mysterious covered wagons are seen traveling through the dark woods. The reader is quickly drawn in to the story, eager to find out what dark deeds are afoot.

Unfortunately, the author tends to be inconsistent and not all of the book is as engaging as the beginning. One wonders how an orphan peasant girl can possibly be engaged to the king. That in itself would be quite a story yet we are presented with it and asked to accept it. While some characters show more are described beautifully and seem to take on a life of their own other key characters are given rather short shrift and come off as two dimensional and unappealing.

As a first effort Darkwood is pretty good. Molly Breen has shown that she can write engrossing scenes that capture the imagination and keep the reader wanting more. With a little polish I think will become an excellent story teller. show less

A young orphan named Annie flees her fate by escaping to the dark, dangerous woods bordering Howland, where she must survive being hunted by kinderstalk before discovering her destiny.

Darkwood is set in a fantastical world where night comes in an instant – without stars, without a moon, without warning, the sky becomes pitch black. The woods are prowled by kinderstalk; wolf-like beasts who supposedly steal children in the night. It is in this world Annie lives. After spending years living with her evil uncle and passive aunt, Annie is sold to the local mine as a slave. She soon discovers things are not as they seem, and the mine may be covering a darker, more sinister secret. After escaping and braving the woods, she decides to show more inform Howland's Prince of the mine's dealings -- a decision which sets her on a path to discovering who she truly is and what her destiny is to be.

Darkwood has many of the markings of a classic Grimms fairytale. It is a dark, eerie, fully engrossing story in which the heroine must overcome her meager beginnings and insurmountable evil in order to succeed. Because of this darkness, however, it may not be suited for all who can read it. Images of talking wolf-creatures who hunt children and evil men who enslave children and let them fall to their doom may be too intense for some young readers. However, I recommend this book for ages 10 and up, and see no reason it should not be in a middle school libary or in a juvenile fiction section of a public library. Due to the title, cover art, and summary, most children who would read this novel would be drawn to it precisely for its dark, "creepy" atmosphere. show less