The Drowned Woods

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked this. I loved the writing style. It's fast-paced and I was sucked in from the start.

I love fae stories. They didn't play a huge part in this, but they were still there.

I enjoyed the characters. Mer and Fane are my faves (and the fae or not fae Corgi of course). I really hope there will be more with theses characters.
I haven't read the Bone Houses by this author yet, but apparently I need to. I didn't realize until after I read this that they are set in the same world and somehow connected.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an e-arc.

3.5

I read the Illumicrate special edition.

I had no expectations from this book and was still rather disappointed.
Up to the about 60% mark, it was strictly average and then it became just nonsensical.
The writing wasn't impressive. The typos on the other hand - very much so.
The plot was a mess of nonsense to the point of making me want to DNF at like 85%.

Finished it be sheer force of will.

For more of my reviews, check out my blog.

Thank you to Netgalley and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for providing an ARC of this novel.

Have you ever read a book and known within the first few pages that it's going to be a favorite? That was me with The Drowned Woods. Lloyd-Jones has a way with words — her writing is simple, but not stupid, and lyrical and descriptive enough that you feel as if you are right alongside the characters. The basic gist of the story is this — our main cast of characters have to destroy a magical well to break the evil prince's hold on the land. To put it simply — The Drowned Woods is part fairy-tale and part heist novel.

The plot is rather simple, but there's no need for it to be incredibly complicated. (And, not to mention, this is technically a YA novel.) What Lloyd-Jones has done works. She brings together a memorable cast of characters and lets them tell the story.

There's Mer, the water diviner — someone who can sense and manipulate water. She's got some serious baggage, with good reason. She's frequently quite prickly, and slow to trust after being betrayed by someone close to her in the past. There's Fane, the ironfetch, and his pet corgi, Trefor. Fane was my favorite of the bunch — he is under service to the Fae, and was enchanted by them to be able to sense iron. They “gave” him another power, but I won't spoil what that is. He spends a good chunk of the novel frequently afraid for everyone else, but he's rather stoic about it. Trefor is a corgi, and he's the bestest good boy out there. Other characters include: Ifanna the lady thief, Renfrew the spymaster, Emrick the scholar, and Gryf the...well I'm not going to spoil that, either.

There is a deep betrayal in this novel, that I saw coming, but wanted to pretend that I did not. But ohhhhh, how it hurt when I finally got to it. Ugh.

The Drowned Woods is a fairy-tale type novel (I'm reading a lot of these lately, apparently!) — it is based off of an old Welsh legend or tale, so that explains the general feel of the story. There is incredible magic to this tale, and I'm so, so glad that I got the chance to read this one.

First off I would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC!

The prologue was good and did its job. It set The Drowned Woods up very well.
I liked the characters but at times they become insufferable due to seeing similar characters done in other books. I feel that the characters are missing something to make them more “unique” or “less forgettable. There were times while readings this that I see a character and just completely bypass that section with good old glazing at the page.
I did love the multiple POVs, but it was flawed. I feel that it could have transitioned better.
The pacing was slow. For me, it was so slow that I got easily distracted. I can deal with the slow pace that picks up, a fast pace that slows down, and even a slow pace that picks up once. But this was constantly slow. The only way I can better describe this is to imagine this as a monotone person.
The ending for me was okay, I feel let down though.
I think if this whole book was written like the prologue was it would have been 5 stars.