📖 BOOK REVIEW⠀📚
BOOK: Winterset Hollow
AUTHOR: Jonathan Edward Durham
Publisher: Credo House Publishers
Stars: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Published: Sept. 1st 2021
The Review 📚 Winterset Hollow
I described this book to a friend as Winnie the Pooh watched The Revenant and remembered he was an apex predator. For a good chunk of this book, you are given the feeling of The Wind in The Willows, Disney’s Robin Hood, or any of a number of stories about anthropomorphic animals in civilized living situations. Then, an hourglass flips, and the whole book takes a turn for the terrifying.
Yet, while all this death, carnage, and cruelty is flying about, the writing continues with the same voice. It doesn’t switch to sounding like a slasher or an action story. It continues its civility. Ultimately, that’s what this is about: civilization ends up causing the worst brutality.
The antagonists are fleshed out, and downright sympathetic. You find yourself wondering, late in the game, if perhaps you want them to win. Maybe not the fox, because he’s just a little too bloodthirsty, but the rabbit and toad sound like people you’d love to sit down for a chat with. The bear just looks like he needs a hug.
I feel like this story is a commentary on the treatment of indiginous people in the Americas, using the animals as stand-ins for the first nations. In the same way, the white man trampled over them, massacred them, and transplanted them for greed and entertainment. This is even more poignant when it came out mere days after the United States were found guilty of genocide and human rights abuses against black, brown, and indiginous peoples by The International Tribunal.
This is a great book. The only thing that kept it from getting a five star review is that it was harder for me to read. Its language felt heavy, and slightly unapproachable (for me). For others, however, this will be amazing. I can see this book becoming a staple of college literature classes in the future.
Consider if you like / Reminds me of:
- Great American classics. Its flowery language and depth is absolutely beautiful, even when death is all around.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
📘 Summary 📚 Winterset Hollow
Everyone has wanted their favorite book to be real, if only for a moment. Everyone has wished to meet their favorite characters, if only for a day. But be careful in that wish, for even a history laid in ink can be repaid in flesh and blood, and reality is far deadlier than fiction . . . especially on Addington Isle.Winterset Hollow follows a group of friends to the place that inspired their favorite book-a timeless tale about a tribe of animals preparing for their yearly end-of-summer festival. But after a series of shocking discoveries, they find that much of what the world believes to be fiction is actually fact, and that the truth behind their beloved story is darker and more dangerous than they ever imagined. It’s Barley Day . . . and you’re invited to the hunt.
Winterset Hollow is as thrilling as it is terrifying and as smart as it is surprising. A uniquely original story filled with properly unexpected twists and turns, Winterset Hollow delivers complex, indelible characters and pulse- pounding action as it storms toward an unforgettable climax that will leave you reeling. How do you celebrate Barley Day? You run, friend. You run.