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Overview
Overview
"Delightful and darkly magical. Julia Fine has written a beautiful modern myth, a coming-of-age story for a girl with a worrisome power over life and death. I loved it." --Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler's Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry
Finalist for the Bram Stoker Superior Achievement in a First Novel Award - Shortlisted for the Chicago Review of Books Best Novel Prize - A Bustle Unmissable Debut of the Year - A Popsugar Best Book of the Year - A Washington Post Best Fantasy Book of May - A Refinery 29 Best May Book - A Chicago Review of Books Best May Book - A Verge Gripping Fantasy Novel of May
In this darkly funny, striking debut, a highly unusual young woman must venture into the woods at the edge of her home to remove a curse that has plagued the women in her family for millennia--an utterly original novel with all the mesmerizing power of The Tiger's Wife, The Snow Child, and Swamplandia
Cursed. Maisie Cothay has never known the feel of human flesh: born with the power to kill or resurrect at her slightest touch, she has spent her childhood sequestered in her family's manor at the edge of a mysterious forest. Maisie's father, an anthropologist who sees her as more experiment than daughter, has warned Maisie not to venture into the wood. Locals talk of men disappearing within, emerging with addled minds and strange stories. What he does not tell Maisie is that for over a millennium her female ancestors have also vanished into the wood, never to emerge--for she is descended from a long line of cursed women.
But one day Maisie's father disappears, and Maisie must venture beyond the walls of her carefully constructed life to find him. Away from her home and the wood for the very first time, she encounters a strange world filled with wonder and deception. Yet the farther she strays, the more the wood calls her home. For only there can Maisie finally reckon with her power and come to understand the wildest parts of herself.
- Format: TradePaperback
- Author: Fine, Julia
- ISBN: 9780062684141
- Condition: Used
- Dimensions: 8.00 x 0.90
- Number Of Pages: 368
- Publication Year: 2019
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Supernatural gothic mystery
Sky K. - 3 years 10 months agoIf you like vaguely abstract, well-written contemporary gothic novels, "What Should Be Wild" is for you! Julia Fine crafts incredible nature imagery making the ordinary feel extraordinary. It dives into the idea of another "self" - what does our dark side look like? Maisie, our protagonist, struggles with a curse that has plagued the women in her family for millennia - Maisie can give and take life with a single touch. She craves physical affection almost as much as she craves her anthropologist father's love, and his willingness to see her as something more than a freak of nature to be studied and observed. Will she break her curse? Will she find love?
HPB Staff Review