Time travel, Norse mythology, Creation stories, teen angst, all balled up into a very interesting and intriguing read.

I'm really struggling this year with books that sound great but just don't cut it in the execution. In the case of Weave a Circle Round, it wasn't so much that the author created a predictable story which seems to be what keeps happening. Rather, this book was all over the place and yet bored me to read.

I attribute it to the characters. I wouldn't say that I disliked the characters, exactly, but I wasn't a fan either. I just never connected with any of them which makes it hard for me to really enjoy a story. I'm all about the characters and even the most compelling world and plot can't make up for a bland cast.

It's honestly quite difficult to talk about this book while avoiding spoilers as the plot is all over the place and didn't really make sense half the time. The story bounces around too much for my tastes. I also just wasn't satisfied with the ending (or lack thereof). Nothing feels like it's truly ended in the closure way, no satisfaction that the story is over and there's no more to be told. They weren't the sort of cliffhangers that made for a good sequel lead-in, they just left off.

I'd call this a spin on a children's book because, at times, it felt like I was reading MG or YA but at others it was much more adult. It had the feel of an "older" tale such as A Wrinkle in Time or The Book of Three which is all well and good, and if you're interested in that kind of read then I definitely think you'd like this but for me, it was a pass.

I was intrigued bu this book. It started a bit slow, but that just helped reel me in. I was hooked by the randomness of the story and how it became more clear when the story progressed. I rarely read young adult books any more, but this one made me forget why I ever stoped.

The language is easy to read and understand, and therefore the book was quick to read. It was a nice break from heavy and long books. The end became a little chaotic for my taste, and I would have liked a more long written ending. But, somehow it worked right into the quirkiness of this book. I loved to follow the children as they struggle to find a solution to something out of the ordinary, but still normal enough that they do not know what too look for.

I would love to read the book over again, if I did not have a long list of titles in my to-read list, just to see if I can find the hints during the book. I found some at the first read, but I am sure I lost many more.This is just the type of book I love to read, a nice mixture of order and chaos.

3 stars

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was hard to rate. The writing is good, but the story didn't interest me. The story centers on Freddy, a young girl that tries very hard not to be noticed. Her sister Mel is very confidant and brilliant. Her stepbrother Roland is deaf and not a fan of Freddy. He spends most of his time avoiding her and creating roleplaying games for his group of friends.

The family's world is turned upside down when new neighbors move in next door. Cuerva Lachance and Josiah are definitely not "normal". Weird things tend to happen around them, including the interior of their house changing shape. Much to her consternation, Josiah begins to follow Freddy around school and cause scenes that draw attention to Freddy. Exactly what she doesn't want to happen. When Freddy gets sucked into a time traveling adventure with Josiah with no end in sight, she begins to learn more about the nature of her new neighbors, as well some hard truths about herself.

The story starts out good, but once the time traveling beings, it becomes a bit confusing and muddled. The pace also starts to drag a bit. I was ok with the book until about 60%, and then I really started to lose interest. I stuck with it, but the last 20% of the book just seemed to go on and on forever.

The book is well-written and the characters are fleshed out fairly well. I'm sure there is an audience for this book that will really enjoy it.

Maaren's debut novel reads like a modern Diana Wynne Jones story to me, which is one of th highest compliments I can give. It centers on a fourteen year old girl in Canada who just wants to pass through life—and high school—unnoticed, which is complicated when a pair of eccentric strangers move next door and become entangled with her sister, their stepbrother, and herself. The story touches on English poetry and mythology from around the world, had great characters and great adventures, and I pretty much loved it. A/A-.

I absolutely love movies, books, tv shows, etc., with complicated, time-bending plots. However, I do think I understand now what my friends meant when they claimed LOST was too complex for them to watch. I actually found that show easy to follow, but I was also highly invested in the outcome. And I think that’s where my problem stemmed from with Weave a Circle Round by Kari Maaren.

THE 411: Freddy, her sister, Mel, and their half-brother, Roland, are seemingly normal pre/teens until they get some interesting neighbors. Enter Cuerva Lachance and Josiah aka Time Traveling Agents who are constantly in a trip through the ages searching for their third companion, lovingly referred to as, “Three.” Freddy eventually learns that their appearance next door can only mean one thing: either Mel, Roland, or herself, is Three.

I really loved the concept of this book. The description of “Madeleine L’Engle meets Stranger Things” is entirely accurate. I wouldn’t necessarily say the plot is slow, it definitely moves along, but up until the first time jump, I found myself constantly thinking, “Ok….so…why should I care, again?” Things really start to get interesting once Freddy and Josiah start traveling through time and Freddy meets all the different incarnations of Cuerva Lachance, Josiah, and the elusive Three. We’re transported all over the world, from prehistoric China to future England.

Plotwise this should have been something I loved, even without a swoon worthy couple to root for. I can’t quite put my finger on what it was that was missing for me, because it’s extremely well-written and imaginative. Weave a Circle Round is a great debut for Maaren. I just think when push came to shove, there wasn’t a character that I connected to and that made it hard to, ultimately, keep invested and care about the outcome. There will be people who will absolutely love this book, it just very unfortunately was not me.

PS, the cover is BEAUTIFUL and the title fits perfectly.

MY RATING: ✰✰✰1/2
RECOMMENDED FOR: lovers of magical realism and time travel, no romance

Thank you Tor Books for my copy. Weave a Circle Round is available now.

https://www.rtbookreviews.com/book-review/weave-circle-round

This was a really odd book that seemed to have no rules, but I very much enjoyed reading it!

WEAVE A CIRCLE ROUND is a genre-bending quiet gem of a book that deserves your attention and more. The characters are messy, intriguing, and the real highlight of the story even when the plot meanders into slightly confusing. There's enough charm and uniqueness to keep you going in spite of its occasional missteps.

Weave a Circle round was a lot of fun, a slightly crazy coming of age style story involving a dysfunctional family, a couple of very unusual characters, an house where anything is possible and time travel. Picture, if you will, the Royal Tenenbaums meets The Book of Lost Things and then throw in portals, time travel and a bunch of oddness.

Freddy is definitely an anxious teenager. She spends the majority of her time trying to keep a low profile which isn’t always easy given she has a younger sister who thinks she’s a master detective and a deaf step brother who she doesn’t get along with who seems to hang out with a bunch of geeky kids – doubtless just to make her life even more difficult. For Freddy, attending school is like walking over the abyss, on a tightrope whilst carrying a wriggling elephant on your shoulders. Every day feels like the day she will finally come unstuck and plummet into the abyss with all the ensuing harsh spotlight, attention and bullying that are a natural result of losing your place in the stream of anonymity. Basically, Freddy wants nothing more than to remain unnoticed.

Enter the scene Cuerva Lachance and Josiah. They take up residence in the house next door and from the moment they arrive, crashing dramatically into a tree (that isn’t a driveway) they bring the whacky with them. The house becomes a conundrum, chairs and plants seem to multiply, rooms are not always where you thought they should be and the sisters, Freddy and Mel, become fascinated in the place and it’s occupants – in spite of being told in very strong terms by their step brother, Roland, to avoid the place like the plague. Roland seems to have developed some sort of deep dislike for the new neighbours, Mel thinks there is a mystery to be solved and Freddy, now with a new eccentric and rather disruptive friend in tow finds her worst nightmares about school finally coming true.

So, I mentioned this has a coming of age type feel to the story. Freddy is unhappy at home and lives her life in a constant state of fear when at school. Her parents divorced and her mum and step dad seem to be noticeable in their absence as they very rarely seem to put in an appearance. These two new characters show up in her life causing yet more chaos and unwanted attention until finally the unthinkable happens and Freddy finds herself tumbling through time with Josiah and experiencing a life changing journey.

I really enjoyed this book. I must say that it has a young feel to it somehow and I think it would make a very good read for a younger audience but at the same time I think it could equally make an enjoyable read for an older audience. It has an element of mystery to it in terms of the new neighbours, there’s a sense that things might not be quite as harmless as they appear, particularly when taking the ominous prologue into account and the antics and dialogue of the new neighbours was undeniably entertaining.

The characters were quite well drawn and easy to like. I’m not going to say I loved any of them in particular but they weren’t difficult to get along with. I think my favourite would definitely be Cuerva Lachance because I simply enjoyed the strangeness that she brings to the story. Neither Cuerva or Josiah are what they at first seem to be and part of the fun of this story is in the discovery of what’s actually going on.

In terms of criticisms. Well, I’m never a big fan of time travel to be honest. I thought it was really well done here but it wasn’t my favourite element of the story. And, the ending just became a feast of oddity. But, neither of these two minor quibbles were enough to stop me enjoying the book.

Overall, I thought this was a really fun and entertaining story. It’s probably not what I originally expected because for some strange reason I got it into my head that this would be one of those neighbour moving in next door type stories that becomes a little bit creepy and Adam’s family(ish) – and it really isn’t. But, I had fun with this and couldn’t stop reading so that’s always good in my humble opinion.

I received a copy through Netgalley courtesy of the publishers for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

This review was originally published on The Speculative Herald.

Great fun, although I'll admit to getting a little bit confused in places. An interesting plot that weaves together some really well written characters and a very twisted storyline.
I'd definitely recommend this for readers of all ages, although I think it's aimed at the Harry Potter market. So primarily for children.

I thought this book was pretty good. I enjoyed the twist on the standard time travel story, but did think there was a lot of set up and not enough detail during the main character's 18 months of time hopping. I can easily see recommending it to readers though.

A lot of readers have classified this book as YA but honestly, I felt like it was more of a Middle Grade/Children's Fiction. I think the best word I can use to describe the book is whimsical. There were so many elements and normally that wouldn't work for a story, but in this case it kind of brought out a child-like sense of wonder in me. Cuerva LaChance and Josiah are exactly the kind of wonderfully weird characters that I loved reading about as a child. The book captures your imagination and I loved that!

For some reason this one was really hard for me to get into! I wasn't able to make it after chapter 4... :( Thanks for sending this!

The summary for this book sounds pretty generic. The book I actually read was drastically different from that which I was expecting. I was, in fact, pleasantly surprised by the vast majority of this book.

This actually feels more like three books rolled into one. One book is a ‘teen siblings discovering they have more in common than they expected through battling a terrible enemy’ another is ‘aren’t the neighbors a bit odd I should definitely go and investigate and get caught up in a bit of an adventure and find myself’ and the third is a time travel novel. Oh yes. There is time travel.

To be perfectly honest I expect there are a few more books in the mix here but those are the three that spoke to me. It’s so in keeping with the theme of chaos and things not quite making sense that this book works the way it does. It’s a delicate balance, I imagine some people won’t get on with the jumble of ideas collected in these pages but for me it was just right.

I haven’t read a book with a deaf character in a long while (if at all) and it was cool to see that represented, in fact all the characters in this book were fleshed out, interesting individuals. I appreciated this as sometimes in the ‘isn’t my neighbor odd?’ genre all non-neighbor characters can all blur together into ordinary. But instead we have three siblings who hate each other as siblings do, one who loves mystery novels, another who likes RPGs and our heroine Freddy. On top of that mix add the phenomenally quirky and somewhat scary Cuerva Lachance and the cynical Josiah and you have a great mix of individuals.

If I have one criticism of this book it’s that some of the elements feel a little rushed. You can skim one page a little too quickly and suddenly you miss an enormous plot element. It may be that this was deliberately to unsettle the reader and add to the sense of chaos explored in the book – if so, job well done – but I think it can make things feel less well thought through than they might otherwise. Also, a matter of personal preference but, I would have liked a little more time spent on some elements (such as the transforming house) than there was.

If you’re up for a standard adventure with a lot of quirks and twists along the way I think you’ll really enjoy this book. It was an excellent palate cleanser as well, so perhaps when you find yourself in a bit of a reading rut you could give this one a go?

My rating: 4/5 stars

By the way, I received a digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This is a very interesting book that deals with growing up while time traveling. I like the time traveling aspect because the main characters didn't have an easy time and had to learn how to blend in at every location they landed in. My big problem is that there is a revelation towards the end and the main character only figured out what the revelation meant a hundred pages after I did. It was so obvious that I don't understand why it took her so long.

For me, Weave A Circle Round was a 4-star read. I really enjoyed the premise, and I thought Maaren handled the time travel aspects of the tale well. The difficulty I had was connecting with the characters. Although billed as YA, given the age of the protagonists, I would term this middle-grade to younger YA. I didn't feel a deep connection with them; however, I did enjoy their witty banter. Regardless, I was hooked on the plot and I appreciated how the story ended. It is certainly a magical tale and a stunning concept. I don't want to say more for fear of spoilers!

This Book Is A "Stately Pleasure-Dome"

Any book that's favorably blurbed by Charles de Lint is going to get my attention. Turns out Charles knew what he was doing. This book is "fabulous" in all of the deeper and richer meanings of that word.

We start out a bit slowly. Our heroine, Freddy, is sort of a sad sack and aggressively unhappy with just about everything. Oh no, you think, how much of this whinging, angry, angsty teen can I take. But, even at the outset, there's a hint that Freddy is being overwritten, that she's being hyper unhappy for a reason that will be made clear. And that's exactly where we go. When all of the other characters are attention demanding, over the top, elemental forces, well you don't want your heroine being lost in the shuffle.

And this book is over the top, but in all of the best ways. It takes some of its inspiration from Coleridge's Romantic masterpiece, "Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream", but then runs all over the world of mythology - places, timelines, characters, themes - to create a pleasure dome that could be the hip/ambitious YA novel version of an opium dream.

This book has sometimes been described as a time travel adventure, and I guess it is that if that's all you want to see. There is time travel and there is adventure. But it's a lot more of a literary psychedelic head trip than that, and I mean that in a good way. It's sort of magical realism teen angst crossed with post-postmodern storytelling and an anything goes sensibility that somehow merges sibling rivalry with tentacles and makes it work.

This is fun, heady stuff. And, even if you lose the thread here or there, or wonder how exactly Tab A fits into Slot B, it doesn't matter. There are a half dozen great characters and so much smart, witty, sly dialogue and throwaway bits of business that any reader with a taste for roller coaster tale-telling will just enjoy the ride. This is energetic and brimming with ideas; it careens all over before dropping you off safe and sound back where you started, and it is a total hoot. Just a fabulous find.

(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

An engaging, fresh YA story. Two eccentric and mysterious characters move in next door, and before she knows what's going on, Freddy finds herself hopping all over time and repeatedly encountering two immortals (one of whom is always 14) and a repeatedly reincarnated third, who she suspects is not exactly what the two immortals claim.

Along the way, she figures out some family dynamics, and matures.

In the pre-release version I got from Netgalley, I didn't see any typos or recurrent errors, except that the author frequently uses "may" instead of "might" in past tense narration (compare "can" and "could").

The characters were interesting and had dimension and heft, the set-pieces were fun (and often funny), and the mystery plot progressed at a steady pace.

Recommended.