A warm, thick stew on a winter day: Be careful to sip and not gulp. I would have liked to race through this one, desperate to know what was to come, but it's far too lush for big bites.

The Wolf and the Woodsman was the second book I read in 2021, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to be my favorite of the year. Combining Hungarian and Jewish mythology, this book is beautifully written. I couldn’t put it down! Eviké, the main character, despite being ordinary compared to the other women in her village, is strong, smart, and determined. Despite the abuse she suffers from the women blessed with powers, she cares about her village above all.
I loved the political intrigue Eviké finds herself embroiled in, combined with the adventure aspect when Gaspar enlists Eviké to help him defeat his evil brother. Gaspar and Eviké’s relationship is incredibly slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers. Truly one of the best books I’ve ever read.

A beautifully rendered world rich with mythology and populated by instantly memorable characters, great for fans of fairytale retellings and novels. I would have preferred a slightly slower pace however.

One of my favorite upcoming books. Ava Reid is a brilliantly talented writer and I can't wait for this book to be on shelves. This one is destined for the growing classic canon of Jewish fantasy literature.

Well done, Ava Reid! This was the last book that I read in 2020, and The Wolf and the Woodsman did not disappoint. This story follows Évike, who is an orphaned "wolf-girl". She lives in a community that has to give up one of the girls every so many years to the Woodsmen. The Wolf and the Woodsman was full of monsters and at times was a little scary! I would have loved for it to be a tad heavier on the romance, but besides that - this was 100% worth the read!

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC ebook in exchange for an honest review.

An ornate fantasy novel that makes direct parallels and allusions to the experiences of feudal age Jews in Russia and eastern Europe. There's a lot of detail in this text and the prose could be labelled as lush. Readers should be aware that the story includes significant trigger warnings from torture to body horror and antisemitism, to self harm. For me the work was just too.....heavy. There's a misery in the characters and the world that feels omnipresent and unrelenting. While the characters don't necessary bemoan their fates there's a fatalistic inevitability that I found nonetheless depressing and wearying, particularly as the novel transitioned from the first major plot point (finding a magical tree) to the next.

The Wolf and the Woodsman is a perfect book for winter, a delicious blend ofThe Bear and the Nightingale and The Witcher . It follows a twenty-five year old "wolf-girl" named Évike, a motherless girl who lives within a matriarchal tribe of warriors, magicians, and seers. However, their way of live has been deemed "pagan" by the devout king and his army of monster-hunting Woodsman, and every few years one of their number is plucked away by the king and taken to the capital to an unknown fate.

This was a gorgeous, evocative tale. While the prose tended towards the purple; it was still lush and lifelike, evoking nighttime woods and the heavy silence of snow. I loved the dark fairy tale aspects of the the story the best; flesh-eating monsters in the marshes, witches made of clay lurking in the woods. Be warned, this is often a heavily gory tale, with descriptions of blood and violence as prevalent as rich depictions of snow and rain.

The tension between culture, religion, and identity is also powerfully explored in this novel. This was my second favorite part of the story, in no small part because as a half-jewish, half-catholic woman myself I am extremely familiar with the ideological and emotional struggles of being caught between two very different theologies. Even more poignant to me was Évike's status as half Yehuli, a cultural group who directly parallel the Jewish people. Watching Évike learn about, grow to love, and integrate into her father's culture while still feeling like an outsider looking in beautifully captured a feeling I have had all my life but have struggled to describe.

Évike was an excellent protagonist. Brave and relatable, strong but vulnerable, her exploration of her identity was major draw of this novel. She is also a protagonist who thinks before she acts. Too often authors propel the plot with brash actions that border on nonsensical, but I enjoyed Évike's evolution from impulsive to considerate, as she realizes the butterfly effects of her actions on those she cares for. A small note, I also LOVED having a protagonist who revels in her strength. Évike is not small or waiflike. She is described as broad and solid and strong, and as a broad solid woman who is exhausted by fantasy women going on and on about how thin they are it was a refreshing to find one who felt more real.

Unfortunately, none of the other characters stood out as strongly to me. I was most disappointed by Gáspár, who revealed a layer or two of depth but for the most part felt flimsy and clichéd. Because of this I wasn't especially invested in their romance, which caused several significant parts of the novel to drag. The side character I ended up liking the most was cruel, fiery Katalin, and the development of her unexpected friendship with Évike. Overall, I thought this to be an introspective and ambitious novel that divided its focus just slightly too thin. While the romance didn't wow me, the fabulous atmosphere will certainly linger on in my mind.

*Spoiler free*

I saw a flash of a picture of this book for a giveaway and was practically sold. Then I saw a flash on the description, a girl who has no magic because she has been abandoned by the gods, based on Hungarian history and Jewish myth, and the only survivors of a monster attack being Évike, the main character, and the cold, one eyed captain of the Woodsman. Then I basically fell head over heels for this book and definitely, definitely, wanted to read it. Trigger warnings: torture, antisemitism, physical abuse by parental figures, vomiting, animal death, self-harm, gore, body horror

This book opens with the most gorgeous title page. It seriously made my jaw drop. Finishing this book, I was struck with the same feeling. It might've taken those feelings to growing again, but grow again they did. This is a book that I find myself thinking about randomly and my brain continuing to come back to. It's the kind of good that's felt on a soft breeze or the quiet flutter of snow. Though, do not ignore the sharp bite of steel it also produces, because it is just as important.

I'm starting off with the writing because wow. It is breathtakingly gorgeous. It straddles the line of being gorgeous for the sake of being gorgeous and actually telling the story. Though, it does end up falling to the side of actually telling the story for me. I felt like there was enough plot and emotion and character to back up the writing. Seriously though, I was just in awe most of them with how words were strung together and the phrases that were present. Reid is TALENTED, and she lets the full breadth of it shine here.

It took me a bit to fall in love with a whole lot of this book, but I think that was part of the magic of it. I was unsure of Évike, of the aloof captain, of where the plot was going, even of the world. But, it's a slow burn to understand what this book is trying to do. It's a slow mesh of colors swirling together to make something starkly clear. The journey was worth it to me for this book. And even bigger, the journey was one of the parts that I loved most about.

This world is steeped in stories; there's stories folded into stories. It has the touch of a vast and expansive world, but only focuses in on a small part of it. There's splashes of horror and streaks of quiet and clangs of battles. It is an intricately woven world, one that Évike is trying to find its place in. It's a world that's incredibly dark, with monsters lurking in the forest and people hated because of the religion they practice. There's political turmoil and plots to kill kings. And all of this done and written in the most incredible way. It felt like I was submerged in it, until I found myself thinking of it and its inner workings even when I wasn't reading it.

I am surprised with how much I came to love pretty much every single character. I wasn't sure what their stories were going to be, and they took a bit of time to untangle, but it was amazing seeing where the threads were leading to. Even the characters who were rough around the edges, who felt like the prick of a needle, I found myself liking them even just a bit. There's even a bear character and bears are great. This also ties into how I felt about the relationships. There are tentative new friendships, quickly blossoming lust, but slowly blossoming romance (oh dang, forbidden romance and a road trip and they're both grumpy and enemies-to-lovers), and finding new family. All around amazing.

There are also parts of this book that get VIOLENT. To the point where my jaw would drop at certain scenes because of how bloody and gorey it would get. But I'm not saying this in a bad way! It's not done for shock factor, it's done because it's where the story is going. And this book does violet and horrifying well.

Also, this is definitely worth noting, instead of the Only One Bed trope, it is the Only One Tree trope.

This book contains so much. It contains a forests filled with monsters, plots to kill the king, political unrest and intrigue, writing that is breathtaking, and a whole lot of horror. I felt like this was two in books in one, but not in a bad way. It just packs so much into what it does have.

Overall, this is a book that digs under the skin with briars and brambles until I felt one with the forest. It's haunting in a way, quiet, but also something that isn't afraid to let itself be known. Really, if I have to sum it up, this book is incredible. It is everything that it is promised to be. I love it a whole bunch.