Cover Image: The Forest Grimm

The Forest Grimm

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Member Reviews

Great concept but a rushed set of words strung together with no compassion or intrigue. I had high hopes for this as I love the old fairy tales.

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I was given this book by the publisher in return for an honest review.

Like a bulk of YA characters on a journey our MC knows better than all her peers and elders and as such need not take their advice which is annoying. She has this blind faith she is doing the right thing.

The author annoyingly points out the main character's flaw of scoliosis through the WHOLE book which I could totally do without. We remember this fact, please don't beat us to death with it.

If you can get past that then the fearsome fairytale characters in this book are fun to meet. They strike me as the truly horrific characters originally made and not the washed out Disney version. Though our MC is gullible as are her companions each time, they never learn.

The plot was good. The main character's growth was minimal. Overall I'd give it 3.5 ⭐

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The enchanting world, lovable characters, and the heart-wrenching story left my heart yearning for more from the story! ✨ I would highly be recommending this story. Can’t wait to read the next book by the author.

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I enjoyed the first half more than the second half. I agree with reviews that it felt like a bunch of fairytales were thrown in haphazardly. I also think it could have been a stand alone. I really liked the idea behind it, I just felt the execution was a bit off. Some of the characters were a bit whiney. That being said there were parts I did enjoy, and I will read the sequel.

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I didn’t know what to expect with this one, but I ended up loving it! I decided to listen to the audio and oved the narrator. This was a great YA love story and I loved how the fairy tales were interwoven throughout the book. It got a little dark and twisted near the end, but I was still entertained by the whole thing. I highly recommend the audio!

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Due to St. Martins Press refusal to address the remarks made by their employee regarding Palestine, I will not be reviewing this book.

This in no way has anything to do with the author. But I refuse to support anything from SMP because of their refusal to address a major issue at hand.

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If you love retellings and the classic fairytales interwoven this is a great read. This retelling mixes all the classics together and comes up with some interesting combinations but they all work. It does end with a small cliffhanger but nothing that should keep you from picking it up even before the next book is out.

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Not at all what I was expecting, but still a great read! The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie is the first book in a duology about a magical forest and the people who are lured in. Clara has spent her entire life in her little village on the edge of the Forest Grimm, learning fairy tales and folk lore from her grandmother. Years earlier, the forest turned on the villagers and took its magical book, the Sortes Fortunae, back. The villagers would whisper their dreams to the book, and it would tell them how to reach those dreams. Now, the book is gone, their water rancid, and crops diseased. The village is dying, and every time they make an appeal to the forest, it takes another villager. Now, Clara and her best friend venture into the forest, defying fate in the hopes of saving those they love and have lost.

Clara is an interesting character, and the book is told from her perspective. Her grandmother is a fortune teller and has read Clara’s fate many times. It always ends the same: death. Clara isn’t necessarily afraid of her fate, but she wants to make sure everyone she loves is safe. So she plans to take fate into her own hands, entering the forest. She is brave, a little reckless, and a lot in love with her best friend. I adore Axel. He stands behind Clara always, and despite her constantly pushing him away, he’s always there when she needs him most.

This book is a good mix of character-driven and plot-driven. So much happens in this book! I was surprised when I reached the end and realized it was a duology. I expected it to be over. Clara’s story follows Grimm’s Little Red Riding Hood. There’s a forest and a large wolf hunting her, plus she has her huntsman in Axel. I liked how the author weaved in her story with the source material creating something new. We see several stories played out in this one including Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Hansel and Gretel. These make an interesting addition to the story by adding mythos to the Forest Grimm.

Overall, while it took me a while to read, I really enjoyed The Forest Grimm. It’s an exciting adventure with wonderful world building. Clara and Axel are easy to root for both as friends and the potential for more than friends. Highly recommend for fans of fantasy!

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I went into this not quite sure what exactly I would be getting. I was just intrigued by the idea of the magical system in this book and the fairy tale tie ins. I felt the premise had potential but the execution was lacking.

I wanted to like the main character more than I did. The pacing was a bit uneven and some situations it was hard to suspend my disbelief and stay engaged in the story.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this digital ARC. This is my honest review,

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Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC. Because I'm trying to cram so many books in before the end of year, I am really gravitating towards short books, YA, or themes and tropes that typically work for me.

...This was not good. I have read other books by this author and really enjoyed them, but this was just kind of a mess. There was so much going on here, yet all the conflict was basically solved within a page or so of encountering a problem. It combined too many themes and none of them felt believable or high stakes or impactful to our main characters. It was also REALLY predictable and parts of it dragged on quite a bit more than necessary.

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This book was so enchanting. I love anything that has a French twist to it and also fairytales - so this book his the fantasy spot! I really enjoyed the fairytales weaved throughout the novel! Just the right amount of romance and high adventure! Enjoy!

I received this from NetGalley and all opinions are my own.

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5/5 stars, this might be one of the most unique takes on fairytales I've ever read

Thank you to St. Martins Press & Wednesday Books for the arc through netgalley in exchange for an honest review!

I've been a fan of Kathryn Arden since reading her 'Bone Criers Moon' series, and while it was not my favorite ever I saw the potential she holds as an author, and wanted to read more. When I discovered she was writing a story based on fairytales, I was so excited as I truly adore fairytale retellings. Especially because this one sounded so interesting, with a magic book and a forest that causes people to turn into twisted versions of fairytale stories we all know and love. I'm so grateful to have received this arc because this book was everything I was hoping for.

First of all the atmosphere and worldbuilding were absolutely splendid, I was immediately sucked in by the mysterious aspects of the magic occurring in the story. The writing style made everything feel like a fairytale anyway, which increased my love even more. The mysterious forest is something that occurs in a lot of books, but this one was particularly striking to me, as people got lost in it and never returned. Yet, the townspeople made offerings every year to try to prevent individuals from being forced to go in. It's really interesting, and I was glad the main character was so motivated to go find her mother and other individuals who went missing, as it made me even more excited to enter the forest and discover its secrets.

The plot was also really well done, I felt engaged the whole time especially as the forest scenes started. That's when the twisted fairytales, even for the main character, began to show up and it was just so well done I can't even describe how awesome it was to read. The ending makes me interested in what will happen in the sequel, and I need it like...right now.

Clara and Axel were really easy to love too, both as characters and as people who start to fall in love with one another. Clara was sort of the typical young adult heroine, going to go do things that adults can't manage bother to do, but she was very intuitive and that served her well. Axel was just sweet and I think he made a great companion to her. Their romance was also really sweet as I've fallen in love with childhood-friends-to-lovers more and more this year, so to see that here was so special to me.

[TW: murder and death of loved ones, parental abandonment, blood and knife wounds, poisoning, implied cannibalism, physical child abuse]

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While I requested this as an ebook, I "read" it as an audiobook given it was after it'd been released. It was a great listen, and it really amplified the captivating storytelling. It was like listening to someone read a fairy tale to me, and I was so drawn in throughout. While fantasy isn't really my jam, this story drew me! I loved the pictures it painted through words, the relationships, and the literal twists and turns as the story went.

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AHHHHHHHH! I could not believe how good this book was. EVERYTHINGGGGGG was top tier. Characters, story, writing, EVERYTHING. I loved it all!

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Kathryn Purdie has yet to miss with me and this is just one more on a growing list of books that I love from her.

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An absolutely spellbinding twisted retelling of several classic Grimm tales. I devoured this story and I loved it's characters and easy to follow and fast paced plot.

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The Forest Grimm was an entertaining story with fantasy and several fairytale characters I thought I knew. It is a twisted retelling of several well known fairytales. I ran into Rapunzel, Hansel & Gretel, Sleeping Beauty and Red Riding Hood, all in the same forest. 17-year-old Clara is desperate to save her village, Grimm’s Hollow, from the curse, and in turn, her mother. Her grandmother is a fortune-teller who read her cards, thinking they were for someone else. Clara knows she needs to go into the Forest Grim and find the magical book to complete the task. Clara and her dear friend Axel, set out, but with so many creatures and a forest that wants to prevent their success standing in the way, will they find the book, or even survive this quest.

I wasn't quite sure what to think about this book. The spin Kathryn Purdie put on some of the best loved fairytale characters was a bit macabre. Instead of being heroes and underdogs as in the original Grimm's Fairytales, they were evil and trying to stop Clara and Axel at every turn. The forest itself was a character in this story with it's darkness and malevolence. There is a bit of a romance with Axel and Clara, but that was not the interesting part of the story. I enjoyed seeing Clara figure out who each character was and how to defeat them and bring them back to themselves. I don't want to say anything more, but this is a very interesting story and if you enjoy retellings, I definitely recommend this one.

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I wanted to like this one more but the mash up of fairytales left it where you couldn’t really know what was the story that was trying to be told.

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Thank you Netgalley and St Martin Press for this arc in exchange for an honest review,


The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie is a romance where fairy tales are real but dark.


I would give The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie 1.5 star review because, I liked the concept but actually reading it I didn't really like any of it.

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This had a very intriguing start but sort of lost me in the middle. I love fairy tales and the idea of interconnected fairy tales, but I'm not a huge fan of different stories just haphazardly thrown together for the sake of including a fairy tale.

The lack of explanation for the fairy tale characters does add to the mysterious, spooky feeling of the forest, but because the fairy tale characters that show up are such well-known stories, the lack of explanation just left me unsatisfied. I think I personally would have enjoyed the premise more if either more obscure fairy tale characters had been used or if there had been less mystery and more explanation for the well-known characters.

Also, wasn't really feeling the romance between the main characters.

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