The Forest and the Farm
Vance Huxley
Billi has one and a half legs, and his hunting Hound has only three. Together they are the least loved and most picked on Hound pair, considered only good for escorting forest hunts for wood. What starts off as a wood gathering ends with Billi beginning his journey towards both acceptance and belonging, but also a life of his own.
I don’t know what drew me to this novel, or what kept me reading. In any other case, I think I would have gotten frustrated with the glacial pacing, with very little action. However this novel had the right protagonist for me to keep reading. How could I not love Billi? Talk about the underdog (pun intended). I really enjoyed the unassuming and thoughtful dialogue inside Billi’s brain.
Something that annoyed me was the way kissing was referred to as ‘bussing’. There seemed to be no particular reason this was included that I could see, and I felt myself being irritated by the author every time I read ‘bussing’. It made me think of a bee, buzzing.
Arg! The ending! I didn’t get to find out why those final things were happening! Will there be more? Only time will tell. And if I never post this review and it continues to languish in my Draft Folder, the author will never know! So here’s my belated review.
I’m giving this 4 stars, and hoping for more from this author.
What I liked about this novel was that there was plenty of Grim time. I love Grim as a character because he is so real and flawed and fantastic! Don’t get me wrong, I also like Blackthorn, but it’s nice to have a counterpoint to the somewhat traditional role of ‘Grumpy Healer’.
I felt somewhat frustrated by the ending. Nate, why? Anon, why? This made no sense at all. Sure, they’ll fix things somehow, but why did they do that? Perhaps someone else who has read it can give me a more informed opinion for why on earth the ending worked.
I find it very difficult to give an objective assessment of this novel. It’s told from Jess’ perspective, which granted is rather limited. Jess is basically a book stealer by trade, and so he looks at everything with a certain degree of detachment, which is actually very useful. He could do better with hiding his emotions though!
Libby connected with me really strongly and left a lasting impression for me. She’s a strong female protagonist that nevertheless needs support from her family, friends and a counsellor. No woman is an island, and Libby is no exception.
I feel like I didn’t get a really good grip on Snow’s character. But then you consider that she has been locked up and completely drugged for the last 10+ years and you can’t be surprised. She felt quite cold to me, and never seemed to warm up. I’ll be looking for more character development in the second novel of this.
Martha has lost a lot of important people, and I can see why she does the things she does. But she came across as a selfish, shallow character that I simply couldn’t like very much. And considering that I was supposed to get attached so I would be worried when she was close to dying, well, I wasn’t.
So you might think I have given away the whole novel with my opening paragraph – but in fact, you know all of that information almost from just reading the blurb and reading the first chapter. That alone would have killed the novel for me.
This novel was awful. It was well written and everything, and the dialogue was believable, yet the plot left a lot to be desired. It was repetitive, and didn’t seem to go anywhere. I didn’t feel for any of the characters and the whole lot felt staged.