Willa of the Wood
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4.2 • 51 Ratings
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Robert Beatty comes a spooky, thrilling new series set in the magical world of Serafina. Move without a sound. Steal without a trace. Willa, a young nightspirit of the Great Smoky Mountains, is her clan's best thief. She creeps into the homes of day-folk in the cover of darkness and takes what they won't miss. It's dangerous work—the day-folk kill whatever they do not understand. But when Willa's curiosity leaves her hurt and stranded in a day-folk man's home, everything she thought she knew about her people—and their greatest enemy—is forever changed.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this charming middle grade adventure set in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains in 1900, Willa, a young Faeran, or night-spirit, is caught between her own slowly dying clan and the human "day-folk," whom she's always been taught to fear and avoid. As a jaetter or hunter-thief, Willa is responsible for stealing from the day-folk to benefit her clan and its charismatic leader, the padaran. But a botched scavenging attempt reveals that not all humans are murderous monsters. Her additional discovery that her own people hold dangerous secrets prompts her to defy the enigmatic padaran and seek a way to correct a grievous wrong. Faced with the potential destruction of everything she's known, Willa takes control of her own destiny. In this series starter set in the same world as his Serafina books, Beatty conjures up a resourceful, compassionate heroine. Full of atmospheric details and richly described magic ("As the branches reached out over the water to hold her, they rustled in the wind, talking"), this well-paced tale asks insightful questions about the relationship between nature and humans. Ages 8 12.
Customer Reviews
I love this book
I love this book it has a great story between family and loved one. I think this is worth getting and very recommended this.
This book…
After I read the comments and saw everyone’s opinions I decided not to buy this book. However I read the sample and overall the descriptions are really good, although there’s not really enough action, unlike the serafina series. *I didn’t read the full sample
Also the main character is a Mary Sue? I’m not really sure it’s a good character design here. And Willa committed suicide just because the world did not live up to her impossible expectations, that’s just a sign of weakness. Willa should’ve just kept calm and carried on like most people. 😒
NO
Absolutely would not let kids in the appropriate age range read this series.
Serafina was amazing, so I had high hopes for this book. How wrong I was! It basically takes the Mirkwood elves from the Hobbit, mocks them and convolutes them, throws in horrible cliches (oh, look! I’m a wood witch just when I need to be! Oh look, I’m injured! Time to use the super powers that are basically invincible! Oh look, I’m a Mary Sue!) then spits it all out in a horribly boring, tragic, and, quite frankly, waaay to gritty and hopeless for kids, environmental story. Spoiler alert: Willa commits suicide in book two and I’m not even joking.
Beatty can phrase it any way he wants but in the end Willa sees that the world will never be the PERFECT (duh) place she wants and that it will never live up to her impossible expectations. So she gives up everything and just decides “Okay. Imma gonna die now.”
It’s also VERY cliched (The Alliw being hidden with man thing was just pathetic)