The Wolf and the Woodsman

I may have been way too excited for The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid to release and I bought the hardcover on release day [sad horn noises]. It's very pretty though and I did technically enjoy the book, but not release-day-(despised)hardcover-purchase-$ level of enjoy 😬

Now, this book was marketed as adult, but the writing style does not feel like an adult book. And there's not even any adult content in it that I haven't read in a YA book by this point. I get that the author was going for a more complex theme concerning religion, but just wanting that to be the thing that made the book adult did not make it so. The plot and the characters could have been so at home marketed as YA, and honestly I feel tricked into reading it tbh. I specifically bought it because it wasn't YA..................
Remembering who recommended it I thought, "Oh it's YA, hmm I'll just wait or mayhaps never read it" but I double-checked and the author & publisher are saying "it's adult!" so I went ahead, but please it really reads like it was intended to cater to the YA market, but along the way someone changed their mind at the last second. BAMBOOZLED.

( cut for length )

Overall, I got what I wanted out of this book. Enemies to lovers, folklore, brutality, and tenderness. Could it have been better? Absolutely! I wish it had been 100% engaging rather than floundering around every chapter. But I can't say I didn't enjoy it for what it is. I'm interested in the kinds of themes this book starts to lay down and I definitely enjoyed digging into those morsels. But the book as a whole was not cohesive in quality. It wants to have this complex theme and dark tone, but the characters, plots, and writing style are not developed to that complex level at all.
But I liked the magic and the conclusion of the religion theme.