A Far Wilder Magic

[alaterdate]

A Far Wilder Magic is the second book I've read from Allison Saft. Someone recommended it to me and told me it handled the topic of prejudice better than Ava Reid’s Juniper & Thorn. I was mostly surprised to see Saft’s book recommend because I didn’t remember her debut novel, Down Comes the Night, being particularly well received.

In A Far Wilder Magic Margaret Welty lives in isolation in her small town, taking care of her home all alone while she waits for her mother, a renowned alchemist, to return from her travels. When she spots a mystical and elusive fox in the forest near her home the town’s traditional Hala hunt is announced. Believing that winning the hunt and slaying the fox will bring her mother home she decides to sign up, but there’s a problem: she needs an alchemist partner to compete. Luckily, Weston Winters, a down-on-his-luck alchemist shows up at her door looking for mentorship from her absent mother. They sign up for the hunt and throw themselves into a rocky partnership where they clash with each other and the rest of the town.

It did not handle the topic of prejudice better and in fact was a little insulting. This topic felt like nothing more than set-dressing to facilitate a simple antagonism between the main characters and their peers, especially with the way the hunt for the Hala ended. It’s used to drive the characters together through isolation and bullying, and isn’t explored well enough beyond being changed names for real world ethnoreligions.

A dominant theme in the story is abuse, the emotional abuse Margaret receives from her mother and the emotional abuse she experiences from the townspeople. Margaret’s motive in hunting the fox comes from her wanting to please her mother and hoping it will bring her her mother’s love and safety despite the misgivings she has about killing the Hala because it is a meaningful figure to her estranged father’s religion. The abuse Wes faces comes from his background as a poor child from a minority religious group (not the same one as Margaret’s father) and he also has to deal with the townsfolk treating him terribly because he’s an outsider. He has the same reservations as Margaret over killing the fox because it’s also a figure in his religion (though not in the town’s majority religion hence the hunt). And it’s incredibly unsatisfying how there are only a couple of sentences of them worrying over what the death of the creature means for their spirituality and how they handle the hunt. The antagonist is also extremely flat and dealt with flippantly. While the story claims to center the characters ethnoreligious backgrounds as a motivator it’s really relegated to a footnote. And I cannot fathom how people could think Saft handles ethnoreligious themes better than Reid. BecauseJuniper and Thorn is set in the same world as The Wolf and the Woodsman Reid didn’t delve into the religion aspect as much, but it’s still handled better without an insinuated bad take, like yikes. Saft’s characters just jumped into the hegemony head first with nary a worry. Why have them spend so much time “fighting against the town’s prejudice” (being bullied) just to have them assimilate in the end and then make it out to be like they did the right thing? I just don’t think the ending was thought through very well.
Also the hunt was described as the main attraction of the novel, but it doesn’t happen until the very end and is over quickly.

The only thing I liked was that the romance between Margaret and Wes was cute at times. Wes was really sweet, but at the same time I couldn’t take the Brooklyn accent seriously, lol.

Ultimately, the writing sucked, the pacing sucked, most of the characters were completely boring including the female lead despite how badass she was supposed to be with her hunting rifle. It read like a first draft and was extremely derivative of Full Metal Alchemist and a little derivative of Shadow & Bone

Comments

[rocky41_7]

Oof. Books that were recommended to you and THEN turn out to be a letdown always feel more disappointing. Thanks for the review though--now I can be sure to avoid this one!

[alaterdate]

Yeah, at least it makes me more appreciate the book I was originally complaining about lol. & You're welcome 😊