Under Wildwood Review

Under Wildwood is the second book in the Wildwood series by Colin Meloy. This book takes place a few months after the events of the first book. We return to Prue who is trying to get back to her normal life from before those events with little success. She finds herself unable to forget the Wildwood or the people there nor is she able to just go on in her old life. While Curtis has been training as a bandit and loving it, except for the noticeable hard times that are hitting the Wildwood and all the people, instead of the fresh beginnings that seemed so certain to come at the end of the first book. Now assassins enter the picture. When they go after Prue in the ‘outside’ a rescue is sent to bring her back and hide her in the Wildwood. Thus the further adventures of Prue and Curtis begin.

I gave this book a 3.5 out of 5 starts. The writing was just as good, with that same sort of whimsical world building that I really enjoyed from the first book. It was fun to return to Prue and Curtis and to travel with them again (seeing how they continue to be pushed forward through these new experiences).

However, the plot was not as interesting or as settled as in the first book. In many ways, the plot was quite unclear until somewhere around the middle of the book, and that being so, was not anywhere near resolved by the end. Don’t get me wrong. It isn’t a cliff hanger (of which I would be flaming mad), but the introduced plot only now seems to really be getting started. It feels like most of this book was the background, set up for the plot (that I imagine is to be completed in the final book). Furthermore, this book (like the first one) was over 500 pages. That felt just too long for me, especially  with the floundering plot.

On top of this we have two new ‘main-ish’ characters: Curtis’s two sisters. Even though I enjoyed the dual main character aspect of the first book, adding two more felt like too many here. I understand in context of the story why Meloy did this, I am just not enjoying it.

I am sorry this didn’t rise to my expectations and I wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as the first book, but I hope that the third book will redeem it and be well worth the effort of pushing through this book.

PS (can we use that when it isn’t a letter?) : If you don’t like the whole ‘villain speech’ giving hero time to figure out an escape, be forewarned it is present in this book.