A review by danicarissa
Menewood by Nicola Griffith

adventurous emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Menewood feels like falling into a dream you could swear you've had before—at once hauntingly familiar and utterly strange. This book is hefty—720 pages-and it's both a fast & slow read: fast because it's hard to put down-you're caught up with Hild in a bloody, warring world where you go from safety to danger in a blink and you've *got to know* what happens, and slow because the sentences themselves are rich enough you might go back & reread them, just to give them a minute to settle in.

We don't have many stories where women get to be the center *and* be complex: usually they're one or two things & that's about it. But Hild-Hild is gentle and bloodthirsty and loyal and impatient and wise and rash and afraid and imperious and lots of other things— she's a force. She has her own complex nature and the roles she must play (like so many women!) in order to protect herself and her people. But unlike many women, she has the power to alter fates-her own, her people's.

I'm so grateful I found Hild and Menewood. What a gift, to have stories like this.