Colin Meloy

My only major criticism is the whole reasoning behind how Rachel and Elsie ended up in an orphanage. It was so incredibly stupid. This story wasn't set in the Edwardian era, it was set in near-present day. If parents are going away for a couple weeks, the kiddos get a babysitter, a nanny, stay at the grandparents or a friend's place. NOT a shady orphanage that's running an industrial parts manufacturing business "on the side" and has a mysterious lack of children present during the day. That whole premise was so incredibly dumb I was absolutely fuming for chapters on end.

Everything else was fantastic and riveting. Some of my questions from the first book were answered, like how the post-war Wood developed, if Pru developed more plant communication powers, and how Curtis has faired since the war. I'm still waiting to find out how Curtis became "of woods magic," and if his family will ever get closure with his disappearance. Things are all coming to a head though. The end of this volume is foreshadowing at a number of converging paths, so I'm very much looking forward to where all the elements finally come together.

Also, what a treat to get to hear the author narrate the story! It was such a better experience than the narration in the first book. I can definitely recommend picking up volume 2 in audiobook.… (more)

Well that got weird. A drastic shift from a juvenile Narnia-esque adventure to a PG-13 intense, graphic action story. I'm talking parasitic hive-mind cult, to faux-French revolutionary proletariat battling the industrialist bourgeoisie cum Fight Club bombing, to apocalyptic demon plant possessed by evil dead queen, to graphic death scenes, and a whole lot of plot holes. A swear word was also plopped in there towards the latter quarter of the book. And it felt like there were a number of allegories that didn't quite hit their mark. Listening to this last volume, I couldn't help but think to myself, "Colin Meloy, are you okay?"

I'm satisfied with the ending, but it wasn't fulfilling, and I'm far from satisfied by how it came to be. It's as if the books were intended to have an audience that grew up and matured reading the stories, like with Narnia or Harry Potter, but unlike those books, these ones only had 3 years between them. It made this volume feel forcibly rushed despite its length. I really felt this rush toward the last quarter of the book. Several significant things were happening simultaneously, but the timing felt very off - like how long it took to get from one end of Wildwood to the other by flying, how fast the ivy traversed the landscape yet was so painstakingly slow in some areas, how building the cog took almost NO time (literally one afternoon?), etc.

A bunch of things also just didn't sit well with me and left me with more questions and frustrations than answers: forced child labor and endangerment by Unthank and the exploit (i.e. committing felony-level crimes) and further endangerment of children by the Chapeau Noir; how Wiggman and Unthank only made up 2 of the 5 Titans, and the fact that the other three would now be in charge - leaving the "take down the machine" task still effectively incomplete; what happened to the Chapeau Noir and the stevedores post-Wiggman take-down? How the ivy apparently demolished Wildwood and the Industrial Wastes, but managed to leave Portland unscathed; what in the world happened to the young Elder Mystic boy? Like... just poof! Disappeared. How in the world were they able to reconstruct the boundary so quickly and easily with only the tiniest strip of bark from a barely new sapling? We STILL don't know how the Melburg kids are "of Woods magic." How did Pru go from barely being able to make grass move, to being able to command an entire LAND (and then some) overtaken by ivy? And piggy-backing off that, how is the ivy the "easiest and most suggestible plant" yet needed the blood sacrifice of an infant to command? How was Curtis barely able to hold up a staged stage coach robbery, yet somehow able to construct an entire Ewok-esque tree-top city in a matter of a few weeks? And how did the remaining Blighted Tree cult get de-spongiformed without Pru? And what in the world happened to Roger Swindon?

Ooof. Leaves my head swimming.… (more)

It is an ordinary Tuesday morning in April when bored, lonely Charlie Fisher witnesses something incredible. Right before his eyes, in a busy square in Marseille, a group of pickpockets pulls off an amazing robbery. As the young bandits appear to melt into the crowd, Charlie realizes with a start that he himself was one of their marks.

Yet Charlie is less alarmed than intrigued. This is the most thrilling thing that's happened to him since he came to France with his father, an American diplomat. So instead of reporting the thieves, Charlie defends one of their cannons, Amir, to the police, under one condition: he teach Charlie the tricks of the trade.

What starts off as a lesson on pinches, kicks, and chumps soon turns into an invitation for Charlie to join the secret world of the whiz mob, an international band of child thieves who trained at the mysterious School of Seven Bells. The whiz mob are independent and incredibly skilled and make their own way in the world--they are everything Charlie yearns to be. But what at first seemed like a (relatively) harmless new pastime draws him into a dangerous adventure with global stakes greater than he could have ever imagined.… (more)