An eerie romp through the woods via a beautifully illustrated collection of stories, I can see why this is such a popular graphic novel. The use of red as a contrast to the mostly monochrome background really elevated the spook factor in particular. The only detractor for me was that some of the stories were a little too abstract in their concept/plot for me to be immersed in the horror, but the illustrations were enough that I still was able to enjoy the overall collection.

A novel has not made me so irritated with its indecisiveness like this one did in quite a while.

The bones of this book had the potential to be great-the world with its base in Hungarian history & folklore (edit: specifically, Hungarian history and Jewish mythology is mentioned on the back of the book, but also there’s Hungarian folklore!), the workings of a compelling enemies-to-lovers romance, and cool magic and monsters. But so much of it fell flat for me, mostly due to two glaring flaws.

The first flaw was that it felt like Reid couldn't pin down what ideas they wanted to explore. At the start, we got some really interesting themes of religion and its weaponization, specifically through the expectation of self-sacrifice, but it disappeared as quickly as it was introduced (pretty much as soon as the "romance" started to take center stage). There were glimpses of a larger commentary trying to break through in the latter half, but it felt disjointed and even contradictory at times, especially in regards to Évike's decisions and thoughts.

The second major flaw was just how unbearable our two main characters were, primarily in regards to Gáspár, though Évike definitely had her moments as well. Gáspár seemed like he was meant to be this brooding sad prince, a deep and complex character who is discriminated against for his mixed-heritage, but he truly is the concept of an idea of an attractive emo "I'll do anything for you" love interest. He is pathetic but only because he DOESN'T DO ANYTHING, and I thought it was such a shame because I really thought there was such potential!

It wasn't all terrible, I did enjoy Reid's writing, with their detailed, gothic-flowery descriptions, and the atmosphere in the woods was good. I've read and enjoyed another of their works, and I can see in their debut the foundations of it. But it wasn't enough to save this novel for me, and honestly this overall was such a disappointment.