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A review by pages_oflau
The Way Past Winter by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
1.0
I’m not 100% sure how to review this book....I mean, at least it looks beautiful?
I went into it expecting a beautifully, atmospheric, wintry tale of 3 sisters trying to figure out what happened to their brother. From the back of the book I was promised enchanting, sisterhood and adventure. I got a very poor adventure, it wasn’t enchanting and there was hardly any sisterhood.
I’m not sure if it was the writing, or the actual story being told that didn’t mesh with me but I just didn’t connect to this book at all.
From the first page we are thrown into the lives of Mila, Pípa, Senna and Oskar. Four siblings who’s mother died and their father abandoned them 5 years ago. The first chapter is literally them arguing about how else they can eat cabbages because that’s all they have to eat from the forest. The siblings have 2 dogs who start barking outside, Mila goes to check on them and then these strange men show up. Everything is going okay, until that night, Mila wakes up to find her brother, Oskar, talking to a weirdly distorted face in the window and then they wake up in the morning and Oskar is gone. Senna believes Oskar left as their father did, but Mila doesn’t believe he would and so begins our ‘adventure of enchantment and sisterhood’....apparently.
I have to say, the characters all felt a little flat for me. I felt no connection whatsoever to them, I honestly didn’t even care about the ending and I just wasn’t even bothered. The only thing I’d hoped for was that the dogs survived the perilous, dangerous journey. Or rather, what we are lead to believe is a dangerous journey....spoiler alert - it isn’t.
The writing, again, I just didn’t connect with it. There wasn’t much detail about anything, everything happened so fast that there wasn’t really anytime to connect to any of the characters, there was no atmosphere and the whole read was just a huge disappointment to me. There were things mentioned early on in the book that just were never mentioned again and there wasn’t really any logic to any of the plot at all.
I don’t know what I can even say that’s positive about this, apart from the cover is beautiful, I read it in less than 3 hours and I’m honestly glad it’s over...
I went into it expecting a beautifully, atmospheric, wintry tale of 3 sisters trying to figure out what happened to their brother. From the back of the book I was promised enchanting, sisterhood and adventure. I got a very poor adventure, it wasn’t enchanting and there was hardly any sisterhood.
I’m not sure if it was the writing, or the actual story being told that didn’t mesh with me but I just didn’t connect to this book at all.
From the first page we are thrown into the lives of Mila, Pípa, Senna and Oskar. Four siblings who’s mother died and their father abandoned them 5 years ago. The first chapter is literally them arguing about how else they can eat cabbages because that’s all they have to eat from the forest. The siblings have 2 dogs who start barking outside, Mila goes to check on them and then these strange men show up. Everything is going okay, until that night, Mila wakes up to find her brother, Oskar, talking to a weirdly distorted face in the window and then they wake up in the morning and Oskar is gone. Senna believes Oskar left as their father did, but Mila doesn’t believe he would and so begins our ‘adventure of enchantment and sisterhood’....apparently.
I have to say, the characters all felt a little flat for me. I felt no connection whatsoever to them, I honestly didn’t even care about the ending and I just wasn’t even bothered. The only thing I’d hoped for was that the dogs survived the perilous, dangerous journey. Or rather, what we are lead to believe is a dangerous journey....spoiler alert - it isn’t.
The writing, again, I just didn’t connect with it. There wasn’t much detail about anything, everything happened so fast that there wasn’t really anytime to connect to any of the characters, there was no atmosphere and the whole read was just a huge disappointment to me. There were things mentioned early on in the book that just were never mentioned again and there wasn’t really any logic to any of the plot at all.
I don’t know what I can even say that’s positive about this, apart from the cover is beautiful, I read it in less than 3 hours and I’m honestly glad it’s over...