My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The Boy from the Woods is a stand alone novel and follows Julia and her group of friends.
Julia has been in love with Michael for over 2 years when he finally makes an advance on her. When he has had his fun he drops her and Julia tries her hardest to get over her infatuation for him.
Luckily she has a bunch of friends who pull her out of her
slum. But just as things look up and she may actually have another cute
guy entering her life, she ends up finding Michael in the woods after
an accident and saves his life.
Shortly after, Michael miraculously recovers but he also drastically changes in personality. He desperately wishes to get closer to Julia again and make amends. But is he really Michael?
~ Julia quickly looked back down at the keyboard, trying to continue her recital unperturbedly, but she was fully aware of his eyes on her. In fact, she wanted his gaze on her. She wanted him to absorb every note she was playing. And suddenly, she found herself wishing he could somehow hear that this music had once been meant for him.
The story takes place in Austria and it is fun to read the greetings and occasional references to actual landmarks. I have been in Austria myself and speak German, so to me it made it feel authentic and added a little extra.
There where a few things that bothered me and in the end they reflect the rating I have given.
1. The writing. It feels like a summary of events more then actual story telling. It is a little distant and portrays the personalities in a shallow light, it just does not delve deeper into them.
2. The narrative of the characters is suppose to be 'funny' and resonate with the younger crowd (text speech and pop culture included), but reality is that no one speaks the way this author has written their dialogue. The pun after pun just feels forced (even if they are Austrian *cough*)...
3. On the one hand Julia is mature enough to see her mothers struggles (she is 18 after all), on the other hand she acts like a 12 yo when talking about boys or relationships. It sends really mixed messages and takes away from the actual plot of the story.
The interesting part was the Druid Lorre and the actual events taking place at about 75% in. The last quarter of this book redeems it from an early grave. The ending is very touching and I believe it will strike a tear in anyone that gets that far!
Be forewarned that there is a love triangle in action too. Luckily Thorston kind of makes up for the lack of spine in Julia. I think a second POV and some internal dialogue would have given this book a lot more spark as a whole.
So would I recommend it?
I dont think I would. Perhaps if the person is either living in that area or is into that kind of Lorre. It would probably resonate better with the younger crowd (though I doubt they would be into Enya) since it is all PG and touches on certain imported subjects that play that stage of life.
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