Wildwood Dancing
by Juliet Marillier
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Book Summary Information
Author: Juliet MarillierEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-01-23
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 416
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Book Reviews of Wildwood Dancing
Book Review: A fun little book with unfortunate implications: 3.5 stars
Summary: 3 Stars
Wildwood Dancing is a pleasant and entertaining read. It kept me up late at least once. The storyline is fairy tale-inspired: five sisters use a magic portal to pass into the Otherworld every full moon night. But while their father is ill, their domineering cousin Cezar begins to take over, and he plans to cut down the forest and slaughter its mystical denizens to avenge a dead brother. Throw in some vampires and an enchanted frog, and there's more than enough story for 400 pages. If it sounds a little cutesy, or heavy on the fantasy elements.... well, it is, more so than any other Marillier book I've read (and I've read almost all of them). There were moments that, in my mind, crossed the line from cute into just plain corny, but every reader has a different tolerance there.
Even for adult readers there's plenty to enjoy here, although if you haven't read any of Marillier's books yet, I'd recommend trying one of her adult ones first, preferably Daughter of the Forest. I liked the setting--Transylvania, it's different and exotic--and while the geographic scope of the book is quite small (the girls rarely ever leave their own estate and its surrounding forest) the setting felt well fleshed-out. The character development is decent but not exceptional, and the plot moves along briskly.
Now the problems. First, the male lead. Marillier's trying to weave in multiple fairy tales here, but an inherent problem with a "Frog Prince" is that the romantic hero has to appear as a frog. In this case, he spends most of the book as the heroine's pet: weak, childish, and stealing people's food. It didn't work for me, at all, and although I usually appreciate the way this author writes romance, this character was way too emasculated to be remotely attractive.
The thematics are a thornier issue. There are a lot of "character filibusters": the sisters give lectures on why women are capable, why people must respect nature, etc. This is lazy writing; readers should be given more credit. But it's not only that: since Marillier's opened the door by trying to "teach" young readers, let's look at what this book is actually saying. Despite the feminist rhetoric, the five sisters need a man to solve their problems. We're supposed to be outraged when the sexist Cezar takes over the family finances, but the sad truth is that he's far more responsible with them than the supposedly capable heroine. And once Cezar has tightened his grip on the household, the girls never reassert control; they require another man to go over Cezar's head.
Then there's the view of romance. Two of the sisters fall in love with men they have reason to believe are dangerous. Lip service is paid to caution, but in reality its advocates turn out to be wrong, since True Love is Always Right. Marillier misses an opportunity to distinguish healthy love from a dangerous infatuation with a sexual predator (the latter situation doesn't happen in any of her books, which I suppose is one reason they're fantasy; still, the implications seemed especially unfortunate here). Giving up everything for the person you love is presented as romantic, and one of the sisters literally starves herself because she doesn't get to see her boyfriend every day--and it's not presented as stupid or melodramatic. Now, I don't believe for a minute that young girls are going to emulate these behaviors simply because they encountered them in Wildwood Dancing, but for an author who's trying to convey a message, the one she actually sends isn't particularly uplifting.
I probably will read the sequel, because I was entertained by this book and because I generally like this author's work. Still, this isn't her best, and for a young adult book, the "moral" of this fairy tale is rather less than wholesome.
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