Goblin Wood

This week I decided I'd go ahead and dip my feet back into fantasy and I read Hilari Bell's "The Goblin Wood"

I actually only have a copy because my sister was reading it and insisted I had to read the trilogy, but I only have enough patience for the first book. (Not that they're terrible works of literature, I'm just busy right now.)

Wow, I digress.
Anyway, the format for the book is pretty simple, it has to do with goblins, witches, and humans and there is sort of this good vs. evil type of motif going on. I think the most clever thing about this book (And I assume it is a recurring theme throughout the trilogy) is the sort of back and forth of multiple narrators from the perspective of both the "Human" side and the "Goblin"side. With these two main narrators we get this kind of omniscient view of the world while our individual narrators have very much skewed perspectives. The trick Bell really pulls off here is that she explores the fact that evil doesn't actually exist and it's all a matter of perspective and that conflict comes from miscommunication/misunderstanding. It's a pretty simple and altruistic moral but it's strung together rather beautifully through the perspectives of our two main characters (Makenna and Tobin).

The magic system is fun and believable and although the world isn't as fleshed out as Tolkien I still found it to be somewhat immersive and I enjoyed my time while I was there. All in all pretty good read, but it's definitely directed more at young adults than at 22 year old men.