Length: 384 Pages
Genres: YA Fantasy
Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars
A special thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing me with an ARC of this book!
Trigger Warnings for Violence, Racism, Blood, Gore, Animal Death (Not Her Dog), Neglect and Emotional Abuse by a Parent, Antisemitism and Xenophobia
I was so excited when I got an ARC of this book, as I've heard nothing but excellent things about it! And now it's my turn to sing its praises.
Margaret Welty has seen the legendary hala in the flesh. It appeared to her, a snow-white fox the size of her dog, Trouble, before anyone else. Now, the Halfmoon Hunt is after it, flooding her small backwater town, Wickdon, with the richest and rowdiest New Albians, all thirsting for the blood of the world's last demiurge. Depending on the religion, demiurges are either demons, gifts from God, or pieces of God himself, but one thing is for sure: they are dangerous, and wherever they show up destruction is left in their wake. Margaret knows firsthand there is only one thing more dangerous -- seeking the philospher's stone, which can only be made out of demiurge's boiled down body. She almost lost her mother, Evelyn, to it. Left alone in a crumbling mansion filled with ghosts of her past, Margaret wants nothing more than for her mother to return home from her obsessive search. And if that means she has to risk her life in the Halfmoon Hunt to win the demiurge for her, she will.
Weston Winters is desperate. He is an alchemist -- or almost one -- who has lost every one of his apprenticeships due to his own folly. He's exhausted every option in his sprawling city of Dunway and being taken on by the mercurial Evelyn Welty is his last option. And it's not just his hopes of changing the world for the better that rest on his shoulders, but the happiness of his mother and four wild sisters. After an accident that cost them their father's life, they struggle to make ends meet. Weston will do anything to make it, even if it means living with Evelyn's daughter, who does little more than seethe at his sunny presence. When she suggests they enter the Halfmoon Hunt -- every team has to consist of one hunter and one alchemist -- he balks at the thought. He's a good Sumic boy and his mother would kill him if he so much as laid a finger on a demiurge. But the victors don't just win the demiurge's body. They win money.
I loved both of the main characters -- Margaret for her practicality and heart, which is soft as clay underneath her armor, and Weston for his positivity and mischievousness! The mythology was fascinating, and I loved especially learning about Weston's Sumic religion. He's Banvish, and this combination is this world's Irish Catholic. His mother, Aoife, has little figures of the demiurges, and sometimes prays to them. He explains they don't worship them, but use them as sort of messengers between them and God, sort of like saints. Margaret herself is half Yu'adir, which is heavily influenced by Judaism. Both of them are the subject of ridicule and hate by the New Albians, and I could totally understand both of their reactions to it. Margaret wants to be forgotten, to blend in with the population, to be safe. Weston is a fighter and can't help but pick at the prejudices in the town, much to Margaret's chagrin.
A big part of this book is the exploration of family dynamics. On one hand, we have the Winters family, who is full of love, despite their differences, and will always protect each other and be there for one another. And on the other we have Margaret's family. Evelyn is gone most of the time, in search of something to make her family real again. Margaret has lost a little brother, and her father left them, so she clings desperately to the memory of her mother before alchemy and grief overtook her life. But the thing she has to learn, no matter how heartbreaking it is, is that she doesn't deserved to be treated this way. She is such a strong character, but is made weak by her controlling and neglectful mother, and I found that so realistic. Because oftentimes it those we love the most that hurt us the most.
My one little qualm about this book is that I sort of wish it had just been Adult instead of Young Adult. The romance is at the forefront of A Far Wilder Magic, and we have some rather explicit and steamy scenes, even a sex scene towards the end. Even though Saft was coy with her words, it's obvious to anyone with an inkling of knowledge about sex what is going on. If it had been adult, maybe we could have explored those themes and scenes even better.
All in all I really loved it. It's full of magic and heartache, love and hope, and will surely bring a smile to your face. Highly recommend!
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