Review: Fiendish by Brenna Yovanoff

 

 

 

Title: Fiendish

Author: Brenna Yovanoff

Published by: Razorbill

Released: 2014

Source: Library

 

Synopsis: Clementine DeVore spent ten years trapped in a cellar, pinned down by willow roots, silenced and forgotten.

Now she’s out and determined to uncover who put her in that cellar and why.  

When Clementine was a child, dangerous and inexplicable things started happening in New South Bend. The townsfolk blamed the fiendish people out in the Willows and burned their homes to the ground. But magic kept Clementine alive, walled up in the cellar for ten years, until a boy named Fisher sets her free. Back in the world, Clementine sets out to discover what happened all those years ago. But the truth gets muddled in her dangerous attraction to Fisher, the politics of New South Bend, and the Hollow, a fickle and terrifying place that seems increasingly temperamental ever since Clementine reemerged. (Synopsis from Goodreads)

 

My Thoughts: I don't know what I think about this exactly, how I feel. This was very, very strange. It was also very, very interesting. It was just very weird.

It didn't play out like a normal story. At times, I wondered where  the whole thing was going. It wasn't set up like a normal story. Everything was weird. It felt like I got stuck in some weird, timeless place where there was strangeness and magic. It didn't feel like a real place.

I'm not sure how I feel about Clementine. It's like as soon as she got out of that canning closet, everything was fine. No adjustment needed after 10 years in a cellar? Weird. She also had this way of trying to tell everyone what to do, inserting herself into problems that weren't her own, that low key bugged me. And then there were other times that I wanted her to do something, and she just stood there. I'm mixed on Clementine.

I'd read reviews where a lot of people complained about the insta-love, and I wasn't really bothered by it. It kind of just added to the strange, weird thing that I was already feeling.

This story was just very, very strange. I don't hate it though. I'm interested to read more by Brenna Yovanoff. I don't know what to think about Fiendish. There's a part of me that says, What did I just read? Another part that says, What was the point of that? And yet another part was kind of captured by it, put under its spell. It was a super interesting idea for a story. It was definitely an experience reading this. Very strange and very weird. 

 BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 3.5/5

Super Strange. Where Am I?