Fairytales for Wilde Girls is a twisted gothic fairytale that will be adored by fans of Neil Gaiman, Ransom Riggs, and the Brothers Grimm.
Isola Wilde was named for a dead girl, is protected by ghosts, and chases unicorns through the magical wood next to her house. To everyone around her, Isola is strange, and wild, and a little too thin. But all Isola needs are her magical guardians and her treasured fairytale book.
So when she discovers a dead girl hanging in a bird cage within the woods, she is not entirely worried. That is, not until the girl starts threatening Isola and her new neighbour Edgar, and suddenly the love and protection of all of the ghosts and mermaids in the world may not be enough.
Not to mention, her parents don’t speak anymore, even her friends think she is acting weird, and her friendship with Edgar is nothing but dangerous. It is up to Isola to work out what the dead girl wants from her, before her beloved wood shrivels and dies – and she goes the same way.
Fairytales for Wilde Girls is a rare thing in the mass of YA fairytale books – completely unique and unpredictable, with a haunting beauty that will prey on your mind.
Debut author Allyse Near balances whimsy and horror in a twisted fairytale that is grounded in a realistic modern day. Fans of Neil Gaiman and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children will adore Near’s fantastical world, and those who love the Brothers Grimm will appreciate her own carefully constructed fairytales.
Near doesn’t only play tricks on her own characters, but on the reader as well. You may see the first twist coming. Demonstrating more subtlety than usually accompanies this genre, Near will even allow you a minute of smug self-assurance, before hitting you with a relentless volley of twists and turns that will leave you reeling.
It is an easy novel to grow lost in, and not just because of the captivating story. The writing is interspersed with gorgeous portraits of the various characters, and Near also includes character lists, fragments of Edgar Allen Poe’s poetry, and snippets of dialogue transcripts.
This is a debut novel, and it isn’t perfect. Isola is a little too waif-like, the manic pixie dreamgirl element of her character is addressed but is never truly broken down. But in the end it doesn’t matter because in a book about what is real and what is not real, it seems appropriate to have a protagonist who is a little too tragically perfect, a shining light against a backdrop of gritty magical realism.
Fairytales for Wilde Girls is a treasure of a novel. We just don’t recommend that you read it before bed.
Fairytales for Wilde Girls by Allyse Near was released in Australia on June 1 2013. For more information, or to purchase the book, visit Random House Australia.
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