Reviewed by Jess
TITLE: Her of the Wood
AUTHOR: Veronica Watts
PUBLISHER: Less Than Three Press
LENGTH: 159 pages
RELEASE DATE: September 19, 2018
BLURB:
Determined to get out of a city where the lowest classes are subjugated into silent submission, Euodia sneaks onto a convoy of detainees being transported to the old lands to die.
Her hope is rewarded when her group meets scouts from a small but thriving community. As Euodia learns to live and work in her new home, she struggles to shake off years of conditioning so that she can be honest with Ailie about her developing feelings.
But just as she’s finding her feet, and maybe her courage, a deadly disease sweeps through the community…
REVIEW:
From the start, this book feels familiar. It echoes themes from popular YA dystopian fiction like The Giver, the “Divergent” series, and the “Hunger Games” series. While it has some interesting ideas and plots, the actual story is a little thin, and we need just a bit more time with these characters to become truly invested in them.
Euodia is a young, lower-class worker in the strict totalitarian community of Dracon. She’s smothered by rules, including ones about who she can love, so she and her girlfriend Orchid decide to escape town with a group of citizens who are being cast out from the city. But when Euodia makes the escape, Orchid does not come with, leaving Euodia heartbroken with a group of strangers. They are soon found by a group of survivors from a camp called Solace, where they are free to love who they want, eat what they want, and read the books that they want.
Euodia is a strong lead character. She came from a world where she had to keep her head down and obey, but that only made her resourceful, curious, and eager to find her place in the world. She feels an instant attraction to Ailie, a charismatic young scout for Solace, but she’s still burdened by the sadness and guilt over leaving Dracon without Orchid. The romance between Euodia and Ailie is sweet, but it wasn’t the high point of the book. It felt too low-stakes alongside the rest of the story, which feels more gritty and adult. Their shy flirting felt more awkward than romantic. However, I do like how Euodia’s confidence in herself and her sexuality grew with Ailie’s reassurance. My favorite relationship in the book is actually not the romance—it is the familial bond between Euodia and Callie, an elderly outcast who befriended Euodia right away. It feels more genuine and we get a lot of wonderful moments of trust and love between them.
Something that prevented me from really getting lost in this book is how quickly conflicts were resolved. This isn’t a very long book, but there are several conflicts that seemed to have potentially disastrous outcomes (the sickness, Broderick’s dissent) that were wrapped up in a matter of pages. There was never a strong sense of danger because everything moved so quickly. And I feel that we were supposed to place our trust too quickly in Solace and all of the citizens. Solace feels too good to be true, and I wanted just a bit of a downside to this apparent utopia.
Though it doesn’t appear that a series or sequel has been announced, the cliffhanger ending is absolutely begging for continuation. Though I wasn’t in love with everything about this book, the community of Solace and the ever-looming presence of Dracon have sparked my interest in future works.
RATING: 
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