I read this book a little while ago and had thought that I already had put my review about it here on the blog. Well, my mistake. This is one of the few books I am not happy with it. I can´t share the excitement other readers express about it and as sad as it is can´t really recommend this trilogy to others. If you want to know why that is, keep reading.
Blutwald*
by Julie Heiland
Wald Trilogy #2
Publisher Fischer FJB on September 24, 2015
Genre Children 14+
Pages 432
Format Hardcover
Source Publisher
✶½
“We can´t see each other anymore,” were his last words. And even though Robin knows that this is the only way to protect both of their lives, her longing for Emilian seems to grow every day. But when Birkaras, the leader of the Taurer, forces them to leave their tribe and kill an innocent person, Robin has to make a decision – a life and death decision. Will Emilian be by her side? (personal translation ©Vi at Inkvotary).
Story
Robin has involuntarily become the leader of her tribe – and fails at all levels. Her fear of responsibility, her guilty feelings about her father´s death, and the hatred of the entire village do not make her situation any easier. Your solution: escape. But in the long run, that´s not a solution, especially since her best friend Laurin also clearly tells her that he wants to be more than just her friend. And the man Robin actually wants, Emilian, is far away and wants her to forget him.
Style
Brittle, incredibly dark and abundantly macabre, Julie Heiland has put another strange novel in the scene with this book. Unfortunately, the author has remained true to her choppy and dull writing style. The action starts around two weeks after the devastating end events of Volume one and shows a tribe that is now completely out of joint. Nothing works anymore, everyone literally screams, and the reader experiences a protagonist who is completely the opposite of what she embodied in the first volume. And as if that wasn´t enough, the author changes the setting (which is good in itself, after all, the reader wants to get to know the other side) and puts her main character in the Tauren camp. But whoever thinks it will get better – is wrong. There is one cruel scene after the other and in some places, it becomes so illogical, confused, dark and strange that it also kills the last spark of reading pleasure in terms of reading technology.
The story is so morbid and wacky at times, not to say morbidly, that you only shake your head. Suddenly there are dialogues that are cheesy and so confused and crazy on the next move that as a reader you are almost forced to go back a few lines to find your way around. In the last third, the whole thing becomes so tough that it is almost a real blessing to be at the end.
Characters
In the first volume, most of the characters weren´t a hit, but things get a lot worse here. The remaining Leone men have become worse wimps than they used to be, and the women of the village are showing signs of doing the same. The reader simply doesn´t get access to the characters, let alone the plot itself.
Robin has become a cowardly girl who, as soon as it becomes uncomfortable or difficult, would like to run away and often simply does so. Little by little, the reader realizes why it becomes the way it is in the end, but that doesn´t make things any better.
Conclusion
Too brittle, too dry and in some places too unreliable. Oddity takes on a whole new dimension here and the story itself is not convincing. Well, the reader knows at the end where the third part will play, but there is no anticipation at all.
Happy reading
*This book was, at the time this review was published, only available in the German language.
Julie Heiland
Julie Heiland, born 1991, lives nearby Munich. She studied journalism. Parallel she made an acting and rhetoric apprenticeship and played in some TV films.
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