This is a very deceptive story. It's like a story within a story, only to be within another story.
...yeah, so here's the amazon summary without all the random praise/reviews, "The waking forest has secrets. To Rhea, it appears like a mirage, dark and dense, at the very edge of her backyard. But when she reaches out to touch it, the forest vanishes. She's desperate to know more--until she finds a peculiar boy who offers to reveal its secrets. If she plays a game.
To the Witch, the forest is her home, where she sits on her throne of carved bone, waiting for dreaming children to beg her to grant their wishes. One night, a mysterious visitor arrives and asks her what she wishes for, but the Witch sends him away. And then the uninvited guest returns.
The strangers are just the beginning. Something is stirring in the forest, and when Rhea's and the Witch's paths collide, a truth more treacherous and deadly than either could ever imagine surfaces. But how much are they willing to risk to survive?" AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Rhea lives in our Earth. Like, is home schooled, has four sisters, loving parents, and kind of hallucinates a lot. She frequently sees grotesque things that aren't truly there, and she's always had a dream where she walks to the top of the stairs but never manages to open the door. Until one night, she does open the door and finds darkness waiting for her.
Meanwhile, there's a witch in the woods who grants wishes to dreaming children. The children come to her in their sleep, and she plucks a petal from the flower of her heart in exchange for something from the child to grant their wish. She often receives bruises, cuts, scraps, etc; as her payment. One day there are two children who approach, one asks to live in her world, while the other asks her what is her wish.
Rhea tries to sleep in the attic to see if she can dream about what's behind the door of her dreams, but it greeted only by a talking darkness. He tells her she already knows who he is, but what if they play a game where if she guesses his real name, she wins?
...and then a series of more bizarre events start to happen. That's enough summary.
So, this book is actually pretty clever with how the layers of three different stories (no I didn't mention the third story in the summary since I feel like it'd be a spoiler for REASONS) unfold and play into each other.
That being said, a lot of the middle bits were kind of confusing as we were stuck with a narrator who didn't quite know what was going on but was desperate to figure it out.
A lot of the world building was good, but I wish there had been more world building in the third story, the true story if you will, ...well because reasons (no spoilers!). It just seemed to have the most importance on the story, and I wish it had fully committed to telling that aspect of the story. I know we get to see that aspect in different ways all along, but if there had been more, I would have appreciated it.
Going back to Rhea's sisters; I felt like they weren't characterized nearly as well as Rhea. There was lots of telling and some showing, but all of their personalities felt a bit forced.
All in all, it was a bit of a confusing book, but if you can muddle through the end, then there is some kind of reward, I'm just not sure how to feel about it.
Happy reading!
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