Drowned Forest

by Kristopher Reisz

[Angie]

I received an ARC through NetGalley.

The Drowned Forest started off so fantastically! I seriously thought this was going to be the first 5 star book of 2014. But then it just kind of died somewhere in the middle and never picked back up. It was totally different than anything I had ever read before, and I was hooked from the very first paragraph. I read it straight through in one afternoon, hoping that the awesomeness of the beginning would return. Well, it started to pick up, but ultimately faltered.

The Drowned Forest is written as if Jane is speaking to her dead best friend, Holly. I absolutely love this narrative style, but I do think that the author had Jane use her friends name way too often to feel natural. Holly had drowned a few months prior in what's known as the drowned forest. During a church function, a huge catfish appears in the river and spits up something shiny. It's the promise ring Holly's boyfriend, Tyler, had given her right before she died, but it has a new engraving on it: HELP. Jane and Tyler go to their pastor to ask him for help, but he tells them they're suffering from magical thinking, and Holly isn't really trying to contact them from beyond the grave. Not believing him, they seek out Holly's grandfather who has also noticed some strangeness in the river. The three of them go to the place where she drowned, grandpa played his guitar, and there she was. Except she's not really Holly anymore, but a kind of monster made from mud and roots. Creepy stuff!

At around the halfway mark, The Drowned Forest lost me. We just witnessed a dead girl crawl out of the river, but Jane and Tyler run away from her. Then the story just focuses on the band that Jane is living with until she helps Holly move on. She learns to play guitar, and continues to question her faith in God. Tyler joins the band and struggles with their first live performance, and it just wasn't interesting. Your best friend and girlfriend is some kind of swamp ghoul! Playing guitar sort of pales in comparison. Eventually, they do figure out how to help Holly's spirit move on, some more creepy things happen, and then it ends. I was a little disappointed.

As a whole, I did like The Drowned Forest. I found Jane to be an interesting character, and quite liked the religious aspect. The death of her friend has put a wedge in her relationship with God, but she still believes. It was also interesting when the "river magic" started to come into play. I just wish there weren't so many chapters in the middle that only focused on the music. That really messed up the pacing and made me lose some of my earlier enthusiasm.

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.