Book Review: Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst

Into the Wild

Sarah Beth Durst

Publication Date: June 21st 2007

Publisher: Razorbill

Pages: 272

Genre:  Fairytale, Urban Fantasy, Middle Grade

Twelve-year-old Julie has grown up hearing about the dangerous world of fairy tales, The Wild, from which her mother, Rapunzel, escaped.

Now The Wild wants its characters back. Julie comes home from school to find her mother gone and a deep, dark forest swallowing her hometown. Julie must fight wicked witches, avoid glass slippers and fairy godmothers, fly griffins, and outwit ogres in order to rescue her mom and save her Massachusetts town from becoming a fairy-tale kingdom.

Sarah Beth Durst weaves a postmodern fairy tale that's fresh, funny, and sweetly poignant.

So, I picked this book off the shelf solely because it was Durst writing in the realm of fairytales, and I loved Ice. What is pretty funny, however, is this book is really nothing like Ice. It is way closer to the style of Enchanted Ivy (another Durst book I've read) instead.

This is another book that reminds me a lot of a TV show out right now, and that show would be ”Once Upon A Time". The idea is that these fairytale characters are living out in the real world. Of course the main difference is that they know they are the fairytale characters, they escaped the "Wild" where all their stories took place and defeated it down and now it is living under Julie's bed. Julie is the daughter of Rapunzel, who was lucky enough to have been born and raised in our world, though without a father since Rapunzel's Prince hadn't made it out with the rest of them.

Suddenly, though someone makes a wish and POOF the Wild is back and it is taking over the city causing people to be sucked into the fairytales, bad and good.

I really like the whole idea of characters being forced to fulfill "fairytale" events. There's a feeling of being desperate, afraid and needing to escape. It's scary and provides several very interesting plot twists once Julie is traversing them.

The prose is very lighthearted, but there's a feeling of depth underneath it that I enjoy. There is betrayal, possession, the fear of losing those you love. The stakes are big for Julie and as the reader you're not always sure who to trust.

I really liked the final way that the Wild tried to trick Julie, by bringing her what it thought her heart's desire was: her father. She has spent forever trying to figure out what he was like, wishing she had even just met him, that when she is face to face with him it was rather heart wrenching, and then when she understood that it was the Wild, she said good-bye because she knew she had too and I was so proud of her as a character.

I think I may have even teared up a bit.

Then after that at the very end, after the Wild was defeated, when it randomly spat her father out I was super exciting. I think it was a great way to end the story, as it leaves it off making you wonder what's going to happen next.

Also, I KNEW that the librarian was up to something, and when it was revealed why at the end I was so angry at how selfish she was! Why doesn't she go be in a fairytale and see how great it is going through everything over and over again, getting her feet cut off, being shoved from a tower, being forced to be evil.

I recommend this book to lovers of fairytales taken in a very unusual light, or when they are smashed all together. It isn't like Ice much at all, so don't go in reading that instead, but it is a well-written MG Contemporary Fantasy book that I am glad to own.

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