Daughter of the forest summary by Juliet Marillier
While Daughter of the Forest is a re-imagining of the fairy tale, Tale of the Six Swans, this is a book that is best to go into blind. As a story, it is utterly, completely beautiful – a fairy tale, yes; but a fleshed-out, real one, with people and intentions and actions chaotic and human, and utterly real. This is a book that shows us that what’s truly there in a story isn’t just what our mothers and grandmothers tell us before bedtime at night; that lives can’t be so neatly cut up and packed away like that. Heroes get hurt. Bad things happen to good people. The villains aren’t always bad, and not everyone gets a happy ending. In fact, there is a passage in the book that says the same, and that sums up the book in its entirety -
If I were telling this tale, and it were not my own, I would give it a neat, satisfying ending . . . In such stories, there are no loose ends. There are no unraveled edges and crooked threads. Daughters do not give their hearts to the enemy. The wicked do not simply disappear, taking with them the satisfaction of vengeance. Young men do not find themselves divided between two worlds. Fathers know their children.
But this was my own story.
More than anything, this was a book of strength – incredible, amazing strength. The heroine was so, so strong. She had a terrible duty to perform, and she never gave up, never even faltered. When I finished Daughter of the Forest, I just sat there for a moment, thinking that there are people like her in the world, who deserve every ounce of respect and admiration I could ever give.
I can’t think of any flaws I found in the book. The story is intense, vivid and passionate, the writing mellifluous, and the imagery utterly captivating. Maybe some readers may complain about the length – the book is a little more than 400 pages long – but I found the length just right. And also, maybe some would also complain that the plot follows a far too typical story line – girl-gets-into-trouble-and-hero-is-introduced-and-then-the-villain-huge-climactic-scene-then-all-live-happily-ever-after – but, seriously. This is a retelling of such a story, after all. I admired Marissa Meyer for managing to stay so close to the source material while still rewriting the tale into a novel one.
There are not many books going back to which feels like meeting an old friend again; Daughter of the Forest is one such, and a book I will cherish for all my life.
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