This is a beautifully written book—with a heart of darkness, as I would expect from Lauren Groff. I love an artistic depiction of a wintery landscape (literary, visual, whatever), and the description here is vivid and gorgeous, and also horrible and terrifying. I really felt as though I was fleeing through the snowy woods along with Groff’s runaway protagonist, feeling her hunger and her fear, but also her capability and her freedom. I’ve seen this referred to as a kind of fairy tale, and it certainly has that feeling: Little Red Riding Hood fleeing from the Big Bad Wolf (kind of literally, in some cases).

The book seems to have divided opinion, but I come down on the side of the yeasayers. No, there isn’t any plot to speak of, and yes, there’s a lot of bodily functions and injury/disease/death, and there’s some downright horror, but there’s also beauty and ultimately a kind of sublimity that makes you appreciate being alive. The last lines moved me to tears and will stay with me a long time.

Further reading…