Weyward
by Emilia Hart
Weyward has been in my feeds constantly over the last months and I finally managed to get to it to do a book review.
First off, I adore the cover and that will by default make me pick up the book regardless of the subject. Whoever the designer was gets full cred. But the book itself, was not what I expected from the cover. I didn’t read too much about it to spoil the story but I was expecting something more fantasy or magical from the lush illustration.
What Weyward offers is three points of view from historical characters that are linked by heritage and beautiful writing, in 1619, 1942 and 2019. What surprised me was the abuse in relationships, mainly because I wasn’t expecting them. While mostly not on the page or lightly covered, they are an essential element to the plot and if that’s an issue, dear reader, I suggest this may not be the book for you—do know going in what to expect. The ending ties up the plot and has a little bit of a thriller aspect.
What the back cover text promises is “female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.” I think it really does a great job of showing the three female main characters facing adversity and surviving the men in their worlds. I loved the link to the natural world but I missed more depth to that—there’s not quite as much of the connection to nature in real time. Most of the references are thoughts or memories of events. But I do think that connection that is suggested is a really cool element to the book.
If I’d been told what Weyward was about I might not have picked it up to read. I did love the way the three stories come together, but it’s a wild ride with some disturbing elements that linger with me in a negative way, when I really want to have the connection with nature echo and women finding their power, what echoes are the scars of the women. That’s credit to the writer though, that the women came alive to leave me with their stories.
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