Review: Through the Woods

Through the Woods
by Emily Carroll
★★★★☆

Synopsis:

'It came from the woods. Most strange things do.'

Five mysterious, spine-tingling stories follow journeys into (and out of?) the eerie abyss.

These chilling tales spring from the macabre imagination of acclaimed and award-winning comic creator Emily Carroll.

Come take a walk in the woods and see what awaits you there... (from Goodreads)

My Review:

So to be honest when I first saw this book, I thought it would mainly be JF retellings of childhood fairy tales, with pretty art and poetic writing.

What I actually happened to pick up was a YA creepfest that was probably written by Edgar Allan Poe’s morbid ghost, drawn with ink and blood.

And oh how I loved this book.

It has several stories, with various plots, each more creepy than the last. My favorite would probably be in the conclusion. It’s like this super freaky mini retelling of Red Riding Hood. Perfection. I scare pretty easily, and I have to admit that I needed to read something else before turning off the light that night.

While the artist is the same, the style varies from story to story which I liked. Some are a bit more colorful than others, yet they all have this black and white appeal, showing a nice use of positive and negative space in the art that I personally have to appreciate. 

We start with these three girls left at home, waiting for their father to return as the snow piles up around them. And then one by one, they disappear… Then we have the story of a woman married to a rich man, who swears she hears singing in the walls every night… A tale of two brothers follows along as they go off to kill a beast, and it turns suddenly Cain & Abel on us… Two women pretend to be able to speak to the dead. One can actually see them… A young girl visits with her brother and his new wife, and something is not quite right with her, or the housekeeper, or the woods by the house…

As far as the stories themselves are concerned, each ends with a bit of a cliffhanger, so you never really find out what happens in the end…..

I think this would make a nice October read.