Books set in the forest with a magical twist are some of my favorites! In the novel Betwixt, the use of tree and plant names for the characters was significant and cozy. There were some I wasn’t familiar with that I had to look up such as Alder’s sister Camas. I’ve always been drawn to the woods and plant life, even though I’m terrible at growing and caring for plants myself. My other favorite part of the story was the village in the trees, like, literally in the trees! I can just picture it, a grown up magical version of the Berenstein Bears! I also loved being familiar with the location in Alaska. I vacationed very near Ketchikan a few years ago and this allowed me to immerse further into the setting.
My heart went out to Wren, losing her mother at such a young age. I was sometimes angry with her mother for not sharing her background with Wren but I also understood that she was trying to protect her daughter and probably never imagined she would die and Wren would end up close to the forest where she grew up. All throughout the story I struggled with the choices some of the characters made. It reminded me of real life. As we get older and look back we realize what we didn’t know in the moment and wish we might have taken a different path or made a different choice.
This YA Fantasy would have been a non-stop read for me if something called ‘life’ didn’t interfere. With that being said, I finished it within the week. The author does an amazing job with the flow of the story, especially considering the switches between present time to Wren’s dreams.
I loved reading this book as an adult and I would have loved it as a teenager. I would definitely recommend it to young and old alike, especially if you love the woodsy magical setting.