Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I had absolutely loved Allison Saft’s debut novel, Down Comes The Night, and had been eagerly looking forward to reading her sophomore release. I had admittedly struggled with the pacing of the beginning of her debut but found that the pace quickly picked up and I was sucked completely into the story. With A Far Wilder Magic, I struggled with the pacing of the book the entire way through.
The first half of the book spends so much time fleshing out the town of Wickdon, having Wes and Margaret struggle with their separate pasts and with existing near each other, and establishing a pattern of hate toward Margaret for her faith that there is little room for plot and relationship development. I felt like I was halfway through the book and the only things I knew about the characters were that they were both desperate for familial approval and would rather bury their pasts. By the time that the hunt for the Hala finally began, I struggled to care what the outcome of the hunt would be because I found myself bored from the first half of the book, and I didn’t feel any kind of connection to the characters to truly care about their fates. I wanted to care whether or not Margaret ever thawed toward Wes, whether either of them found peace, but I did not have enough of a handle on who these characters were beyond their traumas to be captivating by either of them. This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year, so I’m disappointed to be deeply ambivalent toward it as a whole but the pacing just did not work for me and left the characters feeling hollow.