Book Review: A Dark and Starless Forest

Hollowell, Sarah. A Dark and Starless Forest. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston: 2023.

Front cover of A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell

TW: child abuse, abandonment, gaslighting, manipulation, Stockholm Syndrome, torture, death, murder, gun violence, self-entitled arrogant white male, power-tripping control freak psychopath who needs to be chopped up into bloody little bits

I decided to read a lot of queer fiction this year. Goals.

This is a very dark fantasy novel — I’m tempted to say it’s actually a horror novel. The only thing that differentiates dark fantasy from horror is… world building. That said, it’s dark fantasy because the author made up types of magic. (The flower/plant magic in particular is brilliant.)

I cannot express enough my appreciation for the queer rep (including ace), fat girl rep, and disability rep in this book. Love it.

SPOILERS:

I figured out early in the book that their… so-called guardian, Frank is a manipulative control freak. Early in the book, I thought he might be a narcissist with BPD, but eventually he proves to be a psychopath.

Stockholm Syndrome also comes to mind — each girl has some level of it. Elle is a flying monkey with the greatest level of Stockholm Syndrome.