The Wild Wood

I've wanted to try reading something by Charles de Lint for awhile now, especially after hearing him speak at Ad Astra in Toronto a few years back. Somewhere along the way I picked up a copy of The Wild Wood, which sounded interesting. I don't know why exactly I decided to read it right now (I was going to start The Ghost Bride, but changed my mind at the last second and started this instead).

The Wild Wood is the story of Eithnie, an artist who has retreated to her cabin to try to reclaim her lost artistic muse. Her paintings have been lacking soul - and critics have been noticing this as well - so she's hoping getting back to nature will help. But after a particularly troubling vision of faerie creatures, she flees to her friends in the desert. Thanks to their wisdom, she returns, determined to discover whether the faerie creatures are real (and what they want if they are).

I really liked de Lint's writing, especially near the beginning of the book. I particularly liked his descriptions (they weren't as jarring as some of Stephen King's were in The Gunslinger). I also really liked Eithnie as a character; I felt I could really relate to her. 

I wasn't a fan of how abruptly the book seemed to end. I felt like Eithnie struggled to accept the faerie creatures for 3/4 of the book, but once she did accept them, things kind of fell into place a little too neatly (this was also not helped by the fact that the only person she really told everything to sort of accepted everything right away - it just seemed too easy I guess in a story that started off questioning what was real).

But for the most part, I quite enjoyed reading The Wild Wood. I'll have to give de Lint's other books a shot.