Empire of Wild

This was an angry, anguished, sinister, and provocative modern-day fairy tale that reminded me a bit of Victor LaValle's The Changeling, another grim tale centered around an unraveling relationship with overarching themes of social conflict. While I certainly enjoyed the read, the novel wasn't a total success for me. It seemed to strive for literary horror, and never quite managed to be both literature and horror at the same time. Moments of depth and deep emotion were strung together by rather one-dimensional horror-story bits, as if the scariness was being forced into a much simpler, more developed tale about human struggle. The character vignettes where people's inner life spun into something otherworldly worked particularly well—it was the narrative piecing those vignettes together that fell flat for me. But, the moments of depth were good ones, the horror-story bits were entertaining, and there were aspects of magical realism that truly did work. The last few pages really sang. I'll definitely keep reading Dimaline; her Marrow Thieves was exquisite. Looking forward to seeing what she comes up with next.