Book Review: The Wren Hunt by Mary Watson

Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Nov. 6th 2018
432 Pages

Every Christmas, Wren is chased through the woods near her isolated village by her family’s enemies—the Judges—and there’s nothing that she can do to stop it. Once her people, the Augurs, controlled a powerful magic. But now that power lies with the Judges, who are set on destroying her kind for good.

In a desperate bid to save her family, Wren takes a dangerous undercover assignment—as an intern to an influential Judge named Cassa Harkness. Cassa has spent her life researching a transformative spell, which could bring the war between the factions to its absolute end. Caught in a web of deceit, Wren must decide whether or not to gamble on the spell and seal the Augurs’ fate. – Goodreads

This book . . . can leave you on the fence. You literally can go either way with it and I am almost positive that most people will either love it or hate it. I loved it but I am adding a * to this.

Without a question, I loved reading about Wren. Yes, she was like a scared little bird a majority of the book but she didn’t exactly let her fear stop her from doing things. Her loyalty to her family stopped her from being anything more than a scared bird. But I liked her growth or what was there. The way she was, made sense, given her family and what she had went through. I liked her.

But I really liked the romance within this novel. Predictable? Slightly because it could have gone another way real fast and if it went that other way I would have been crushed. But I loved loved the interest. Do I think it could have used more deepness? It wouldn’t have hurt. The emotions that she feels doesn’t come overnight and at the same time, she is fairly honest. There are scenes where I just had to pause because they were just so beautiful.

However, my reasoning for giving this book an asterisk next to I loved it is because there wasn’t enough history and there wasn’t enough details in the setting. We are talking about two families at war. We are talking about secrets and betrayals that can change the course of everything and yet there wasn’t anything more than glimpses over the history of Judges and the Augurs. Because the book was generally slow, I was disappointed in the lack of richness and details in the scenery as well as the history. I mean come on, its Ireland.

Beyond this, I loved the book. I was captivated and wanted to dive head first into this book novel, even after I began reading it. There is so much promise and I am looking forward to a book two.

3 Pickles