So I read this a few weeks back and it is not as fresh in my memory as books usually would be when I write the review, but I can tell you the feeling I had when I finished is still lingering even now.

I wasn't wrong when I thought this was a blend of fairytale and sci fi, but the sci fi conceit is limited at best. It's more an implication than a clear element, the weight of story sits far more upon the fairytale, and to an extent a sort of detective noir. A wife runnning off with her lover, now lost in the woods at the edge of the world, and her husband's hired detective trying to track her down.

Don't let my summary deceive you. This book is not straight forward or simple in any sense, and is so deeply strange in places that I must admit it lost me. I was compelled to keep reading, intrigued and utterly confused, and at times repelled, by what I could glean of what was going on, and when I was done I felt somewhat adrift. I felt like I had followed that detective into the woods, against the warnings of the guide and even the book itself, and that I was still lost there when it was done. Maybe that was the point. Hard to say.

You will spot elements of fairytale here: Hansel and Gretel and their trail of crumbs, the Big Bad Wolf and the woodsman, the overbearing forest, but most of it is crafted entirely anew from its own poetic, surreal parts, a dream of a half remembered series of stories bound together into a breathless whole that doesn't necessarily have the answers to the questions it asks. This book was quite an experience, though I can't say for certain that I enjoyed it exactly. Maybe I can't see the wood for the trees.