Marzie's Reviews > Deer Life

I received a copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Deer Life is a dark fairy tale, with flashes of eerie atmosphere reminiscent of Alan Garner. Sexsmith mentions a number of rejections of the manuscript in his preface. While it's not so bad as to be a vanity project, better editorial direction could have helped this story find focus and become more compelling. The characters lack dimensionality and the world-building could have been more thorough in that the rules of magic in this world and the origins of poor interactions between witches and humans are never satisfactorily explained. The witches of this world are purple-eyed baddies. End of story. P. S. They had a coalition. Even children appreciate complexity.

The book, which has a beautiful cover that caught my eye, is illustrated throughout with vignettes of Sexsmith's pencil drawings which add a certain charm but which are not doing the book any favors by not living up to the beautiful cover. The visual impression left is dissonant.