Review: In the Heart of the Dark Wood

In the Heart of the Dark Wood by Billy Coffey

My rating: 2 of 5 stars




I received a copy of In the Heart of the Dark Wood from the publisher in return for an honest review.

I was looking forwards to this as it takes place several years after When Mockingbirds Sing, having really enjoyed When Mockingbirds Sing I had high hopes for this one.

It started off well. The book centres around Allie and Zach, who after setting out on a journey realise they are lost in the forest. This worked fine to begin with but most of the story (from 25% - 90%) is about the two children and their experience while in the woods and it really started to drag for me. It felt like this part went on forever and I found myself starting to get bored and skim the pages, it was just too repetitive for my liking.

One thing that bothered me, the children are 12 years old but they acted very young for their age. I know they were having a rough time of it but some of the reactions and dialogue just didn't feel right for their age at times.

I was actually tempted to give up on this one and mark it as DNF but I wanted to know what was in the woods and what the outcome of their journey would be, so I stuck with it and skimmed most of the story from around 60% to 90%. The ending was sweet and emotional but the book as a whole just didn't work for me. I think perhaps because I wasn't enjoying it as much as I wanted to a lot of the deeper message inside the story was missed.


Reviews also posted to my blog: Scarlet's Web
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