Note: We read this book as an advanced review copy (ARC) given to our parent companies, everafterbooks.uk and theubergroup.org.
The coolest thing I noticed about the folklore fantasy novel The Bone Drenched Woods was how its main character, Hyacinth, balances freedom and safety in a world designed to prevent both (moderate spoilers follow).
Hyacinth is a young, unmarried woman living in a village surrounded by dense forest. The forest is home to monstrous Wendigo-like creatures known as "the Teeth" that slaughter anyone who doesn't pay their respects with offerings of flesh and bone, preferably human. The residents of the village can leave, but that won't help — the other settlements they know of are no better, and some have it much worse.
So the villagers do what they can to survive. Over time, they've developed a religious faith that places male elders in control of everyone and everything. Women and girls are at the bottom of the social order and under constant scrutiny for sin and witchcraft. Punishments for even imagined crimes are swift and often deadly, and it's soon apparent that this is at least partly designed to fuel offerings for the Teeth.
Hyacinth's older sisters were married off to men in other villages, never to return. Hyacinth despises her own marriage prospects and many of her contemporaries have already been sacrificed to the Teeth or met other, no-less-terrible fates. So when she and a friend hear of a mythical tribe of witch-women living in the forest, they agree to run away and join them.
Their plan goes horribly wrong, however, and Hyacinth learns the hard way that her only paths forward in life are a miserable marriage or the Teeth, and that both will lead to an early grave. Even this choice is taken from her when the village elders force her to wed one of their own, a disfavored elder bound for exile. Hyacinth's new husband is bitter and cruel, but they're soon forced to cooperate in a stranger and more dangerous place.
So to recap: The village elders don't have the ability or even the will to overcome the teeth, so they placate these monsters by sacrificing the most physically and emotionally vulnerable members of their society. And Hyacinth has no way to escape the villages or overthrow the elders, despite attempts to do both. This makes safety the exact opposite of freedom. The two simply can not coexist in her world.
Real life works this way, too — everyone gives up at least some freedom and safety to survive and get what they want. But in the world of The Bone Drenched Woods, these ideas are completely incompatible, and this plays out in a way that obviously hurts women. Because women in the villages are physically weaker, raised to be obedient, and are otherwise held back by abuse and non-stop pregnancies.
This makes them perfect targets for the elders who want one thing, above all else: not to be eaten by the Teeth themselves.
In summary, human civilization has given up. It has adapted to the unstoppable predators in the forest by discarding what makes humanity exceptionally powerful: willing cooperation, in service of a better world. The elders have embraced their role as middlemen in the Teeth's meat supply.
How does Hyacinth navigate this? Very reasonably, given her upbringing and what she faces: She first tries to free herself by running into the forest, then adapting to married life, subverting married life, subverting her entire society, and finally by escaping in an entirely different and far more dangerous way.
None of these efforts pay off, at least how Hyacinth expects. But over time, one thing becomes clear: Hyacinth isn't a rebel so much as a human being. She never gives up trying to make the world better — mostly for herself, but often for others. Hyacinth never accepts that she's just meat, even when all the evidence says otherwise. Even when her choices get people killed, and she hates herself for what she's done.
That's not rebellion or even agency — that's humanity. And in the end, this is what leads Hyacinth through The Bone Drenched Woods.
Book sold! Thanks for this review! In a world where it seems as if women's rights are being peeled back, such dystopian horror is also relevant! I relate to this from my own life as a girl and a young woman refusing to accept half a life. Such is the history of protest and change. Others in the group try to shut the complainer up, get her to accept the way things are, but she refuses.