Review — Once Was Willem by M. R. Carey

A few weeks ago, I saw Christopher Buehlman's glowing review of Once Was Willem and immediately put it on my list. On the day it came out, I picked up a copy from my local bookstore and started reading it. I just finished it last night and wanted to share my thoughts here because I really loved this book.

Brief synopsis:

Once Was Willem follows the story of a young boy (Willem) who dies and is subsequently raised from the dead. I don't want to get into the "how" or "why" here because I feel like they're pretty important plot points on their own and don't want to spoil them. The core of the story follows Willem, or Once-Was-Willem as he's now known, and the various people he meets and experiences he has, culminating in a pretty surreal and epic finale.

Review:

This book was odd but I grew to love it the more that I read. It really throws the trust onto the reader to follow along through some unorthodox choices; medieval style dialect, first-person omniscient POV, lots of separate seeming but ultimately intertwined stories that all come together in the end. The first half of the book is a setup for the second half of the book and it I got about halfway and still didn't really see "the point" of it, but the individual stories are so heartbreaking and entrancing and sometimes spooky that I never wanted to stop reading.

The magic and worldbuilding was really fun for me here. It's set in medieval England, in the small village of Cosham, but you meet a cast of quite unique and interesting creatures—an almost Frankenstein's monster character, shapeshifters, water spirits, witches, and a creature that I can't really fully categorize, but felt like she was pulled straight from some terrifying folklore.

The main antagonist is so ghastly and awful that you can't help but hate him, but his character is done well and I enjoyed rooting against him. The magic in this book was very dark and some of the scenes were quite grim, though there was a thread of hope and gentleness throughout the whole thing that was really pretty touching. There's also a found family element to it that surprised me with how deep it felt for how short the book is.

Ending:

Highly recommend, 5/5 book, in my opinion. It's a quick read with brutal moments, surrealism, and some uplifting moments that I think would best be enjoyed by fans of books like The Blacktongue Thief and Between Two Fires by Christhoper Buehlman, the Riyria series by Michael J. Sullivan, the Sourdough series by A. G. Slatter, and anything by T. Kingfisher.