A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell is a dark edged magical fantasy.

Derry and her eight siblings live with Frank, a man who has saved them from a world that fears them and their magical abilities, or so he tells them. Although not related by blood, spending every day together with no knowledge of what life in the outside world is like, brings them close together. But, when her sisters start to disappear, Derry begins to release the danger might be a little closer to home than she first thought.

The book has an extremely diverse cast of characters, which is refreshing to read, however some are more developed than others and, a few times, it was hard to tell the characters apart. Saying that, there is an element of found family, and sisterly bond, which binds the book together and is lovely to read. The spooky forest that surrounds the house is a very evocative setting, and I enjoyed following Derry as she realises that the evil may not only be in the forest, but also under her own roof.

There is one word to some up this book and it is...meh. The plot, characters, the writing, all of it was overwhelmingly okay when I was expecting WOW! My main draw to this book was that the protagonist is plus-sized and, being plus-size myself, I was so, so excited to see an explicitly plus-size/fat character get the spotlight, and to be something other than a skinny person's comic relief! Hollowell really delivered on that aspect -- Derry is fat and it has little to no impact on her plot and life which was a breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately I couldn't get into A Dark and Starless Forest. It seemed interesting enough, with nine magical sisters living in a secluded house and being raised by the mysterious and cruel Frank, a pseudo-father figure with teeth. Derry's magic is related to nature, so she has the ability to grow flowers and vines and connect with the earth in a powerful and sometimes frightening way. The other sisters tended to run together for me, and with only a few little descriptions of their looks, personalities and powers thrown in once or twice I was left feeling a little lost. The catalyst for A Dark and Starless Forest comes when one sister after another starts to disappear and the girls start to question Frank's motives. Meanwhile, the forest surrounding the house starts to call to Derry in familiar voices. It's only when she ventures inside that she starts to discover the dark truth.

I think this was a pretty run-of-the-mill YA fantasy. To be honest, I'm beginning to think YA and I just don't get along. I keep getting swept away by their shiny covers and amazing blurbs but 9 times out of ten I'm disappointed. If you'd be interested in a sort of girl-power X-Men retelling with a malevolent and powerless Professor X pulling the strings, then I think this would be the perfect book for you! I have no doubt there are many who'd enjoy this and I also recognize how amazing it is to have a kick-ass plus-size heroine front and center. Hopefully, Derry is the first in a long, long line.

I enjoyed reading this book which is about Derry and her sisters who live in an isolated house with Frank because there parents didn't think their magic was safe for the world. One day, one of the sisters disappears and now Derry does everything she can to protect her sisters. I enjoyed the story of this book and its overall concept of the story. I thought it was unique with amazing twists and turns that kept you interested in the story. I enjoyed the magic atmosphere of the story but I do have to say that the world building was easy to understand in the beginning but then I didn't understand it towards the end. I think it was because so much has happened that I was lost about the magic set up a little. Though everything else with the writing was well written with the plot, setting, pacing, etc.

I enjoyed the main character Derry in the book. I enjoyed her representation in the book and also how caring she was of her sisters even though Frank didn't really like her. I think she had a great character development in the form of magic and how she stepped up for her sisters from Frank. The side characters in this book are the rest of the sisters and Frank. I enjoyed learning each and everyone of them from Derry's pov and was glad that the author didn't write this book in multiple povs like I would except some authors would do. I also enjoyed how the author had diverse and lgbtq+ characters involved so each sister was different. I enjoyed the family theme of this story and how all the sisters protected each other from the enemy.

The ending was amazing and I loved how so much happened. There was so many twists and turns that I was more hooked into the story than before. I do have to say that I was a little confused with the whole magic system in the end but other then that I think the story was fantastic. I totally recommend reading this book especially if you are a fan of Wilder Girls and The Castle School.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC of this book. All opinions are my own.


Holy wow! Sarah Hollowell absolutely knocked this out of the park! From the representation to the creepy feelings you get while reading that reach your toes to the imagery you see as you read- this book is surely one that you want to pick up! This is phenomenal!

If you lover thriller/suspense/mystery, complex characters, incredible and well done representation, strong protagonists, and beautifully written books: PICK THIS UP! I absolutely fell in love with Derry and all her siblings. The plot was incredibly intriguing and kept you fully engaged. The prose was well done and kept you on the edge of your seat. The characters were complex, well written and often times the best part of the book. The way the story built and the mysterious circumstances of siblings going missing grew, so did my desire to continue reading. While I was intrigued from the beginning, the further you read the better the book got. I thoroughly enjoyed this. It was creepy, suspenseful, and totally enthralling!

A Dark and Starless Forest is a wonderfully creepy tale of witches, sisterhood and mystery.

Derry has lived at the lake house with her 8 alchemist sisters, under the care of Frank, since her parents dropped her off when she was a child.

On the surface, the lake house is a place for young witches to master their skills and stay safe from the outside world who may hope to harm them. However, when Derry’s sisters begin to disappear one by one, the nearby forest calls to her and she knows that she must venture into its forbidden depths to discover the truth and hopefully save her sisters.

I really enjoyed this book! It was a really great combination of YA fantasy and YA thriller and I was totally intrigued throughout.
In some places it felt on the slightly younger side of YA for me personally but it was a joy to read. I loved all the strong characters, the mystery and the magic! I loved that all the sisters had totally different magical skills and learning about all of those. I want Derry’s flower magic myself because I can’t seem to even keep a cactus alive!

All in all an exciting, quick read for fans of House of Hollow.

This was a fantastic dark YA fantasy, though it was hard to get through in spaces due to its focus on patriarchal gaslighting and abuse. (This might be a slight spoiler, but I think the description gives some sense of this focus). I loved the bittersweet ending and the way our main character comes into her own and finds the empowering core of her anger/fury. The character identity rep. was very well done and diverse in many ways as well.

I’m not even gonna lie, I requested this solely because the main character is plus size, the fact that it’s an amazing book is just the cherry on top!

Ok, first off, the representation and diversity of the characters in this fucking book is phenomenal! The storyline *chef’s kiss*. It’s spooky vibes start right out the gate and slowly becomes more unsettling as you get invested in the story, I have never been so anxious for a set of characters in my life, and despite the palpable anxiousness this gave me I LOVED IT

I really didn’t know what to expect going into this book. I love the cover and also the premise for the story sounded intriguing. I got approved for the arc last minute, but the book is a quick read so I’m glad I got to finish even though it just published!

I love the mysterious and dark atmosphere of this story. We meet Derry and she has eight siblings (not by blood). They live in what seeps like am isolated house bordered by a forest and their caretaker is a man named Frank. Everything about that just made me suspicious about Frank from the start! Apparently these girls have magic or powers, Derry’s magic is related to nature, things bloom on her body.

Derry is our main character and she is a plus sized girl compared to her sisters, she loves her sisters and is very afraid of Frank. She doesn’t have the best control of her magic. When something happens to the sister she is the closest to, Jane, this pushes Derry to break Frank’s rules, no matter the consequences and she meets something in the woods that makes her question Frank and his methods. I like when Derry finds out the truth and we see her become stronger.

The sisterly bond is great since they are all isolated together. You can feel the love between them and it’s their chosen family bond that helps defeat Frank. Also they are diverse, which was nice.

Random Notes:
Triggers: abuse, manipulation, death, violence

Frank is straight up evil and I was so happy when Derry stood up to him! It honestly gave me satisfaction with how Derry dealt with him. But who are Franks “friends” that he kept going to see when a girl went missing? I’m very curious about that.

I think the magic system confused me in the beginning though it makes sense in the end when more of the mystery about Frank is solved. When they called themselves “alchemists”, I was waiting for them to do alchemy but their powers didn’t work that way. It really was magic within them, magic they were born with.

There are nine of them, Derry and eight siblings, but I swear I kept forgetting who was left when a few went missing. I felt like the only ones I really knew were Derry, Jane and Elle – they seemed the more fleshed out of the girls.

FINAL THOUGHTS~~
Why you should read it:

*it’s a story about girls taking back their power and magic, mostly Derry’s journey
*diverse cast
*suspenseful, creepy vibes

Why you might not want to read it:

*dark story with themes of abuse and manipulation
*not a happy story, ending is bittersweet

My Thoughts:

It took some patience to get my bearings in the story when I started the book, but my curiosity kept me reading. I wanted to know who Frank was and what was in these creepy woods. Though it is a dark story, I was glad to see Derry rise up against the man who was hurting her and her sisters. I can definitely relate to that! This was a quick read filled with diversity, a strong sisterly bond, magic and empowerment.

This book is a dark and original twist on the classic housefull-of-misfit-magical-kids story.
Derry and her 'sisters' are all girls who were taken in by Frank when their families couldn't handle their magic and abandoned them. At least that's what they think until, one by one, the girls begin to disappear and the dark truth behind Frank and the house by the lake start surfacing.
Hollowell does a great job of setting up the emotionally and mentally abusive way that Frank manipulates the girls and makes them live in fear of the outside world, making them more afraid of the alternative than they are of the horrible way he controls everything in their lives. It's a great setup for the nerve-wracking progression of Derry slowly testing the bounds and breaking the rules in an effort to locate her sisters.
Solid pacing and a diverse cast of characters that pull you into their story make this one a real page-turner that I'd definitely recommend. And the girls' magic is an important story element but it could just as well not be part of the story and it would still be a great suspense story, so give this a chance even if fantasy isn't your thing.

Happy thanks to NetGalley and Clarion Books for the early read!

A spellbinding and empowering tale. "A Dark and Starless Forest" is a fresh take on the YA Fantasy genre. I especially appreciated the importance of family that is demonstrated through our protagonist Derry's drive to protect her family from hostile forces. The characters are rich, as is the prose.

A Dark and Starless Forest is a solid novel that falls prey to some typical issues in a debut novel.

The two biggest issues I found in the novel were the pacing and the themes. The pacing dragged in the middle and it seemed Hollowell wasn't quite sure what she needed to have Derry do. The plot needed to have Derry act in a certain way, so she did, but it didn't necessarily make sense with the events happening in said plot. The sense of urgency at having two of her sisters missing never quite sticks, since Derry and the rest of her siblings are mostly unable to go out and look for them and so have to continue living their lives as normal. Although Derry does ignore this rule, her forays into the forest become more about growing her magical powers than it does finding her sisters. Hollowell does try to explain in the story why the siblings mostly have to stay in the house, but it's not quite good enough reasoning.

The themes were close to being pinned down, but another draft of the novel would have made them clearer. Derry is surrounded by two main enemies: Frank, her adoptive father who's teaching her and her siblings how to control their magic for possibly dark purposes, and the forest that surrounds the house they live in. The atmosphere of the house was claustrophobic and oppressive, but the forest lacked the same danger and darkness. Hollowell clearly tries to state that both Frank and the forest want to use the girls for their own ends, but she doesn't quite get there in regards to the forest.

Derry is a character that some readers will probably dislike, as she's mostly passive and reacts to things instead of causing things to happen, and she's avoidant of the facts staring her in the face. However I was fine with this, as Derry is living in a situation that's almost a cult. Her family is completely cut off from the rest of the world, and whatever they know about it, they learn from Frank. Frank is emotionally abusive and gaslights the siblings often, and Derry, as a sixteen year old girl who's had to view Frank as a parental figure, is realistic in her reluctance to realize and accept that Frank is dangerous and harmful.

While the bond between Derry and most of her siblings is evident, the siblings themselves are too numerous and subsequently their characters fall to the wayside. A couple stand out, like Elle, Jane, and Winnie, while others were little more than names and attributes. I do applaud Hollowell for making her cast a good representation of diversity, but some of that was integrated into the novel better than others, such as Brooke's deafness being dealt with by all the siblings using ASL for a good chunk of the novel.

Personally, I will say that as a fat woman, it was a relief to read about a fat main character and never have her weight come up as anything other than a neutral description of herself. There are no fat jokes, no one harms her because she's fat or uses her fatness to harm her. Derry simply exists as a fat girl, and that was wonderful.

There was enough that I liked in A Dark and Starless Forest that I'll likely read what Hollowell writes next. Most of the problems in this novel are either debut issues or stylistic choices that some readers may not gel with, such as the worldbuilding beyond the house and the forest being thin to non-existent. Readers looking for a richly detailed contemporary fantasy won't find it here, but they will find a story about a girl discovering her magic and saving her siblings from an abusive man, and that's a story worth reading even with the issues.

A dark thing living in a forest, siblings going missing, magic – who wouldn’t want to know about the nefarious goings on in those trees?

Derry and her siblings have lived in a secluded house with their guardian, Frank since their parents abandoned them due to difficulties with their magic. They don’t share the same parents (except for two sets of twins), but have been raised together and formed very close bonds as a result of their circumstances. Although most of the siblings fear Frank a little and dislike him, he takes care of them and offers protection from the nearby townfolk (they call the siblings witches), but they never leave the grounds and have no connection with the outside world. Each of the siblings possess different types of magic, and Frank teaches them not only how to enhance their abilities, but also how to control them.

The author provides a wonderfully diverse and inclusive cast with representation of different sexualities, body types, and races. The relationships between these siblings are one of my favorite aspects of the novel – they’re ride or die for each other – although I have to admit the introduction of so many characters in the first few pages is a little overwhelming. Even so, you’ll settle in and find it easy to empathize with them. Something seems off with Frank and his methods, and you can’t help but root for them to find a better living situation.

Although the end was a whirlwind of action, pacing was a little uneven for me in the middle. Derry is forced to make some difficult choices and cross into morally gray areas, but it all seems justified and I had no trouble going along with her decisions. Once the whirlwind is over, I appreciated that the author gives the reader a glimpse of what’s in store for these characters in the future.

This standalone novel offers an exceptionally inclusive cast of characters and provides a nice blend of mystery, a touch of horror, and magic for an enjoyable read.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

DRC provided by Clarion Books via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Representation: fat queer protagonist, fat deaf queer asexual Mexican secondary character, fat non-binary pansexual Mexican secondary character, trans secondary character, Black tertiary characters, Black tertiary character with ADHD, fat asexual tertiary character.

Content Warning: anxiety, depression, violence, death, emotional and physical abuse.

A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell is a dark contemporary fantasy about found families and internal journeys, starring a fabulous diverse cast of characters.

Derry is an alchemist with strong botanical powers. When her powers first manifest, she is brought to Frank, a man who takes care of people like her, protecting them from society in a secluded house and teaching them how to control and develop their powers. Years after her arrival, there are nine alchemists who live under the same roof, each with a unique power. Life goes on in the usual manner until one night, Derry wakes up and notices her roommate and best-friend Jane has disappeared. She decides to sneak into the off-limits forest that surrounds the near lake to look for her, but she is nowhere to be found, except for an ephemeral sensation Derry feels. As the days pass and Jane is still missing, Derry keeps returning to the forest, lead there by an uncontrollable desire to find her friend and an unknown urge.

I loved how this novel started slow with just a hint of eeriness, but then it turned up the volume on the macabre and it increased gradually each chapter until the atmosphere got as dark as night.

Another excellent aspect of this book was the diversity Hollowell included in the story as she featured effortlessly characters with disabilities, different sexual orientations and gender identities and body shapes. My favourite characters were Brooke, a fat and deaf girl of Mexican descent who had the strongest powers among all of the alchemists; and my sweet non-binary child Violet who had the power to create spectacular glamours.

A Dark and Starless Forest was such a frightful, yet refreshing and surprising reading experience I whole-heartedly recommend.

As soon as I saw this cover I knew I had to read this book! It’s not often you see plus-size women in fantasy (though it’s a bit more prevalent in YA than adult) and it’s even rarer for them to be on the cover! Apart from that, though, the premise gripped me, and I was not disappointed. A Dark and Starless Forest is a thrilling and dark tale, told from the point of view of Derry, a young girl living with seven other girls and one non-binary person ranging between nineteen and eight, all taken in by a man named Frank after their families couldn’t handle their magic abilities. The setting is our world, modern America, which initially surprised me since I had expected this to be set in a fantasy land, but I enjoyed the way Sarah Hollowell played with real history and culture and applied magic to it.

Frank has labelled his magic girls ‘alchemists’ because of the way the title of witch has led to death and persecution, yet Derry and her siblings are always looking for another word that will mean more to them, and there’s a really sweet habit Derry has of acknowledging when a word she’s used in her narration is a particularly strong one, showing the way she has scoured the dictionary over the years. The siblings are isolated both geographically – surrounded by a magic forest that keeps them in and others out – as well as mentally, with Frank keeping them away from the internet, newspapers, and any media not selected by him. Though he is strict, he has always protected his charges and warned them of the dangers of the outside world, so Derry swallows her frequent anger towards him until the night her sister Jane goes missing.

Derry and Jane had been to the forest before, and from Derry’s thoughts we know something terrible happened, something they have kept from the rest of the siblings, and Derry’s guilt spirals further as she realised this might have led Jane and then others to vanish between the trees. As the family begins to fray and Frank becomes more and more on edge, Hollowell does an excellent job of building tension and creating some very chilling scenes (for me anyway, but I don’t read much dark stuff so I’m sure some won’t find it chilling at all).

I won’t talk more about the plot, so you can enjoy that ride for yourself, but I do want to talk about some of the other things that stayed with me about this book. As I said at the start, having a fat protagonist is so important, and Derry talks both of feeling as if her body is too much at times, like when the bathtub is too small, and when she takes up space and feels powerful. There is quite a lot of other representation too; three of the siblings are African American, one is a Native American who is also deaf, one is a trans girl and one is non-binary. Having a deaf character means that a lot of the conversations between the siblings are done in ASL, and having Violet, the non-binary sibling, arriving at the house a little later than some means they have knowledge of terminology to define themselves, and they help others with finding their own labels, such as aromantic, or bisexual. I liked that the author included such things, and did it in a very natural way.

Overall, this is a story that will stay with me, and I think that it does something new and exciting with both YA and fantasy tropes. As far as I’m aware it’s a standalone, and it does have a satisfying conclusion, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for future works by Sarah Hollowell because she certainly knows how to tell a story!

I thought that I was going to fall hard for this one. I mean it has fantasy, danger, plus size representation, all the LGBTQ reps, etc. But sadly it wasn't meant to be. The writing and story just ended up being very bland for me. It felt like the author was going down a list of things to include and then mushed them all together and it just didn't work out at all.

Advanced Reader’s Copy provided by NetGalley, and Clarion Books in exchange for an honest review.

Content Warning: Murder, emotionally abusive situations, women held captive by a man

With a diverse cast of character (in race, gender, and body size - there is even a deaf character), A DARK AND STARLESS FOREST was an interesting concept with a morally grey protagonist. Derry and her "siblings" live in a remote house next to a lake and a forest. While they aren't all related by blood, they all have one thing in common... they have the gift of magic. At various ages in their childhoods, they found themselves being left by their parents in the care of Frank. They can't leave the house, Frank tells them it's not safe, that people will kill them because they have powers. So they live without technology, only having a small collection of books, music, and movies (all chosen by Frank) to entertain them. While Frank doesn't have magic himself, he trains them on how to control and use their powers. But he's strict and controlling and the girls can feel suffocated by all of his rules.

Then Jane disappears and things in the house start to change. Derry sneaks out of the house at night to go into the forest, where she meets Claire who tells her to be careful of Frank. In the forest Derry's powers flourish and she's hopeful that she can find Jane. Then Winnie goes missing and everything falls apart. As Derry's powers grow, so does the darkness inside of her... which will win?

This is a dark book with a houseful of young women experiencing various levels of Stockholm Syndrome. So this isn't exactly an enjoyable read. Because there are so many people living in the house, not all of them get enough time on the page to feel fully fleshed out, which was unfortunate because I really do love a found family plot line.

Overall this was an interesting read, and I can see this hitting the mark for some people. There are just some aspects that I wish had been fleshed out more.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from A Dark and Starless Forest because one of the comparison titles is Wilder Girls, and I didn't enjoy that one as much as I thought I would. Though it took me a bit to get into it, I did enjoy and appreciate A Dark and Starless Forest as a dark and paranormal story that focuses on the strength of the bond between siblings and chosen family. The narrator and main character, Derry, took us through her adventures very well, and by the end of the book I was rooting for her all the way. Her power to grow plants and flowers and how she chose to use it was intriguing. I admired the unique relationships she had with her eight siblings, and how each of those relationships fit into the overall family dynamic. The book also has a wonderful range of representation - the children are all from different families and therefore come from different races and cultural backgrounds - and there is some discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity, though since there isn't any romance in the book it doesn't play a huge role in the plot. I really appreciated that Derry describes herself as fat and doesn't see that it's anything she needs to fix about herself. Also, a MC with glasses! I'm always looking for more fantasy books with characters that wear glasses. It was kind of hard for me to keep everyone sorted in my head in terms of who was oldest, and what powers they had, and I think that's because the beginning of the book was harder for me to sink in to than I expected. But it was worth it to read until the very last page, and I'm interested to see what the author writes next.

Buy, Borrow, or Bypass: I would suggest borrowing this one. I'm glad to have received an ARC, and if I hadn't, I would have borrowed it from my local library. A Dark and Starless Forest is certainly worth a read, but at this point I don't see myself rereading it, so I don't immediately need a copy for my collection. But if your collection is skewed more in the direction of a dark paranormal, then this will be a wonderful gem to add to it. :)

“My siblings and I make a circle around the blaze. We join hands. The magic we perform doesn’t have words. It is felt. It is the roots beneath our feet. It is the strings connecting our fates to each other and to the rest of the world. It is the life-giving water, it is the power in ourselves.”

A Dark and Starless Forest by Sarah Hollowell is a contemporary fantasy novel filled with a multitude of diverse characters, mystery, a major focus on sibling dynamics, magic, and menacing trees. The book is pitched as being similar to Wilder Girls, which I have not read, but upon reading the synopsis I definitely see the similarities; I did, however, get House of Salt and Sorrows vibes, only set in the real world as opposed to a fantastical one. Overall, I really enjoyed this book and I was anxious to unravel the novel’s various mysteries alongside the book’s protagonist and narrator, Derry.

The Plot

Sixteen-year-old Derry lives in an isolated house surrounded by a menacing forest with her eight siblings after being abandoned by their parents, virtually hidden from the rest of the world. After all, according to Frank, the man who raised and taught them, the world outside is dangerous for “witches” and those with magic. And Derry and her siblings feel safe in their secluded home… until their oldest sister, Jane, disappears.

After Jane’s disappearance and despite the dangers, Derry continues to find herself drawn to the forest—a forest which Derry and Jane had sworn to each other to never return to after their last trip ended in blood, although Derry is sure that she witnessed Jane walk into the trees. The forest calls to Derry in a way that she cannot truly understand and it calls to her with Jane’s voice.

After another sibling vanishes without a trace and Frank’s true colors and hidden secrets begin to show themselves, Derry realizes that feeling safe is no longer an option and in order to protect her siblings, she may have to venture deeper into the forest that has taken her siblings from her in order to unearth the truth behind their disappearances—and behind Frank.

As Derry begins to spend more time in the forest, her magic begins to grow as does the hidden darkness inside her that will do anything to keep her siblings safe. And the only way to truly protect her family may be to embrace the darkness within…

The World, the Atmosphere & the Magic

A Dark and Starless Forest promises a world and atmosphere full of magic, foreboding trees, and dark mysteries and it delivers on all accounts. The novel is set in a house separated from the rest of the world and surrounded by a dark, menacing, and forbidden forest, which is basically a must in books involving a mystery. I feel as though the setting of the novel really made the book and the overall story for me as I cannot see the same story being told as successfully had the setting and general world of the novel been anywhere else; the secluded-ness of Derry and her siblings’ home makes solving the mysterious disappearances as well as the secrets that Frank, who lives with and cares for the siblings, is hiding that much more pressing. This book definitely gave off some spooky, mysterious, and eerie vibes of both the supernatural and natural variety, making it a very dark and witchy read.

As previously mentioned, this book is dark. A lot darker than I originally thought when going into it, but not necessarily in a bad way. The book deals with dark topics such as violence, abuse, and torture (emotional and mental), with most of this culminating in the third act, in addition to already dealing with mysterious disappearances and dark trees. Additionally, the novel tackles the darkness and horrors that can exist within oneself and how to deal with this darkness (including finding the beauty in this darkness and embracing it). However, this book is not all dark. There are moments of light scattered throughout, which particularly comes through the bond that Derry and her siblings share. After all, there cannot be darkness without light.

In terms of the general witch-iness, I greatly enjoyed witnessing the various forms of magic that Derry and her siblings had, with each sibling possessing their own unique type of magic. I greatly enjoy it in books where there are a variety of different types and forms of magic and magical abilities and A Dark and Starless Forest knocked it out of the park with the various abilities that Derry and her siblings possess. I do wish, however, that some of these powers were explored a bit more. For instance, while we learn a great deal about Derry’s powers and ability to grow and conjure plants, the powers of her siblings fall to the sidelines and there were some characters whose powers I really wished were explored more and further developed because they all sounded so interesting and unique.

The Characters

For me, characters tend to make or break a book and these characters definitely made this book, especially considering that they are a found family, a trope that I adore. And the characters are so diverse! The characters in the novel cover a wide array of spectrums—there are characters of various gender and sexual orientations (one of the siblings is trans, one nonbinary, and several of the siblings are queer), races, body types (Derry, our protagonist, is one of several plus-sized characters), and one of the siblings is deaf. I really liked all of the representation that Hollowell included, I have never seen so much in a YA book before!

Likewise, I loved all of the bonds and dynamics between Derry and her siblings. They all felt so real and I liked how varied all of these relationships were, with some siblings getting along with each other more than with others and how the dynamics between the siblings changed based upon their ages. I really liked Derry’s relationship with Winnie, but especially her relationships with Jane and London, which I really wish there was more of because I loved these dynamics (younger sister and older sister with Derry and Jane, older sister and younger sister with Derry and London).

However, while I am a sucker for found family, which this book had in spades with Derry’s family being made up of “adopted” siblings, I do wish that the characters who made up this family were more developed. Like with the magic, there were only a few characters who I feel as though I truly “knew” by the end of the novel with the rest kind of falling to the sidelines, which kind of makes sense considering that Hollowell had to juggle Derry plus her eight siblings, meaning that not all of them were able to get the growth and development that I was looking for.

This book definitely had a strong focus on personal growth, namely with regards to Derry. While Derry is attempting to work through the disappearance of her siblings, she is also attempting to work through her own sense of self. She undergoes such an amazing transformation as the novel progresses, starting as a girl unsure of her own abilities into a fearless badass willing to do what it takes to keep her siblings safe and growing into her powers. As the novel progresses, her character definitely takes a darker turn, with Derry trying to decide whether to embrace the darkness growing inside of her in order to do what it takes to keep her siblings safe and to discover the secrets behind their disappearances.

The Mystery

One of my favorites elements of this book had to be the mystery aspect. This is no light-hearted mystery, however. This is a mystery with some teeth to it and filled with darkness and eeriness that only grows as the novel progresses. The main driving point to this story, in addition to being a book about personal growth, has to be the disappearance of Derry’s siblings (the event that sort of kicks off this growth to begin with). I was eager to unravel the mystery behind Derry’s siblings’ disappearance as well as the mystery of Frank, their caretaker. Hollowell does a lovely job of slowly working to build upon the mystery of both the disappearance of the siblings as well as the mystery that is Frank, which I greatly enjoyed; there was a gradual reveal of information that we as the readers learn alongside Derry in her quest to discover the truth that allowed for things to gradually fall into place.

Conclusion

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it to be a strong and unique debut with a satisfying, if bittersweet, ending.

I adored this book. I will admit it i originally only pick it up because of the cover as I am a sucker for a book which a plus sized main character. That being said I am so glad I picked this. This book was amazing. It was so unique and diverse not just with plus sized characters but also characters with other genders and sexualities. Plus I loved all of the witchy elements as I am also a sucker for queer witches. This is definitely one I will recommend to all of my witch and fantasy loving friends and customers.

This was a pretty fun and atmospheric YA read, that reminded me a little of Seannan Maguire's Every Heart a Doorway's series.
Really enjoyed the atmosphere of the forest and the type of magic that was used.
I think a lot of people will enjoy the found family aspect between the characters for sure.
I just wish perhaps the individual and side characters were fleshed out a little bit more.

Overall really enjoyable and quick read.