The Forest Grimm by Kathryn Purdie is a captivating tale that skillfully embraces the haunting narrative arcs found in classic fairy tales. This satisfying story not only captivates readers but also pays homage to the enchanting yet mysterious essence of traditional folklore.

3.5⭐️

The Forest Grimm was bizarre tale that had me a quite intrigued from start to finish. A mashup of many fairytale retellings, like Red-Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Briar Rose, but make it a little more haunting.🫣 Sometimes I got Junji Ito vibes during a few scenes.

The book is YA with lots of adventure, action, a dash of romance, and very plot-driven. I would love to see more development with the characters in the next book because this story is only just getting started!

I was not sure what to expect when I requested and received this ARC and I tried to keep an open mind but I’m really not sure how I felt about this book…

The story is a retelling of a handful of Grimm’s fairytales with the main thread being Little Red Riding Hood— it’s a romantasy that’s meant to have a creepy element to it and normally I love a retelling, love some chilling elements, love some romance, but in this case all of it was just very underwhelming.

The story was fine but I felt like both the characters and the plot were underdeveloped. I didn’t care for the main characters at all and honestly it was because I felt like I knew nothing about them. The languages and settings were random and the random plot elements thrown in at the end just further confused it all— like I’m sorry why are there shapeshifters and vampires in a Grimm’s fairytale retelling? This especially bothered me when it turned out it wasn’t a standalone, felt very sloppy…
Soooo not the biggest fan but it wasn’t terrible?

4/5 ⭐️
This was such an interesting Red Riding Hood retelling, especially because it wove in a lot of the other classic fairytales likes Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Snow White, and Hansel & Gretel. But the reason I enjoyed it even more was because of the dark, sentient woods. Like the woods are spooky and you never know what they’ll do next. I loved it. It was so fascinating and full of plenty of twists and thrills to have me turning the page, especially with the romance. The romance was so well done.
I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone that are fans of fairytale retellings.
I think the only issue I had was how it would repeat certain details and in a way like it was the first time telling us. For example with her back.
Thank you to NetGalley & Wednesday Publishing for providing an advance reader copy of this book for my honest review.

Struggled to get into this. The premise started interesting but by a third of the way into the story was already getting repetitive and disjointed. The characters were also too bland for me to connect with in any meaningful way.

Clara, who has always been destined to die, devotes herself this year to going into the Forest Grimm to find her missing mother. Once the town and the forest lived peacefully, but someone stole the Book of Fortunes. Now the forest is cursed. It dispels most who try to enter. When Clara finds a way to get in safely her and her friends, Axel and Ella, go to find the missing. The missing book, the missing villagers, a way to break the curse for good. The forest has warped reality and many oddities threaten to kill them in their journey. Will they find the book? Will they find all the villagers who are lost including Clara’s mother and Ella’s sister? Will Clara fulfill her destiny and be killed in order to fix the curse?

“The Forest Grimm” by Kathryn Purdie was absolutely fantastic. 5 out of 5 stars. I adore fairytale retellings and this book has such a unique twist on all the old tales. I loved the sweet romantic tension between Clara and Axel. It’s a perfect book for teens because even though a lot of really bad things happen the way Kathryn Purdie writes it didn’t feel overly graphic and atrocious in the descriptions. I liked the subtle information about Clara having a disability and it didn’t take over the story and didn’t hold Clara back from her mission. I can not wait for the second book.

Thank you to Netgalley and Wednesday Books for sending me an early copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

Are you a fairytale lover? This was such a fun story that combined some of the most beloved fairytales in ways that are actually fresh and new for 0nce! Retellings can be monotonous, but this was a story where there was a surprise and turn around every corner, and I adored piecing together the ways that each fairytale came into play and came to life in the forest!

The one complaint I had was that the romance fell a bit flat for me. It felt like we were told a lot about their deep connection, but we were never really shown it, and I just wanted more from it.

I absolutely loved the twists and turns, and I really thought I had it figured out, but I definitely did not. It left me wanting more the further I got into the story, and I love the way that it ended so that you're on your toes and needing to know what comes next!

If you're a fairytale lover, get your hands on this one!

This didn't need to be as long as it was and the plot definitely doesn't need to be dragged out into a series. It was repetitive and boring and I didn't care about the romance.

First off the main character had a weakness that was described at all the right times! The author must know someone who has suffered like this, because I have and the mention of the discomfort was perfectly executed. When I started reading I thought she would find love IN the forest not recognize love in the forest. It is well written. I was waiting for the next thing to be the moment the hero arrived. Read it. Maybe there can be more to the story. I'd read it.

The Forest Grimm follows Clara who is determined to save her village from a curse that has been placed on them. Clara and her friend Axel have to go into the forest to find a book that will reverse the curse. Many villagers have gone to the forest to try and reverse the curse. But they have not returned. Can Clara and Axel reverse the curse and save the village or will the forest win? 

This book was a bit out of my comfort zone because I am not a huge fantasy reader. But I love fairytales so I gave this one a try.  I liked this one enough. I do not like it enough to want to read the whole series. But I liked the Little Red Riding Hood vibes this book was inspired by. You can defiantly tell that this book was written for a younger audience. But over all not a bad book.

I read this book while on a six hour plane ride. It was a very cute fairytale retelling that will undoubtedly please a lot of readers once it is released. That being said, I thought that the book was predictable and I don’t think the author was particularly successful when it came to turning common fairy tale tropes on their head. However I enjoyed it while I was reading

With romance, mystery, and an atmospheric forest setting, THE FOREST GRIMM is perfect for readers who love mixed-up fairy tales and characters determined to change their destinies.

[NOTE: Unless otherwise stated, my NetGalley feedback is not a blurb or endorsement. If a publisher wishes to use any part of my comments for promotional purposes, please contact me or my agent via email. I would prefer not to include star ratings but NetGalley won't let me post without one, so all will be 5 stars.]

I absolutely loved this book!! I couldn’t put it down.
I just loved all the characters. I highly recommend this book.

For fans of Margaret Rogerson’s “A Sorcery of Thorns,” Mara Rutherford’s, “The Poison Season,” and the general bright curiosity and sweet hopefulness that lore-driven YA Fantasy brings, this is your book! Imagine if someone made a sandwich and the bread was dark rye Bavarian fairytale vibes and the meat, cheese and vegetables were twisty little quasi Gothic versions of Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Rapunzel; doesn’t that sound like a delicious sandwich? Add in some mustard made of a plucky FMC told in a first person narrative. Pardon the overkill metaphor. Purdie gives us a lovely and determined heroine, brave and earnest, in Clara. Clara also has what is clearly scoliosis and needs a special shoe, but never lets this get in the way of what she believes she needs to do. She is automatically likable and winsome, a devoted daughter, and granddaughter, always thinking about her community, a small village on the edge of a dangerous forest, the Forest Grimm. I’m Over time, members of this village have gone missing in this forest. Determined to seek out her mother, missing for the last three years, she and some companions embark on a nearly impossible mission to find lost loved ones, encountering various perils, like an ever-shifting landscape, mysterious curses, animated trees, barely humanoid creatures and more.

I don’t think this book necessarily reinvents the wheel and it doesn’t have to; it’s not groundbreaking stuff, and a lot of these tropes have been done again and again, but I couldn’t put it down! This book is what it is: a delightful young adult dip into European folklore.

Also, the hero is truly adorable.

This was a super quick and easy read. The Forest Grimm is a ya retelling that involves multiple classic fairytales from Grimm. Kathryn took those fairytales and turned them into a dark and twisted story.

I really enjoyed this book. It was very entertaining from the start and the pacing of the story itself moved quickly. The atmosphere was lovely and I really enjoyed the characters. I knew going into this one that it was a ya novel but for some reason, it just felt a little to ya for me. But then again, I am almost 27 so there’s that! I think this would be a perfect read for the ages of 12-15. I’m looking forward to seeing where this series goes.

If you’re looking for a good spooky read to add to your tbr then I highly recommend picking this one up on September 19th!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for the e-arc!

Perfect adaption of Grimms Fairytales. Clara takes you on a journey through the forest that is unlike any other story told. Is she really destined to die? What happened to the lost? The mysteries are all more complicated than what they appear.

I love a good fairy tale retelling / fractured fairy tale story so The Forest Grimm easily pulled me in with its twists on various Grimm fairy tales. I like the idea of a cursed forest that flips people’s desires and motives around, and I enjoyed following Clara and her friends as they journeyed through the forest to find their lost loved ones. The twists were clever and interesting and just the right amount of bizarre and spooky. This book has a lot of atmospheric elements that lend itself well to the darker side of fairy tales.

I wish, however, that each encounter with a fairytale character would have tied together in the end. Most of this story is journey-based as Clara and her friends travel from one encounter to the next, and while there were a few elements that continued to tie back to other things, I was a little disappointed that each encounter didn’t have any significance for the ultimate showdown. It was a lot less seamless than I wanted it to be, and the ending left me a little confused with how certain characters’ stories were suddenly resolved.

I also wish this had been written as a standalone and everything tied up in the end with the opportunity for a companion novel set in the same world/village with a completely separate conflict. It didn’t seem necessary to drag out the curse into a second book, so I have high expectations for the sequel to see how the author connects everything.

But overall, this had the right balance of magic, romance, and horror for a dark, fractured fairy tale story.

"The Forest Grimm" by Kathryn Purdie is a captivating novel that enchants fairy tale enthusiasts with its intricate twists and turns, keeping readers engaged in unexpected moments throughout. The story follows 17-year-old Clara, who defies the ominous warnings of her fortune-teller grandmother and embarks on a perilous quest into the deadly Forest Grimm. Her mission to secure the magical book, Sortes Fortunae, holds the key to reversing a village curse and saving her mother. The book masterfully weaves together themes of destiny, friendship, and bravery against the backdrop of a forest alive with dark, twisted versions of beloved fairy tales. Purdie's writing takes readers on a journey filled with suspense, courage, and a touch of magic. With its seamless blend of fantasy and adventure, "The Forest Grimm" is a delightful read that promises to keep you eagerly anticipating its sequel. I rate it 4.5 stars out of 5.

If this wasn't an ARC, I would've DNF'd it at 7%.

This read incredibly young, but most annoyingly it was really repetitious. The author didn't trust the reader to remember anything, even if it was just said. Each concept is repeated three times when it's first introduced, then usually they use the same exact language when introducing the concept again (like "Take my luck" from the beginning and then chapter 39, though it didn't repeat the why 2 chapters later in the epilogue so that was something).

And for things like the murder that keep getting mentioned (the thing to set off the curse) we really don't seem to care at all about who was murdered, who murdered them, or how.

But it was honestly the repetition that killed me. Everything was fairly obvious <spoiler>though I did think the wolf would be her mom and it turned out to be her grandma, so I was slightly off</spoiler> and was randomly tied to the classic Grimm tales-- Cinderella, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty. Concepts given huge weight and significance were abandoned at the drop of a hat (like her map or Henni's modesty of being in her chemise). And all in all it just felt really messy and unsure of what it wanted to be.

I hope between the ARC and the final copy, they're able to edit out the noise of just repeating the same info over and over, which was especially heavy-handed in the first ten chapters. In its current form there's just nothing in this I can recommend.

<i>I was granted an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.</i>

This book was so cute!!
To be honest I was not expecting to like this book as much as I did! I don't know why the fairytale retellings have been drawing to me lately but this book was a pleasure to read!!
You follow the story of Clara and the story of her inevitable death. She must cast a selfless wish to save her mother and in turn save the entire town.
If you've read any of my reviews you know that I LOVE a good conscious-inanimate-object story, and in this one the forest is alive and the forest fights back. I very much enjoyed the many fairytales that @kathrynpurdie intertwined into this story, red ridinghood, Cinderella, Rapunzel and many more!

BUT OMG I DID NOT EXPECT THE CLIFFHANGER! I'll definitely be picking up the second one!

Thank you to @wednesdaybooks for the arc!!

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