I love that this story let the art speak for itself most of the time. I love spooky folklore tales, and while this story didn't really have a deeper meaning, it delivered on that aspect. Overall, it was an eerie and satisfying graphic novel.

Interesting premise but the writing was not up to my taste .
I did find the setting very intriguing and fun to read
Thank you NetGalley for the eArc

It is always great to learn about different culture's fairytales/stories. It becomes hard to fully embrace and understand them when important parts of the plot are in another language and there is no translation available.. I do appreciate the use of the language, however, usually the text is written in a way that the reader can understand through clues or translation through another character. I do understand that "every act of translation is a betrayal" so having a glossary would have been great. The siren archetype told in this form was pretty interesting, but not accesible to most readers.

2.5/5

It was all going so well... what happened in that finale?
Is this a one shot? Is there going to be more?
The story started off so good, it had the perfect set up for a super intriguing horror adventure in a cursed forest, but then all of a sudded everything went downhill and it all started not having any sense at all and then it simply ended?

I didn't even have time to realize what happened, I was in speed reading mode because I wanted to know more, but at some point I just couldn't tap "next page" anymore because it was over lol

It felt so unfinished and all the tension built was killed.
Have to say it was a waste of a decent idea :/

Thank you Netgalley and publisher Mad Cave Studios for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

The premise of this sounded great to me. I do love a mysterious forest.
The artstyle was mostly not my cup of tea.
And from the moment the main character gets to start looking for his missing friend, it lost me compleatly.
Maybe that was the point? In that case, it got above my head.
It felt very flat and very "meh" for me.
And even though there was a fair number of pages left it didn't give me much.

However, I will be doing a bit of looking into the story about the forest since that facinates me and for that I'm thankful for my read.

2 star rating for me = It was OK.

The promise of Romanian folk horror made me jump on the ‘request’ button, because female spirits hunting men? Yes please, sign me up!

From the cover alone I knew I wouldn’t be the biggest fan of the illustrations, but I knew it wouldn’t bother me either: I don’t read graphic novels, and as such, the story itself is more important to me. What I didn’t expect was the illustration style being too cutesy, and utterly inauthentic for the setting. I wouldn’t have minded the illustrations not adding to the story particularly, but it’s impossible not to mind when they take away from it — especially when the story isn’t strong enough to withstand being taken away from. There were several pages (about 4, if I haven’t miscounted) where the illustrations were appropriate for a horror book, but they weren’t enough, considering the remaining 92 pages entirely prevented both a horror atmosphere and an authentically Romanian setting.

It’s rare that when I say a book suffers from length, I mean it’s too short. Whisper of the Woods is far too short to land: it feels more like a rough draft to be expanded upon. As someone who is properly scared of horror, I feel my identification of the effects that make horror scary is accurate: a sense of unease if not full out eeriness that pervades even the normalcy of the beginning of the story, a sense of suspense created by the build up which tenses the nerves so every single uneasy detail (no matter how small) works to intensify the reader’s paranoia that the horrors of the fiction might have spilled into real life, and finally the creeping terror that smirks at the corner before the eventual head-on collision — by which I mean the aforementioned details, the hints that something isn’t right, the glimpses of the malevolent forces that are often created by evasion and skirting around the clues rather than willingly offered information. Unfortunately not even one is done here. Nothing is developed (like “the most haunted forest” and what that entails) but everything is willingly offered as information: those burn marks you see? Yeah, they’re from the iele, they hunt men and do terrible things to them, death would be a blessing. You should leave, but if you aren’t, you should just come and stay with me, complete stranger who literally *just* walked into our village. I wish the rapidness of this reveal and this progression were hyperbolic, but it’s not. This is how fast things happen.

Now imagine, instead, our protagonist Adam getting evasive answers about the burn marks he discovers, imagine him snooping around and trying to convince locals to give him answers, imagine the witch’s warning feeling more ominous with a much more supporting setting than an encounter on the street, imagine more stories about the supposedly most supernatural forest of Romania, imagine the eventual reveal of the iele and what they do to men (and imagine that having more details so it’s properly scary!), imagine increasingly suspicious encounters that convince the readers the iele are real even though Adam brushes them off as superstition, imagine the ending not being off-screen but on-screen so we finally get to witness the horror… imagine, in short, a proper build up teeming with unease that culminates in a truly terrifying final act. The book could have been awesome, and all it needs for that is just more pages.

There were conversation bubbles left untranslated. I liked the effect they gave, that we the readers like Adam recognise we’re in an unfamiliar place where we don’t really know what’s going on, where we depend on whatever is chosen to be revealed to us, where information isn’t readily available to us unless particularly disclosed, where we might be surrounded by sinister events and characters without ever knowing so. I just wish the translations were added at the end, so once the story was over, we could go back and see if there were any clues. I don’t think it’s too late to add that in as an appendix, and I’d highly recommend the publisher consider this!

Though I read an uncorrected proof, the editing was done well — only one single letter was missing, on page 15, which I will notify the publisher of.

My rating isn’t to mean I hated this book. I did not. It is only to reflect an honest review of the shortcomings of the book, all of which could easily have been or even still be improved. If there’s time to make changes, I’d also recommend the publisher at least darken the pastel colouring of the illustrations that takes away from a horror atmosphere.

DRC provided by Mad Cave Studios and NetGalley.

An American who disrespects and disregards local customs and folklore because he thinks he's above it all? Say it ain't so!
I'm on the side of the ethereal demonic women, obviously.

This was a quick creepy read one can finish in one sitting. The Romanian supernatural forest premise was the one thing that intrigued me. Though the art style is not necessarily my fav, this graphic novel still managed to freak the hell out of me. Ngl I had a few jump scares during certain scenes. Call me scaredy cat idc but damn that forest was creepy.

An interesting, spooky retelling of an old European myth.
The beginning of the story draws in readers with a sense of mystery that turns to doom and wonder before the end of the story jumps out at you like a classic 90's spooky tale.

Man disregards locals' warnings, frolics through creepy woods, and things go about as well as you'd expect.

This wasn't bad, but it was short, and I typically need more time with the horror aspect of a story. This horror aspect was revealed and wrapped up too quickly for me. I wanted to know more about it, have a slower reveal and feel more tension. Why was this thing doing this? Where did it come from? Why was it in the basement?

Overall, it just wasn't for me.

It was interesting. Super quick read. Art is very cool, I wish it has been longer. I really want to read more by this author.

It was a quick read, but not a very compelling story. The ending left me saying, "that's it?". Unlikely to recommend this book for our collection.

Quick read. This one was so so for me. I didn't care for he artwork or the story. The characters were bland.

Unfortunately this graphic novel just left something to be desired for me. I wasn't the biggest fan of the illustrations, not to say they weren't well done it just isn't a style that grabs me. The story was not bad, but felt overdone and didn't bring anything new to the table for me.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I thought the art style was beautiful for this graphic novel and the story was pretty good too. Although I think it would have been better if it had been longer, so the story didn't just end suddenly and the characters could have been fleshed out a bit better.

A quick read with a good amount of spook. I'm a sucker for a There-Is-Something-In-The-Woods story and Eastern European folklore so naturally I was snatching this up. The art is kind of meh outside of the distinctly horror panels and the traditional Romanian outfits that the women of the story were wearing. It's very brief with nothing unexpected or special about it per se, but I enjoyed it for what it was.

Having read it -- and even enjoying it -- I'm grateful to have picked it up pre-release because I don't think I'd buy it for the library. I don't think we have the audience for it, but at least I liked it! 😂

A very big thank you to NetGalley and the publisher Mad Cave Studios for giving me the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was sadly a very short read. What I can say is that although it's super short it had quite the build up. The abrupt ending left me wanting much more, the story needed to be a tad longer. The artwork was very enjoyable!

The perfect short creepy story for Autumn or Halloween! I loved that this story is based on folklore from my own country. And it's really well represented. The art style was simple but so on point. I love how the traditional clothes are drawn. Overall, I really enjoyed it and I cannot wait to read it again in Fall.

This was a cute (if you can say that?) little graphic novel. It was a little chilling and a nice, simple story. I’d love to read more and see it become more in depth and learn more about the history about the creatures. Overall very easy, simple read. Enough to give you a little chill but not too scary.

I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

As both an avid comic reader and avid horror reader I was really excited to get a chance to read this book with a spooky woods setting. The story takes place in Romania in a small village that is surrounded by a wooded area that has cause many men to go missing, die, or in some cases come back very differently.

The plot and setting sounded interesting, but sadly both the writing and artwork were very subpar. I didn't really enjoy this book at all, but also didn't actively hate it, so I've rated it at two stars. There was just very little to grab the reader and unfortunately the execution was just not very good.