Review The West Woods

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Title: The West Woods 

Series: The Fountain Book #2 

Author: Suzy Vadori 

Pages: 290

Overall Goodreads Rating: 3.57

 Expected publication: September 22nd 2017 by Evil Alter Ego Press

My Rating 2.5/5 Stars 

This book was provided to me by Netgalley. The West Woods was given to me as an arc for an honest review.
 I found out after reading it that it is suppose to be a sequel. I was very confused because it isn't pitched as one on Netgalley or Goodreads. I would consider it a companion read, there didn't seem like any missing puzzle pieces. So if you make the same mistake I did, don't worry you can read this by itself. 

The first 50 or so pages were entertaining and I flew through them. Courtney our main character seems like a sweet, shy, and athletic girl. She can come off a little whinny, because she wants to be at a different school, and her dad makes a promise to her. If she finds out St. Augustus secretes, and still wants to leave she can. This made me think I was going to get a boarding school filled with secrets, magic, romance, and drama. While I DID get those things, it just didn't work. 

Please let me make this clear. I am not bashing this book or the writing. I enjoyed some of the book, but there were problems I had with it. As a reviewer I will always be honest with all of you, no matter how difficult it is. 

Like I said earlier I really enjoyed the first 50 pages or so of The West Woods. It held promise and set up the start of a intriguing plot. I was getting invested, and then I started to see a pattern that turned out to be problematic. The writing started to feel off in the sense that there would be a character set up, and it would fall through. Let me explain, in the start of the book we see our main character Courtney and her friends are playing truth or dare. She is dared to run into the woods with a cute boy, and the writing makes it sounds like there may be something between them. After this happens, it's like the male character falls off the face of the earth. Then we get another situation with another male character, and guess what? Yup you guessed it, nothing happens. We get this type of situation with THREE different male characters. This lead to the writing feeling choppy and confusing.

Speaking of confusing the character development was either complex or poorly written. Courtney goes through certain magical situations that cause her personalty to change. This didn't occur to me until another character pointed it out and explained it. Even with the explanation it happened so late in the book that I was already checking out, and debating on putting the book down. I do think that this plot choice could have worked if I got to know Courtney better. This decision made me feel like Courtney was just crazy and unlikable. If the change in her personality would have happened in the next book I feel like I would catch on to it, because I would have had time to learn more about Courtney.

I still held out hope because the school, woods, and enchanting history is what sold me to read the book in the first place. I kept waiting to learn more, and while it was explained some what, I was left wanting more, and not in a good way. However I did feel like the author did a good job in leaving the reader in the dark, and I learned as Courtney did. I wish we could have learned more about the enchantment of the school. I wanted to see it come alive, learn more of it's history in an enchanting way. I wanted fleshed out characters, true friendships that weren't so wishy washy. This book had so much potential to be an epic read, and it makes me beyond sad to know what it could have been. 

I know that this isn't one of my best reviews, but I'm not use to writing low rated reviews. While I don't highly recommend this book, I do recommend you to make your own decision. The West Wood's is a short book, and if the description sounds like something you would enjoy, see if your library has it. Let me now your thoughts if you have read The West Woods.