On the same night Karas little brother was born her mother was executed for witchcraft. Now 8 years later the villagers scorns her and calls her "witch girl" and her father has become a wreck.

Kara tries to take care of her sickly brother Taff who she loves she also has a friend,Lucas who is a Cleaner. Cleaners are the lowest in the village and their job is to try and keep back The Thickety.A wood full of weird trees and deadly monsters and all of ruled over by the forest demon Sordyr.

The community where Kara lives ,the Fold is a strict community that closed itself off from the outside world centuries ago.

After a crowlike thing lures her into the Thickety Kara finds a buried book,a grimoire belonging to her mother. She also encounter Sordyr but manages to escape the Thickety just in time.

Kara after a while learns how she can use the grimoire to summon and command any animal she wants and she finds herself using the magic more and more,but when a former friends of her mother warns her that the grimoire is more dangerous than she can understand she tries to stop using it.

At the same time Fende Stone -the man who convicted her mother of witchcraft watches Kara for signs of witchcraft while his daughter Grace who on the surface seems to be very nice and devout girl but hides a manipulative and cruel personality and when she learns of the grimoires existance she decides she wants it and its power for herself.



And what Grace wants she will get...one way or another.



The Thickety is a book wich I did like in its way but that I cant claim to love despite it having many things I do love in a book. First of all its dark,maybe too dark for the demographic its originally aimed at.



Fende Stone was an unpleasant man,but he was nothing when in comparision with Grace.I felt vaguely unclean from reading about her evilness. In her way Grace is used as a foil for Kara,showing her what the grimoire could turn her into.

There is mention of torture of the maincharacter,it does happen offpage but I just felt uncomfortable at the mere thought of a 12 year old girl being physically abused.

It was all very metaphorical not unlike a situation a teenager might find herself or himself in



There is the dead mother,the depressed father,the sick brother,bullies,religious opression,poverty etc misery,gloom,bleakness......



When I started to really think about I felt it was trying to deal with too many issues all at once.Obviously trying to cram so many things into the story makes the book take its time to build up to the more meaningful scenes. I was halfway through the book when I realized it felt like the book was stalling.



It was if I may be a bit fanciful like fighting your way through the Woods and then realizing you have been so busy avoiding to get snagged or stepping into a hole but you have barely moved at all.



And then the showdown at the end just comes all at once.

Now that Ive mentioned that I would like to end with some good things.

Kara is a great character.

The plot twist with the book Karas father keeps writing in was pretty neat.

When the Jabenhook ,a character from a story Kara made up for her brother does turn up towards the end part of the book I was like YEAAAAAHHH.

If you liked this book you might also like:
[b:The Witch's Boy|20312461|The Witch's Boy|Kelly Barnhill|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1394456035s/20312461.jpg|28147220] by Kelley Barnhill
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This is not shelved as YA at my library, but I think maybe it should be? There's death, torture Kara gets pressed!! Which is insane, and some pretty twisted stuff.

At least it's a good story! Really engaging and interesting, with complete worldbuilding and fleshed out characters. It even verges on the path of having an anti-heroine, since Kara gets more and more dark/angry/vengeful as she uses her grimoire and I hope that's explored in the sequels.

And Grace is a wonderful and infuriating villain. ( )

This review originally posted at The Children's Book and Media Review

Kara’s mother is killed for witchcraft when Kara is only six years old. She grows up as an outcast, doing her best to take care of her little brother, Taff, and her distant father. The villagers believe that nothing is more evil than magic except the Thickety, the forest where Sordyr lives. One day a bird lures Kara into the Thickety and she discovers a book that may have belonged to her mother. In spite of the danger that she is in from associating with magic, Kara can’t stop feeling drawn to the book and discovering new ways to use the new magic she is exposed to. Kara has to discover the secrets behind her mother’s witchcraft to save her little brother and the village from another more devious magic user. Kara learns that magic is power, and power often kills.

This book has a dark tone of grief and death that is uncommon for fantasy books in this age range, but it still manages to be wonderfully magical. Kara deals with an addiction to magic, and her horrible treatment from the villagers make her bad decisions seem justifiable. She realizes that her bad actions in the end are not okay, but other characters do not and the ending is as dark as the rest of the book. Kara’s character development is interesting, but some of the other characters have gaps that might bother older readers but younger readers will likely fill in with their own enemies. The first part of the book is interesting, but it seems to drag out for part of the book and sometimes it seems dark just for the sake of being dark. For readers who like darker stories about witchcraft, this book will likely be thrilling. ( )

When Kara Westfall was six, on the night of her brother Taff's premature birth, her mother is condemned as a witch for killing a couple and publicly executed in front of all the townspeople of De'Noran. Kara is acquitted as a witch, but the surviving Westfalls are pariahs. The town ruler’s pretty daughter, Grace, makes it her special mission to torment Kara while making it look like Kara is the one bullying her.

One day, when Kara is 12, a bird steals her mother's necklace, forcing Kara to follow it into the Thickety, a mysterious forest where the Forest Demon, Sordyr, lives, making it forbidden and dangerous. Deep in the forest, Kara finds her mother's grimoire, a magical book that eventually allows her to conjure animals and control their actions. Things really get going when Grace steals the book and is able to use it much more effectively. Kara and Grace engage in an escalating contest of will and magical strength.

May be too dark for some middle schoolers. And it is accept young Kara as de facto head of the household before she is 10 years old.
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Potentially a good fit for Halloween season since it's about witches. This was darker than I expected, but well written. That said, I have reservations about one of the major villain characters being disabled. It felt a bit too much like the "Evil Cripple" trope for my taste. I've not read the rest of the series, and it sounds like this character makes another appearance later on, so perhaps this is subverted in later books. ( )