Review: An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Publication Date: September 26th, 2017

Rating: 2.5 Stars

Source: Purchase

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 300

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Summary (from Goodreads):

Isobel is a prodigy portrait artist with a dangerous set of clients: the sinister fair folk, immortal creatures who cannot bake bread, weave cloth, or put a pen to paper without crumbling to dust. They crave human Craft with a terrible thirst, and Isobel’s paintings are highly prized among them. But when she receives her first royal patron—Rook, the autumn prince—she makes a terrible mistake. She paints mortal sorrow in his eyes – a weakness that could cost him his life.

Furious and devastated, Rook spirits her away to the autumnlands to stand trial for her crime. Waylaid by the Wild Hunt’s ghostly hounds, the tainted influence of the Alder King, and hideous monsters risen from barrow mounds, Isobel and Rook depend on one another for survival. Their alliance blossoms into trust, then love, violating the fair folks’ ruthless Good Law. There's only one way to save both their lives, Isobel must drink from the Green Well, whose water will transform her into a fair one—at the cost of her Craft, for immortality is as stagnant as it is timeless.

Isobel has a choice: she can sacrifice her art for a future, or arm herself with paint and canvas against the ancient power of the fairy courts. Because secretly, her Craft represents a threat the fair folk have never faced in all the millennia of their unchanging lives: for the first time, her portraits have the power to make them feel.

If I had to describe my feelings after finishing this book in one word, that word would be frustrated. I have SO many questions about it!

Why are the fair folk so dangerous to humans? I didn't really see enough evidence of this to buy it. Like, just because of their tricks? I feel like all the stuff that happens in the forest is kind of just a "wrong place, wrong time" kind of thing.

Why can't the fair folk do Craft? Like what is the point of them being unable to perform simple, mundane human tasks? I can see why they would crave the end result if they can't perform the task, but why would something so stupid turn them into dust?

Why is mortal sorrow painted in Rook's eyes a weakness that could cost him his life? The fair folk seem to spend entirely too much time playing at being human and trying to seem as human as possible. I don't understand why being seen with a human emotion would be something to warrant losing your life over. Especially when they all crave human things so much.

I don't understand why Rook is even the autumn prince. Like, they spend all of two minutes in the autumnlands. There is literally not a single point in this book that I can think of where it is at all important that Rook is the autumn prince. They don't go to the autumn court. You don't meet anyone else from the autumnlands. He's probably making it all up to look cool for a girl.

What is the point of the Wild Hunt? It is literally just a super minor inconvenience a couple times in this book. I feel like there was a lot of interesting potential with the Wild Hunt and Hemlock, but it was squandered because a mortal and the autumn prince fell in instalove.

For the longest time, I had no idea what the hell the Good Law was. At one point, I literally thought it was that they couldn't have sex. I had no idea until like 3/4 through this book that the law was that they couldn't fall in love. Why??? It would be interesting to know why that came about. Did the Alder King get scorned by a mortal lover and ruin the fun for everyone? Like any backstory on the Good Law and especially on the Alder King would have made this book better. Especially since the whole book was about Rook and Isobel breaking the Good Law!!!

That's just questions I have based on what's in the summary. And not even all the questions I have based on just the summary.

I feel like I have said in several reviews that sometimes getting history lessons on these fictional worlds in the story makes my eyes glaze over. I was PRAYING for some history in this book because I feel like so much more of this book would make sense to me if I just knew WHY.

And this book has a bit of a journey in it, which was rather dull. And obnoxious because it seemed like they could walk through a whole court in a day. I feel like they were travelling for like two days and they made it from Whimsy to the autumnlands, got sidetracked by the Wild Hunt, detoured through the summerlands (which were decaying for some reason and it seemed to be a problem, but who the hell knows why??), fought a barrow mound monster, slowly travelled back to the autumnlands because Rook got injured, and then changed their plan all together and went to the spring court. Or something like that. And they slept!!! There was time for that!!

Despite all that, I found that I kind of enjoyed the book while I was reading it. BUT I don't think that I can say that that feeling really lived past closing the book.

What did I like about this book?? I guess I kind of liked the characters. I liked Isobel and Rook. And I was rooting for them to be together (despite having so. many. questions about them).

Overall, this book just wasn't for me. If there had been more history, explanations, explorations of ANYTHING in this book, I think that I would have loved it. I think it had SO much potential, but definitely didn't live up to the hype for me.

Have you read An Enchantment of Ravens yet? What did you think?