Review: Woven

Woven by Bree Moore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Woven is a retelling of classic Arthurian legend in a new, unique way. And for something that has been retold as many times as the stories of King Arthur and his knights, a story that can put fresh life in the classic tales and twist it in an unpredictable way deserves fairly high praise. I cannot say more about the story without risking giving away its secrets, but if you are a fan of Arthurian legend, you’ll enjoy it.

Woven is well written and fun, but I did have a few issues with the story. Many of the characters felt flat and did not have many dimensions, or did not gain many until the end of the story. Their reactions to tragic events and deaths were often odd and muted and many of the characters you would expect to have powerful personalities were underwhelming. I found that although I really enjoyed the story, I didn’t develop an attachment to or feel empathy for any of the characters. Also, much like true Arthurian legend, magical events and people are not really explained, the source and origin of legendary items are not revealed, and the true motivations (and fates) of many of the characters remain a mystery. While this may be a stable of a millennium-old classical genre, it makes this narrative feel incomplete in some places.

One more note about the book: The plot develops slowly -- perhaps too slowly for some people. I found myself confused about what is really going on for the first half or so of the book, and was double-checking character’s names and was tempted to go back to the previous chapters to make sure I had not missed details somewhere along the way. That puzzlement will pass and your patience will be rewarded when the twists and turns of the plot are revealed, but you have to get there before it happens.

Rebecca McKernan does a decent job narrating this novel, but her accent was often so melodic that I found myself tuning out to what she was actually saying during long monologues in her “narrator voice” when characters were not talking. However, I do think her voice was fitting for the book given the genre and setting. There were some issues with audio repeating lines, but nothing that occurred so often it was detrimental to the overall performance.

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