The Grace of Wild Things - Heather Fawcett

Initial Draw: ☆☆☆☆☆
Character Development: ☆☆☆☆☆
Plot/Writing Style: ☆☆☆☆☆
Overall: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"Grace has never been good at anything except magic - not that anyone believes her. While other children are adopted from the orphanage, nobody wants Grace. So she decides to make a home for herself by running away and offering herself as an apprentice to the witch in the nearby woods. After all, who better to teach Grace to use her magic? Surely the witch can't be that bad.

But the witch is that bad - she steals souls for spells and gobbles up hearts. So Grace offers a deal: If she can learn all 100 1/2 spells in the witch's grimoire, the witch will make Grace her apprentice. But if Grace fails, the witch can take her magic. The witch agrees, and soon an unexpected bond develops between them. But the spells are much harder than Grace expected, and when a monster from the witch's past threatens the home Grace has built, she may have to sacrifice more than her magic to save it."

 

This book made me want to read Anne of Green Gables again because 1. I love it and 2. I didn't really get how this was "inspired" by that story...aside from the main character being an orphan, I guess? Maybe that's all it was.

Anyway, it's a very fun story. Grace is so whimsical and imaginative, it's entertaining seeing her get into strange and sometimes dangerous situations and pretty unironically be like "hmm, how would a heroine in a novel react to this?" I loved her dedication to becoming the witch's apprentice, even when the witch was so openly hostile to her. I loved seeing her make friends at school, open up to Rum, and come to understand how deserving of love she is. It is loooooong, 360 pages, but very whimsical and lighthearted, even when things aren't going Grace's way. Overall, a delightful read!