A Wilted Willow by Julia Witmer

Goodreads Synopsis: Mira Miller has never forgotten the day the portal closed behind her as she was suddenly thrust back into her own world. She has never forgotten the friends she left behind or the fight she left unfinished. Will her desperate attempts to find her way back to Nother World succeed in reuniting her with the place and people she unwillingly abandoned?

Life for Cadmus Clark has never been the same since Mira disappeared. As his world grows ever darker, it becomes harder and harder to hold onto the final small threads of hope – hope that the evil which has taken over will ever be vanquished. Has the splendor of Nother World vanished forever?

Both Mira and Cadmus will fight for the return of the Nother World they loved. But can you ever really go back?

My Rating: 3 Stars

Content warnings: PG. Some bloodless violence, mostly involving shooting.

(spoilers below)

Thoughts: The story had a lot of potential. But being less than 100 pages, the story barely had time to develop the main character to the little extent that it did, much less anything else about it. It earned its third star based on the potential, had there been more time spent on development.

I really wanted to see more of just how being away effected Mira. The synopsis gave the impression that she would be away from Nother World for a significant portion of the book, but she makes it back within the second chapter, and it makes it hard to feel just how much being away effected her.

The first several chapters touched on several themes I would have loved to have seen played out, but after they were briefly spoken of they were ignored, and I was left feeling the story was rather empty without them.

At first I was okay with not having a very good idea of how the world worked, or even what Mira's role had been during her first stay in Nother World. But as the story went on it started becoming more important to understand what was going on in the world, and to know just why Mira was so important to their victory as a fifteen year old. Unfortunately, none of that was ever explained, and I ended up confused and disappointed that there was no good explanations for anything.

There wasn't enough time to get to know any of the characters, so by the time it got to the climax, I didn't actually care. One character betrayed them, but she may as well have been any of the other characters for as much as I knew about any of them. I wish I could say I felt sad, but I was just ready for it to be over with.

Despite all those issues, there was a lot of potential there. The idea of a character coming back to the world they left behind in a Narnian-esque portal fantasy story is one that really intrigued me. And the search to understand why she was pulled out of the world when she was, as well as seeing those left behind trying to pick up the pieces once they had lost are all things I would definitely read in other stories.

According to the bio in the back of the book, the author is only 16. I think she has a very good foundation for a much longer, richer story, if she would care to continue working and expanding on what she has here. And that would be a book I would love to read.