Wildwood Imperium

Wildwood Chronicles #3

by Colin Meloy, Carson Ellis (Illustrator)

From Colin Meloy, lead singer of the Decemberists, and Carson Ellis, acclaimed illustrator of The Mysterious Benedict Society, comes the stunning third book in the New York Times bestselling fantasy-adventure series the Wildwood Chronicles.

A young girl's midnight séance awakens a long-slumbering malevolent spirit.... A band of runaway orphans allies with an underground collective of saboteurs and plans a daring rescue of their friends, imprisoned in the belly of an industrial wasteland.... Two old friends draw closer to their goal of bringing together a pair of exiled toy makers in order to reanimate a mechanical boy prince.... As the fate of Wildwood hangs in the balance.

The Wildwood Chronicles is a mesmerizing and epic tale, at once firmly steeped in the classics of children's literature and completely fresh at the same time. In this book, Colin Meloy continues to expand and enrich the magical world and cast of characters he created in Wildwood, while Carson Ellis once again brings that world to life with her gorgeous artwork, including six full-color plates.

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Middle Grade, Young Adult, Childrens, Adventure, Audiobook

560 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 4, 2014

About the author

Colin Patrick Henry Meloy is the lead singer and songwriter for the Portland, Oregon folk-rock band The Decemberists. In addition to his vocal duties, he plays acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bouzouki, and percussion. As of 2005, Meloy has written a 100-page book on The Replacements' fourth album, "Let It Be," released as part of the 33⅓ series.

Meloy was born in Helena, Montana. His sister is Maile Meloy, an author often published in The New Yorker. He first attended the University of Oregon before transferring to the University of Montana, where he majored in creative writing. He then moved to Portland, where he met future bandmates Jenny Conlee and Nate Query. Prior to being in The Decemberists, Meloy was the lead singer and songwriter of Happy Cactus and Tarkio, both indie/folk bands from Montana.

In early 2005, he embarked on his first solo tour in support of the self-released six-song EP, "Colin Meloy Sings Morrissey," which consists of six Morrissey covers. Only 1,000 copies of the album were made, and they were sold only on that tour. Meloy did a second solo tour in January 2006, playing with Laura Veirs and Amy Annelle. On this tour, he sold an EP featuring covers of British folk artist Shirley Collins. Shows from the 2006 tour were recorded for a live release. Meloy also appeared with Charlie Salas-Humara in the music video for "Pillar of Salt" by The Thermals.

On February 24, 2006, Carson Ellis, Meloy's longtime girlfriend and graphic artist for the Decemberists, gave birth to their son, Henry "Hank" Meloy.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

”Who ever heard of a witch who really died? You can always get them back.”
~a Narnian hag, Prince Caspian

A teenaged resident of South Wood, Wildwood, decides to horse around with parlor necromancy one night and inadvertently summons a spirit far beyond her powers. At first young Zita thinks she’s summoned a primordial being from the deep past, but the true identity of the spirit is tied to the bloody recent history of Wildwood. Zita is no great hero. Her sole claim to fame till now is having marched in the South Wood parade as the May Queen.

She also has to deal with the mysterious new cult that her father just joined, the Synod of the Blighted Tree, whose acolytes all wear blank masks, and who seem to be planning for something…

Across the magical divide in Portland, Prue McKeel promises her parents that she will at least aim to come home safe after saving the Wood. Then she and Esben Clampett, the clockmaker bear with hooks for hands, head back into the forest as a shadow falls on it. Prue has been told that she has to bring Prince Alexei back to life or the whole Wood will collapse.

In the hazy land between the Wildwood and Portland, the Industrial Wastes, the Unadoptable escapees of Joffrey Unthank’s ruined orphanage/child-slave-labor-factory-hellhole have just crossed paths with a team of anarchist men known as the Chapeaux Noir, who spout a lot of fine rhetoric about workers’ rights and the environment, but readily admit that their only actual plan is to (I quote) “blow stuff up.”

The two groups realize they have a common goal in bringing down the Industrial Titans, and soon get embroiled in the chaos deeper in the Impassable Wilderness.
Curtis Mehlberg was last seen searching for his fellow Bandits, who have all vanished without a trace.

And the forest is being overrun with ivy that chokes and drowns everything in its path. Zita suspects the spirit that haunts her has a hand in it. There’s a bustle in this May Queen’s hedgerow, and she’s very alarmed…



Content Advisory
Violence: There’s allusions to heavy violence, although the stuff that’s actually shown isn’t that bad. The people of South Wood have erected a guillotine on the grounds of the Governor’s mansion, and while we don’t see it used, the characters are quick to tell Prue (and us) that the thing is in no danger of gathering dust.

We do see the Chapeaux and the Unadoptables lobbing explosives at various buildings, but the carnage left by these explosions is largely left unexplored.

Sex: Nothing.

Language: One use of “damn”—Curtis remembers his little sister is present and ostentatiously corrects himself, “I mean shoot.”

Substance Abuse: Nothing.

Politics and Religion: The Synod is the archetypal creepy cult, but Meloy uses mainstream religious lingo to describe them. Individual members are called Caliphs, a name that actually refers to an Islamic authority figure, and the term synod refers to a council of Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox bishops convened to decide on doctrine. I understand why Meloy would use established religious terms to give his fictional cult some credibility, but if you’re reading the book with younger kids, you might want to clarify that Caliphs and Synods are not sinister entities in the real world.

The cult members also ingest a fungus as part of their ritual, which was described in terms reminiscent of Catholic Eucharistic rites. As a Catholic, this made me a little uneasy, but I couldn’t tell how much of the resemblance was intentional. At any rate, this is hardly The Golden Compass.

Crude Humor: The only way to extract the Spongiform is by pulling it out of the victim’s nose; once removed, the narrator tells us that the stuff looks like grey spaghetti. When Nico, Rachel, and the kids get caught in a net, some poor boy winds up with his face right against Elsie’s butt.

Conclusions
I wasn’t impressed with the first Wildwood book, but the second one was a marked improvement on the first and made me care just enough to see how the whole thing ended. I’m glad I stuck around.

Meloy ties his whole story together quite nicely here. All the plotlines are addressed and resolved (except for a tiny unanswered question at the end that might be a tentative sequel hook). The many main characters all get page-time and moments of heroism. I feel like the strongest and most memorable of the group turned out to be Rachel when it should have been Prue, but your mileage may vary.

These days it’s commendable when an author focuses on the conflict they created rather than getting tripped up by inane shipping wars. The main relationships in this book are those between parents and children, and those between siblings, which is exactly how it should be in a middle-grade book. There are light hints that the friendship between Alexei and Zita, or Nico and Rachel, might deepen down the road, but they’re only hints. It was quite refreshing to read a MG book that stayed age-appropriate, and didn’t force its younger characters to grow up too fast. Kids have the rest of their lives to worry about dating.

The final showdown reads like the battle at the Black Gate in LOTR combined with the battle of Manhattan from The Last Olympian (can’t say why without giving the whole thing away), with a touch of Sleeping Beauty and what might have happened in Prince Caspian if Nikabrik and his buddies had successfully resurrected Jadis.







So while these images have been used before, they’re still stirring and effective. Ellis brings them to life beautifully in her illustrations, which have never been better.

While the literary ancestors of this series have always been fairly obvious—Grimm’s fairytales, LOTR, Narnia, Tiffany Aching, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and maybe Labyrinth —this installment made me realize its musical influences for the first time. I think there must have been a lot of Led Zeppelin playing in the Meloy-Ellis household during the writing of these novels. Much of the imagery in this particular installment seemed inspired by “Stairway to Heaven.”

I know classic rock connoisseurs mock that song now because it’s been played to death, but the reason it was overplayed in the first place is because it’s so evocative. The melody is a haunting sister to “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and the lyrics, while they have no clear meaning, borrow just enough from Dante and Tolkien to create their own spooky little realm, where pipers lead perceptive souls through tangled forests and down long roads, towards an enlightened age where everything is revealed to be golden and beautiful.

This sort of hippie daydream has become hackneyed now, but it’s reaching for something truly magical, the kind of feeling Frodo gets while listening to Elvish songs in the hollowed halls of Rivendell:

Almost it seemed that the words took shape, and visions of far lands and bright things that he had never yet imagined opened out before him; and the firelit hall became like a golden mist above seas of foam that sighed upon the margins of the world. Then the enchantment became more and more dreamlike…and it drenched and drowned him.

I always felt like that passage described how it felt to read The Lord of the Rings itself, to read other great fantasies (like the Chronicles of Narnia or the works of Robin McKinley), to listen to those ethereal Celtic-inflected classic rock songs, or to gaze upon a painting by Botticelli or one of the Pre-Raphaelites. These things make you feel as if the boundaries between the real world and the infinite realms of Faerie will dissolve at any moment.

There are few books (or songs) written today that stir this feeling in me. Today’s culture is sedentary and sanitized to a fault, immured with our tech far from the natural world—and note that fantasy comes from mythology, which came about to explain the savagery and beauty of nature. I remember reading the part in Throne of Glass where the main characters are riding through the forest on their way to the castle, and being a little startled at how phony the whole scene felt. I actually asked myself, “Has this author spent any quality time in a forest before?” (I don’t think she has, but enough about her).

Suffice that in this case, though, the answer to that question is an emphatic yes. Meloy and Ellis have clearly spent lots of time in forests very much like the Wildwood they created. They’ve also studied folk art and ballads from medieval times through the nineteenth century. They’ve listened to, and made, a lot of good music. And they’ve read all the right books. The last fifty or so pages of Wildwood Imperium brought back a bit of that drenching, drowning enchantment that all the best fantasy stories can bring.

The first book in this series still has a lot of flaws, and given how long it is, I don’t blame people who give up on the series there. But if you slog through, and slog through Under Wildwood (which is much less of a slog), your efforts will quite possibly be rewarded here.

The series lacks the sparkling originality of LOTR and Narnia, or the deep spiritual grounding that those share with the Land of Elyon books. It doesn’t have the innovative creatures of the Spiderwick Chronicles, the twists and character depth of Over the Garden Wall, the wit and world-building of the Artemis Fowl novels, the layers of meta-meaning in A Series of Unfortunate Events, the gothic romance of Labyrinth, or any single character as powerful and memorable as Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching.

But it does have a compelling plot and a fantastic atmosphere, and in this installment, it even grows a heart. Overall, I’m glad I read it.

[☾❀Apple✩ Blossom⋆｡˚ · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really did not expect to dislike this book so much. I had mixed feelings about book one, I quite liked book two, but this one - this one - I tried everything. I tried the audiobook, but I found it so boring that my mind was wandering away 80% of the time; so in the end I resorted to skimming through the pages, trying to finish it as soon as possible. I simply cannot find anything positive in this read, a part from the beautiful illustrations. After all, this is all my fault for buying a whole trilogy just because it looked cool! Lesson learned. This was just a boring, completely uninteresting chronicle of stuff I didn't care about. And I mean, I don't think a kid the target age would find politics more interesting than I did, but I mean, maybe I am wrong. Oh well, I don't have much left to say and don't want to be too negative so yeah, I guess this just wasn't for me.

[mairiachi · Rating 3 out of 5]

what was that ending-

(side note: if you were confused by the tree theme and the mystery surrounding why the Council tree died, etc. - scroll to the very bottom of my review, I finally figured it out)

THE BAD
I found it incredibly unbelievable that Curtis' parents would be ok with him living there. After spending tons of money trying to find him, you're just going to let him keep living in the woods? I get that they can come and go whenever they please because they have Woods Magic but that's ridiculous that neither party would want the other with them after being separated for so long. imo, it would have been better if they had just moved into Wildwood with him, maybe set up a school for him, the unadoptables, and the bandit kids.

I also found it unbelievable that Prue's family would ONE: let her go back with the bear knowing she could be killed (sure the mom cries and says she can't go, but really she seemed more concerned with Prue's schooling than with Prue herself which is understandable after a few pages with Prue, but it's her own mother. And when she says "no I'm going", the mom basically gives her the silent treatment... which is dumb because I don't think a healthy, loving mom would do that. It's childish pouting and it's petty)
and TWO) when they realize she died because she hasn't come back for like six months, then they're like *sigh* well we know it's all for the best and that she died trying to make something better so it was for a good, noble cause (like that makes everything okay?) which I find very unrealistic. I would be mad that I told Prue not to go, then she disrespects me (the dad in book two and the mom in book three), goes against my wishes, and gets herself killed!

I would be mad at the Wildwood people and also Esben because they dragged her into this and didn't ever send word that she's dead anyway, they just seem to forget the fact that she has a family. And if I were the mom I would be mad at Lincoln for letting his own daughter go by saying "you know, you gotta do what you gotta do" - even if the characters were super realistic, I just find the parents don't act like real parents.

I also think something must be wrong with Mac since he can't ever get names straight and he's already four years old (for perspective: my sister was talking in sentences by age two). It took me until THE VERY END of book three to realize that when he says "Poooooooooo!" he's not saying a potty word, he's trying to say "Pruuuuuuuue!" but can't pronounce the r.

all the toddlers I've ever known who can't pronounce r's just say w - so it would be "pwoo". The authors have children, how do they write kids so badly? It's not a big deal, but it made the book less enjoyable because of that.

I disliked how obvious it was that the Bicycle Revolution was basically the French Revolution except with animals. Okay. Write something original.

And if we're going to nitpick (I am), then I'm going to add that in the second book, when the new Elder Mystic goes to hang the flag for Iphigenia (the old Elder Mystic), it says that the journey took days. However, when they go with Prue to the exact same location, from the exact same location (the Great Tree to the Ossuary Tree), it says it only takes a couple hours. Weird. Maybe the ivy made Wildwood shrink or something.

While we're at it, can I just point out that it never really specifies why Roger Swindon wants the cog? Let's assume he wants the cog so that he can bring Alexei back to life. Does it ever specify why they want Alexei reanimated? I don't think so, but I could be wrong. It might be some sort of power thing - they want to be able to control him or something. But if that's the case, I don't know how they could be blind to the fact that Alexei, when he found out he was just a mechanical device for his mother, pulled the cog out himself, basically killing himself because he didn't think it was right to be there... so if he thought that dead men should stay dead (like himself), why would he suddenly have a change of heart in the case of Roger Swindon?

The whole thing with the Spongiform is gross. idk why they didn't have them throw it up, instead.

The owl who builds the mini Eiffel tower seems completely useless and doesn't help move the plot forward in any way. He builds the Eiffel tower over a year, and then one day it gets knocked over by Roger Swindon who's pulling Carol Grod behind him, and then the kids come running after them and trample the tower even more. After that, the owl is gone completely from the story. No explanation for why he was in the story in the first place except maybe to make you feel bad that his work is destroyed by people.

THE GOOD
Unfortunately, this is where the spoilers start. I'm sorry that you can't read it if you don't want to spoil it for yourself, but this part is really a spoiler. And it's the coolest part of the whole book, so once you know it, then there's no reason to read the book.
THAT WAS ACTUALLY A COOL ENDING. I thought for sure she was dead.

I'm not sure if the spoiler is that she dies or if the spoiler is that she didn't stay dead. I was sad when she died, for some reason, even though I didn't like her character, but then it was pointless bc she came back to life lol reminds me of the end of Harry Potter. That series would have been way better if he'd actually died, and the same thing goes for this series too.

I also think it would have been better if the book had somehow conveyed that Curtis got word that Prue was still alive - because for all we know, Curtis lives his whole life, bandit deep in the heart of Wildwood, thinking that his childhood best friend died ages ago. The story never wraps that up or compels the reader to believe it's best for him to not know, it just pushes him off to the side.

I also appreciate the fact that for a very long while in there you are pretty certain they're not going to defeat the bad guys and that this is just one of those books. Of course your common sense might tell you that's crap but at least for a little bit, you're certain they're not making it out alive.

I think the best way to end the book would have been for Prue's family to move to Wildwood (they are concerned about her grades and her mom is all sad that she's probably going to have to repeat 7th grade - 7th? - which isn't fun for anyone even though Prue doesn't seem to care...she just slacks off) - maybe start that school with Curtis' parents, and they can live there for the rest of their lives, with the people they know best and besides, both families are Woods Magic, so it shouldn't be too much trouble.

Not to mention the fact that while Esben stays with them, and they're buying economy bags of food, the neighbors are all thinking they're weird, so wouldn't it just be better to move away? Granted, Esben's gone, and not eating up all their supplies anymore, but it just seems more reasonable to pick up and move - they have nothing holding them to the Outside and they're already pretty connected and familiar with Wildwood... it seems ridiculous to stay in the Outside. Especially in the case of Curtis' family, good grief.

But I have to say, the redeeming quality of this book is the ending... you just have to get through 500+ pages before the book is redeemed, so idk if it's worth it lol

I do like the part when Alexei meets up with Alexandra - (I've marked this part as a spoiler only because it's really long, I don't want to take up a ton of space, and it gives away the end of the war, so it is a bit of a spoiler)

"What have they done?"
"They've brought me home," replied Alexei.
"I brought you," said the boy's mother quietly. "I gave you life."
"I know," said the boy. "And I forgive you."
[...]
He ascended the pedestal Alexandra had made of the ancient tree and stopped at the apex, standing mere feet away from the Verdant Empress.
Alexandra held out her arms; her son stepped into them and laid his head, softly, on his mother's chest.
Her ivy arms, now slim and small, closed and she wrapped her son in a long embrace, bowing her head so that her lips graced the metallic smoothness of his brow with a tender kiss.
And, at that very moment, when the kiss was laid on the boy's head, and the mother's arms were firmly wrapped around her child as they'd been when she'd first held him, when she'd first cradled him as a baby, when she'd held him as a child crying over some lost bauble, when she'd held him as a boy when a fever had come on strong, when she'd held him as a young man in the full throat of summer, and when the horse had thrown him and he lay motionless on the flagstones and she'd held him then - at that very moment, the ivy ceased its endless writhings and lapsed into immobility and fell quiet.
Then: the arms that had enwrapped the boy turned to what they had previously been: just a gathered and bound bunch of ivy stalks, and the form of the Verdant Empress fell away and was returned to the ground, to the ether.

-

If you scrolled down just for this, here's what I finally figured out (in terms of the tree stuff and everything going on - do not read if you haven't read the 3rd book):
Ivy swallows Great Tree, pulling it to the ground and breaking it in half (ending its life). By breaking the Great Tree (and also the Blight Tree, earlier in its rampage), it breaks the Periphery Bind that was holding the ivy in. Once PB is broken, it can't stop the ivy, unleashing it to the world. Prue defeats the ivy, destroys it, and because she's so weakened by the effort, loses consciousness and is taken to the Ossuary Tree (now called the One Tree), and is swallowed up, making a new and final bud. Once she has been swallowed, the PB is restored (Ossuary Tree needed three buds to become the One Tree and to restore the PB). Now that the One Tree has three buds and has restored the PB, it is indicated that it has basically replaced the Great Tree.

The One Tree needed Iphigenia (dies in the second book), her replacement (the young Elder Mystic who was acolyte in the second book, who dies in the third), and Prue (dies in the third book). All of these people have a connection - a deep, spiritual connection - to the Great Tree, and it seems to signify the death of the Great Tree by killing three of the people most dedicated to the Great Tree.

[Jan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved everything about this series. What a wild adventure it was reading the three books. I was totally hooked from start to finish. I'm looking forward to the next offering from this author, and will definitely need to check out the music from his band, The Decemberists.

[Jaime · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having read all three of the Wildwood books, I continue to applaud the rich universe that the author has created. Love that it was Colin Meloy who wrote these books and I love how I can hear his songwriting style in his descriptions. I also enjoyed the challenging themes throughout the series, especially the lovely way that grief was addressed at the very end.

I really enjoyed this series as a whole, but the last book felt very hurriedly tied up and I wasn't 100% satisfied. Also, that Swindon guy, where did he escape to? We never really got the whole story of that Synod group, and I so wanted to know more (A fourth book needed, perhaps?)!

The previous parts of the series were highly enjoyable because a lot of it kept me in suspense, and this book didn't really satiate the appetite for twists and turns that the first two books had drummed up.

[BookishStitcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a lovely final installment in the Wildwood trilogy. I thoroughly enjoyed all three books, and I feel that Colin Meloy did a fantastic job. If you are looking for a whimsical middle grade fantasy series I would recommend these. They aren't short books but so enjoyable. The illustrations are also fantastic.

[Michael Wood · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was reluctant to pick up this book because the previous installment didn't leave me very hungry or excited to finish the series. The second book meandered through some new settings that ultimately didn't mean very much and introduced some vague but uninteresting quest launched from a bizarre prophecy. It was not a great ending.

Perhaps to make up for his previous fizzled-out finale, Meloy begins Wildwood Imperium in a way that feels like the start a completely new story rather than the continuation of an unresolved one. New characters and new conflicts are introduced, and some of the old conflicts and questions from the previous book are totally forgotten. It took me a while to get into the sudden change of scene, but I enjoyed what felt like a clean break.

Wildwood Imperium is full of goofy characters and fun, exciting scenes, but it will probably frustrate a lot of readers too. For one, the ever-ambitious Meloy weaves no less than three major story threads together all at the same time, creating some jarring scene changes. These changes are complicated by a dizzying number of points of view (at least a dozen by my count), occasionally resulting in some head-hopping within scenes. Another unfortunate side-effect is that the reader doesn't get to really follow any one character's journey, resulting in a bunch of one-dimensional characters who in the end are just a bunch of foot soldiers. Wildwood pushed the limit with two main characters; Wildwood Imperium exceeds the limit in some ways.

For another, the reader can't help but get the feeling that Meloy wrote himself into a corner in the previous book and had to do something dramatic to streamline the narrative. The question of the encroachment of the outside world in particular, which was an interesting and difficult question in itself, doesn't get the attention here that it deserved. Meloy jumps ship, albeit in a fun and clever way. Still, some gaping plot holes and questions remain. Despite his best efforts, the surgery left some attention-grabbing scars.

Most of the book's flaws can be understood as the classic epic-writer's dilemma: the author has so many stories to tell that he struggles to bring them all together in a single story. I would guess that the readers who most enjoy the story will probably be those more interested in the world than the specific details of the plot or the specific lives of the characters.

In the end, Wildwood Imperium is a fun stand-alone novel and shouldn't be read too faithfully as a direction continuation of Under Wildwood. It's slow going for the first hundred pages or so, but persistent readers will be rewarded with some great adventures and a mostly-satisfying finish. The plot becomes more and more predictable as the book progresses, but that's the problem with using the prophecy trope.

Imperfect, but enjoyable nonetheless.

[Brian James · Rating 5 out of 5]

The third book in the wonderful Wildwood series is arguably the best of the three, which is saying a lot considering the first two were near flawless. But in this concluding chapter of the story that began three years ago with the first novel, Colin Meloy truly hits his stride, cementing himself as one of the finest storytellers of his generation.

The story opens with the main characters scattered throughout the various locations in the city of Portland and sections Impassable Wilderness where they each had been left at the end of Under Wildwood. Several months have passed, and many changes have taken place within the province of South Wood following the revolution orchestrated by Prue and Curtis in the first novel. Though things seem to have returned to a sense of normality, disruptive forces are at work under the surface.

Several story lines are at work in this novel, from the battle in the Industrial Wastes and Prue's quest to find the other Maker in order to fulfill the Council Tree's prophecy, to Curtis's search for the Missing bandits and the return of the Dowager Governess trying to complete her dastardly plan from the first novel. Needless to say, there is a lot of story happening in these 580+ pages, and somehow all of them manage to be perfectly paced and woven together to deliver a unforgettable climax and remarkably executed conclusion to the entire saga.

These books are destined to become classics, read for generations.

[Jacq.and.the.readstalk · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredible conclusion to this wonderfully whimsy series.

Everything was neatly tied up and completed. The final battle was epic with some touching elements. Meloy employs his signature humour, imagery, and suspenseful and action-packed storytelling. This is a perfect series for those who love classic middle-grade fantasy (Narnia, Wonderland, Neverland) with a modern twist. It’s basically for everybody of all ages. The ending is tear-worthy in a good way.

While it is a longer read than most books in its genre, the storytelling and illustrations are perfectly enchanting that is engrossing. The books really emphasize on magic and nature. The characters are captivating in their endeavours and their personality traits. Curtis has grown so much from the first, all the characters do, but he really stood out for me. The writing is very detailed but I think it’s a great way for younger readers to expand their vocabulary and to transition into advanced books.

I hope Colin Meloy continues to write more stories with his wife and illustrator Carson Ellis, as their imagination and storytelling is beyond amazing, and I’m sure there are more stories to tell. A bittersweet and heartening end to the series.

IG Post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CUvfxGrhx...

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Best enjoyed whilst listening to The Decemberists.

When I read the second Wildwood book earlier this year, I was a little unsure as to whether I'd see the trilogy through to its end. When I spotted the final instalment, Wildwood Imperium, on the library catalogue however, it didn't take me too long to change my mind. As I was reading, I was pretty sure that this would be my favourite book of the series overall, as it was the most compelling in terms of its storyline, and was incredibly well plotted. My interest waned at points in Wildwood and Under Wildwood, but not so here; Meloy has created a really fitting end to the series, and I look forward to reading what he comes up with next.

[Amber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prue Mckeel and friends are back in the epic conclusion of the Wildwood trilogy, Wildwood Imperium. When a young girl accidentally revives the Dowager Empress who is now the Verdant Empress who has become one with the Ivy, the world of Wildwood and beyond are now in danger. Will Prue and the others be able to stop the Empress before its too late and fulfill the prophecy or will their worlds perish? Read on and find out for yourself.


This was an amazing and action-packed finale. I enjoyed this trilogy and the artwork was amazing as always. If you enjoy epic fantasy stories, definitely give this trilogy a check out. It's available at your local library and wherever books are sold.

[Noa · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5*

Such a cute resolution

[Skip · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked the first two books in this trilogy very much, but found this one to be much too long. It tool hundreds of pages to even locate some of the main characters. The saboteurs were a fun crowd, and I thought the ending was good, but would have appreciated a little more effort from the editors. And the drawings by Meloy's wife, Carson Ellis, continue to shine, especially the color plates. 2.5 stars.

[kai · Rating 5 out of 5]

definitely my favorite installment in the series!! just like the rest of the wildwood chronicles, this wonderful book is so incredibly sweet and thoughtful, and colin meloy proves to be immensely skillful at weaving a Large number of storylines together in a way that makes total sense. additional props to explicitly-stated anarchist saboteurs in this book! my kings were literally aided by a bunch of incredibly resilient orphans in blowing up an industrial powerhouse. wow

[Jaye · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was my least favourite of the three Wildwood Chronicles Series. It just didn't cross over well for an adult reader, the way the other two did. Too much action/kids running around, instead of the woodsy, magical feel I enjoyed in the first. Skimmed through much of the end and didn't finish.

[Alex Bergland · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wow, this took me a really long time to read. I didn't get that "I can't wait to read the next chapter" feeling. Really just read it because I felt obligated to finish the series. I thought that this book was very "meh".

[Serap · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ohhh ! Nihayet seri bitti😀ana konu güzel bir masal olabilirdi, 3 kitap yaklaşık 1500 sayfa yazmaya (faşistlik, devrim filan oydu buydu ne gerek vardi,çocuk kitabı sonucta) uzatmaya hiç gerek yoktu bence,1500 sayfayı özetleyip 300 bilemedin 400 sayfalık tek kitap yererdi. Gerçi tek sorun bu değil,diğer kitaplarda dediğim gibi çocuklara kötü örnek olacak şeyler var yetişkinler için ise basit ve sıkıcı...1 yıldız çizim ve tasarımlara 1 yıldız fantastik ana hikayeye...

[Adrian Trujillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent ending to the Wildwood trilogy. This book more than the previous two was more fast-paced. Lots of exciting things happening to all the characters. Consequently, this book was harder to put down. My favorite thing about this book are its many returning and new characters. They are all so fascinating and it makes me want to learn more about them. I really loved the ending and it made me tear up a bit first out of sadness and then happy tears. Perfect book and trilogy for all ages and lovers of fantasy. If you like the Chronicles of Narnia books then you’ll certainly like the Wildwood series.

[Cherie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well that got weird. A drastic shift from a juvenile Narnia-esque adventure to a PG-13 intense, graphic action story. I'm talking parasitic hive-mind cult, to faux-French revolutionary proletariat battling the industrialist bourgeoisie cum Fight Club bombing, to apocalyptic demon plant possessed by evil dead queen, to graphic death scenes, and a whole lot of plot holes. A swear word was also plopped in there towards the latter quarter of the book. And it felt like there were a number of allegories that didn't quite hit their mark. Listening to this last volume, I couldn't help but think to myself, "Colin Meloy, are you okay?"

I'm satisfied with the ending, but it wasn't fulfilling, and I'm far from satisfied by how it came to be. It's as if the books were intended to have an audience that grew up and matured reading the stories, like with Narnia or Harry Potter, but unlike those books, these ones only had 3 years between them. It made this volume feel forcibly rushed despite its length. I really felt this rush toward the last quarter of the book. Several significant things were happening simultaneously, but the timing felt very off - like how long it took to get from one end of Wildwood to the other by flying, how fast the ivy traversed the landscape yet was so painstakingly slow in some areas, how building the cog took almost NO time (literally one afternoon?), etc.

A bunch of things also just didn't sit well with me and left me with more questions and frustrations than answers: forced child labor and endangerment by Unthank and the exploit (i.e. committing felony-level crimes) and further endangerment of children by the Chapeau Noir; how Wiggman and Unthank only made up 2 of the 5 Titans, and the fact that the other three would now be in charge - leaving the "take down the machine" task still effectively incomplete; what happened to the Chapeau Noir and the stevedores post-Wiggman take-down? How the ivy apparently demolished Wildwood and the Industrial Wastes, but managed to leave Portland unscathed; what in the world happened to the young Elder Mystic boy? Like... just poof! Disappeared. How in the world were they able to reconstruct the boundary so quickly and easily with only the tiniest strip of bark from a barely new sapling? We STILL don't know how the Melburg kids are "of Woods magic." How did Pru go from barely being able to make grass move, to being able to command an entire LAND (and then some) overtaken by ivy? And piggy-backing off that, how is the ivy the "easiest and most suggestible plant" yet needed the blood sacrifice of an infant to command? How was Curtis barely able to hold up a staged stage coach robbery, yet somehow able to construct an entire Ewok-esque tree-top city in a matter of a few weeks? And how did the remaining Blighted Tree cult get de-spongiformed without Pru? And what in the world happened to Roger Swindon?

Ooof. Leaves my head swimming.

[Christy Gould]

Can’t decide between 2 or 3 stars. On the one hand, he’s a great author, and in the second half I was duly caught up in the story. But if the first two in the trilogy tiptoed up to the line of “too weird for me,” this one definitely crossed it. I just do not like undead-type storylines. I could’ve done without the Zita sections altogether.

[Ricky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Portland's Narnia concludes in a third sprawling, nearly 600-page brick of paper - with some of those pages, as usual, thicker than usual in order to accommodate Carson Ellis's color prints. It does add a little something new for texture - the Chapeaux Noir, a group of French anarchists with plans to bring down the big old Fantastic Mr. Fox style Industrial Wastes, who ultimately give this book some eerie similarities to another Wes Anderson movie that came out years later: The French Dispatch. Definitely more kid-friendly than that particular Anderson movie, though, but that doesn't mean this book doesn't have its moments of darkness. Particularly the ending, which is majorly surprising in how bleak it gets, until suddenly it isn't so much anymore. But it truly is the end for this series, and while I can't say whether or not Laika Studios would get to adapt all three books into a movie, I can only hope they do get the chance, because they'd do it justice.

[Joel Wentz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, a very satisfying conclusion to the Wildwood trilogy. "Under Wildwood" set up many new characters and story-arcs, and Meloy manages to weave them all towards a conclusion without confusing the reader. There is an extremely well-paced build-up and climax to the Elsie/Rachel conflict with the Industrial Titans about halfway through the book, and I do wish the overall conclusion to the book was as exciting. Nevertheless, this book is just as funny and smoothly written as the first two, and it certainly does not feel as long as its 560+ pages, which is wonderful. The world Meloy has built is still engrossing, though the characters are not quite as strong as Wildwood's counterparts in Narnia and the Golden Compass. I definitely recommend this trilogy to kids interested in fantasy and adults who are fans of Meloy's storytelling in Decemberists' songs.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a satisfying end to the trilogy, but lacked the magic of the first book. I suppose as the author's original audience for book 1 grows older, it occurs to an author to raise the stakes and make the successive books darker and sadder. I'm all for subtle imagery/messages about questioning authority in children's literature, but I expected better from Meloy than his heavy hand relaying his messages that capitalism is evil and that religion is a mind-controlling parasite. Also, I generally appreciate a feeling that the author of a book that contains a Mystery at the center of an imagined world actually comprehends that Mystery better than I do(even if he doesn't tip his hand to demystifying). I got the feeling the mystery here was as much one to Meloy as it was to me, which was also disappointing.

[Sofia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book freaked. Me. Out.
During my second reread of the series, I just couldn't get through it. There was something so malevolent and wrong going on. The wrongness scared me more than most horror books. When I was a kid, I loved this series, but I would never read this one before bed. Unlike the first book, which was lighter, this was a whole mess of dark and twisted. Surprising for a middle-grade book.

[Ann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blurf. The ending was so abrupt and brief that I'm still trying to figure out what happened. It was like build up...build up...build up buiLD UPdone.

Also, the writing wasn't great (again), and the pacing was less than consistent (again), and I just didn't really enjoy it that much. BLURF, I say! I'm a little mad at Colin Meloy right now.

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank God it's finally over.

[milo in the woods · Rating 5 out of 5]

colin meloy is a true storyteller. he’s imaginative and brilliant. the illustrations are so fantastic, the magical forest is just perfect. love it.

[Reid Chancellor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great finish to a great series. I listened to the audiobook and I will say Colin Meloy is a lovely narrator.

[jane lourcey · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF

[oliwia · Rating 4 out of 5]

hmm, co mogę napisać? patrząc na to, że czytałam jedynie ten, czyli 3 tom to nie było tak źle. naprawdę się zdziwiłam, bo nie było tu jakoś dużo momentów, których nie rozumiałam, ponieważ nie poznałam poprzednich tomów, dla mnie to był wielki plus! chyba dzięki temu, że nie miałam do tej książki żadnych oczekiwań wcale się nie zawiodłam. przyjemnie mi się czytało, klimat jest taki cudowny, że jeju! nie jest to książka idealna, ale koniec końców ją polecam. z pewnością, gdyby pierwszy tom nie był tak trudno dostępny, kupiłabym poprzednie części i z chęcią je przeczytała. kto wie, może jeszcze kiedyś trafię na tę serię.

(dodam, że zachwyca mnie to, jak pięknie ta książka jest wydana aa! to zdecydowanie dobrze wydane 10 złotych!!)