East-Daikon’s Reviews > The Owl Service > Status Update

huw is urging gwyn to help alison and he's like "I can't! You don't know what these two have done. I can't touch her" and i'm guessing this is from the influence of the original three (alison and roger haven't done anything together) but it still feels vaguely adult for a children's book. what needs to be done to break the spell is not clear

22 chapters done. has gwyn 'run away'? he was upset after roger disparaged him and he felt like alison had blabbed all his private information. it's near the end now. nancy has given her notice. the two of them probably should have just left without notice. the dynamics in that house are just terrible

roger is a massive tool for disparaging gwyn for wanting to improve himself. gwyn is already in a lower situation than roger by way of birth. i hope something horrible happens to him by the end of the book

gwyn is very persistent and alison is all 'mummy says i can't go to choir or tennis if i see you' and um the consequences don't seem very dire? but also gwyn should respect her boundaries, her not turning up five times means she doesn't want to see him

17 chapters done. gwyn and alison are arranging to secretly meet every day. gywn has plans for his life, he's gonna strive to get ahead. gwyn has said huw is somehow related to the original three, like a descendent? how this is all going to end i'm not sure. they can't kill off gywn and roger in a kid's book. they need to somehow let the power run it's course and have a clear ending where it stops / everyone is free

alison has been instructed by her mother not to talk to gwyn but she's still doing it and being all, "oh me mustn't!"

ngl, this book did make me question if the author's wife had perhaps strayed (best scenario) or fallen in love with someone else (worst scenario) but while he's been married twice there's no allusions to anything like that online...

okay so gwyn's mother nancy was in a relationship with alison's father's cousin that she inherited the estate by. they were supposed to marry but something happened. this is getting complicated. is he the father? are alison and gwyn blood relatives? this is very tangled

oh wait i misunderstood. gwyn's not supposed to be the husband, he's the equivalent of the secret lover. there really was a message in the sprouts, i thought that that was some sort of old fashioned metaphor but it was literal. this book is very confusing. roger trying to get an adult (huw) fired is something. huw knows everything, is he supposed to be the wizard who created the wife in the first place? i'm not sure

chapter 11 done. gwyn and alison have "spent the night together" in the hen house (in a completely innocent way) but i assume this is setting gwyn up as the husband in the legend

there's also something shifty about the three adults (clive, huw and nancy) like the three of them are linked also and maybe this disaster somehow befalls each generation in a different way

how a kid could follow this baffles me

first nine chapters done. the legend has been related a bit more clearly now: wizard makes a wife for man #1. wife pursues man #2 romantically. man #2 kills man #1, wizard resurrects him, man #1 kills man #2 and the wife gets turned into an owl. it's a disaster for everybody but as huw says "none of them is to blame, together they are destroying each other". in between his moments of clarity he's acting really weird