The Thickety: A Path Begins by J.A. White

The Thickety: A Path Begins. Digital image. Amazon. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Sept. 2016. 

 White, J. A., and Andrea Offermann. The Thickety: A Path Begins. N.p.: Katherine Tegen, n.d. Print.

 I want to preface this post by saying that this novel was by far my favorite out of the three which I have read for this project so far. I thought that this novel was the most vividly imagined, fully fleshed out, and truly deserved to be the first book in a series. This novel is sometimes classified as a middle grade novel rather than young adult. I believe that the main character is twelve or thirteen years old. However, the subject matter is very dark and certainly leans towards older rather than younger adolescents. Also, since this book is set in a Crucible, witch trials type setting of the 1600s, Kara (the protagonist) is quite mature for her age, so she reads more like a modern teenager rather than a middle-school-aged child.

Kara’s mother was actually burned in their village for being a witch when Kara was a little girl, around five years old, and her brother, Taff, was just a baby. After this tragedy, Kara’s father is basically useless being so wracked with guilt and grief over his wife’s death. He did not play a part, but he also did not do anything to prevent her death. At the center of this fantasy novel, is the infamous grimoire, or witch’s book. Kara finds her mother’s grimoire and realizes that she may be a witch as well. She has always questioned whether her mother was actually a witch in a first place, whether she was evil as the villagers think, etc. Kara quickly becomes consumed by the grimoire and it functions in her life as a drug, and she is the addict. As the town outsider and someone responsible for taking care of her family and unable to connect with her emotionally distant father, she is a most willing victim to the grimoire and Sordyr, the forest demon who wants to feed off the dark power that Kara wields through the grimoire. Grace is Kara’s polar opposite in every way: Kara is the town pariah and Grace is the most popular and adored girl in the village. Kara has dark hair, and Grace has platinum blonde hair, Kara is believed to be a bad seed but is actually a very good person, while Grace is perceived to be an angel and is actually evil. Grace is very Regina George-esque, actually.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to continue the series—a true rarity for me these days. It is complex, dark, and full of fantasy elements—some qualities that I often look for in a book, but rarely find.