Review: White Stag

White Stag by Kara Barbieri
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Here we have a story that's part fantasy, part recovery-from-trauma, and all around SAVAGE. But also loved up. So ... yay?

I'll admit, it threw me a little. The story kinda starts in the middle which I normally enjoy (usually means more action) but it bothered me that it never went back to properly explain things. This feels like one of those times where the author held this story in her mind for so long that some of it got trapped there and never made it to the actual book. There's plenty happening, but scenes are never properly set and, in a fantasy world, that's pretty problematic. I never really fully connected to the world because it was so sparse on detail.

Even Janneke's past is a little sketchy. We're told about the family she was separated from, and that she endured horrible things at the hand of Lydian, but the details are pretty vague which, again, made it harder to connect. I really felt for Janneke with her struggle to overcome trauma, but it would have packed a much more powerful punch if there was more detail about what she went through. Not necessarily the physical, but just that breakdown of the psyche. Trauma is, sadly, quite a relatable topic, so the feelings and emotions that come with those experiences are so important. At the same time, we get a lot of talk about how Janneke is a fighter and she's pushing on and choosing to live and I really loved that. I loved that she has this broken past but she's still so fierce. Just a shame for me it was tempered with all that lovey dovey business.

You can tell from the very beginning of the book that they're looking towards hooking up. Soren is supposed to be a goblin and he's savage and powerful and all but then when it comes to Janneke he's all goo and, quite honestly, I was pretty disappointed. The goblins were such savage, murderous characters so I was really expecting more of that from our leading man, especially with such a ferocious leading lady. Sadly, it winds up being a lot of talk about feelings.

I enjoyed the support characters, though. Not Lydian - that guy is an A-grade A-hole - but Rekke, and Seppo I really liked. They were fun. Again, pretty tame for goblins, but I'll take it.

The goblins in general started out really well but kinda fell apart at the end. They were so brutal and savage which was BRILLIANT but then it all kinda tapered out to make way for the love story and suddenly it became hard to distinguish the goblins from human characters. Definitely feel like that was a weakness of this book.

I LOVED the fantasy of it all, though. Not so much the (bland) landscape but the creatures were fantastic. There was some great action scenes with monsters and the like and I definitely got more invested when one made an appearance. There's a fabulous imagination here, and I'd be curious to read a different book/series by this author because I think there is some real creativity there that needs to be shared with the world.

To be fair, I'm just not big on romance so that taking up so much of this book meant I didn't love it quite as much as I hoped. But I did really enjoy it, and I think the author has a lot of potential so I'll look forward to reading more of her work. The trauma angle was quite important, and though it wasn't handled badly, per se, it could have used a bit more care and detail rather than patching it all up with vague talk. There needed to be more emotion involved, I think, though I did appreciate that she doesn't just 'get over it' - this is genuinely something she wrestles with throughout the novel. Just needed to be more feel and less tell.

This was an entertaining novel but it's certainly not a light fantasy. This is dark and brutal and definitely needs a trigger warning for the talk of trauma, assault and rape. But there is a message of hope in its pages, and I think that's the most important part of this story.

It won't be everyone's cup of tea, but if you want a fantasy story with a darker kind of realism, this one is worth taking a chance on.

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