Title: Hexwood
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Date read: April 6, 2017
Rating: 5 stars
Genre: Fantasy/Sci-fi/Contemporary/Time/Arthurian
Age: Toeing the line between YA and Adult? New Adult? Anyways, slightly darker.
Year pub: 1992
Pages: 449 (paperback)
Fave character: MORDION. Mordion Mordion Mordion
Source: Birthday present, preciousss
Find: On Goodreads here
Favorite quote:
“Can’t you treat yourself with a bit more consideration?”
“Why should I?” Mordion said, hugging the duvet round himself.
“Because you’re a person, of course!” Ann snapped at him. “One person ought to treat another person properly even if the person’s himself!”
“What a strange idea!” Mordion said.
An ordinary modern-day British girl (kind of), named Ann, stumbles into an epic fantasy world (…sort of), and meets a pigeon-hole-defying, spoiler-drenched man named Mordion, and a boy named Hume (maybe).
There are also robots. And dragons.
There’s also an inter-galactic sci-fi mess going on, some Arthurian legends sprinkled around the edges in totally unexpected ways, and oh, yeah, the entire thing is out of order in a time-bending confusing labyrinth of plot-twists.
Nobody is who they seem (or rather, they may be somebody else… or several somebody elses. I literally kept a list/diagram while I was reading).
FEATURING:
- Dragons
- Robots
- King Arthur and Merlin (sort of)
- Time which is… fluid, shall we say, and more complicated than Doctor Who
- A tragic brainwashed assassin to rival Bucky Barnes (he’s got nothing on this guy)
- A complex plot-within-plot that makes my head hurt and kind of makes Inception’s layers look like a children’s cartoon
- Several hundred plot twists
- An unexpected romance
- One of my new favorite characters of ever (not sure how I feel about this)
- Weirdest book I’ve ever read
- Has more genres mashed in it than I’ve ever seen in a single book (Contemporary/Fantasy/Sci-fi/Time/Arthurian/Romance/YA/Adult/DWJ)
- Darker than most DWJ books (except Deep Secret)
- One of my top five-or-ten DWJ books (despite the darkness/weirdness… don’t hold it against me; I’m surprised at me too)
- First new-to-me DWJ book since my How to Read Diana Wynne Jones blog posts (part 1) (part 2); it lined up with pretty much everything, x100000
- I need to reread it now, please and thank you
Don’t read this as your first DWJ, and if you do read it, know you’re getting into an insanely complex, inter-genre, rather dark story, for which reason I only recommend it to older teens/adults. If I recommend it at all. I loved it to bits but have a feeling that it’s far too weird to recommend to anyone at all. I literally can’t predict who would/wouldn’t like this. You’ll either a) love it a ridiculous amount (*raises hand*), b) hate it, or c) not understand it at all. I have a feeling there’s no middle ground.
Anyone who has read it: TALK TO ME! I need somebody who understands my confused feels about this book.
If you need me, I’ll be in a corner with my mind blown, contemplating re-reading this book so that I can understand it, and generally having a massive book hangover. Because how am I going to find anything to read, after this mindbending confusing thing, that will not feel like bland cardboard? HELP. *collapses* (I’m hoping Stephen Lawhead’s The Fatal Tree might help me with this… *reaches for bookshelf*)
Thanks for reading!
Dream away in those pages . . .
~ The Page Dreamer
Also not pictured above (because ebook), like Jenelle 
The Page Dreamer (Deborah O'Carroll) 