A Natural History of Dragons meets Spinning Silver, but cozier: a review of Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries

I like what Heather Fawcett is attempting here. I'm surprised the premise hasn't been done a million times before. Who among us doesn't want to read about a socially awkward Cambridge professor who studies fae and folklore? Emily's voice is so singular. The story is told through her journals. There are footnotes and scholarly asides that contribute to understanding Emily's distinct curmudgeonly voice. I really appreciated her quirky personality and her approach to dealing with all sorts of problems -- academic rivalries, socializing with strangers, solving mysteries, and more. The vibes are wintery, adorable, and magical.

However, as good as the setup is, I'm not sure it can ever stick the landing. Once you get over the novelty of it all, there's not much in here. Emily is funny and delightful, but I don't need almost four hundred pages of just her musings. I certainly don't need another two books of it. (This book is the first in a trilogy.) Though there is a plot with actual stakes, the narrative as a whole isn't meant to be too high-octane, so it's a bit slow, and the writing style is deliberately very academic, which means it's not suited to capturing the whimsical and trippy atmosphere around fae and their realm. It's likewise not suited to romance. There's just no chemistry between Emily and the man who's being set up as her love interest. He's such an eccentric and wonderfully vivid character, but I can't root for a romance. Because of how uncomfortable Emily is in social situations, her narration is unable to expand on her chemistry with him. It means readers are going to have to just believe the chemistry is there, but I don't see it. I truly think they're better off as friends.

The only real appeal of this book is the cast of characters and the way Emily interacts with them, especially ones she doesn't know very well. Unfortunately social interactions are only a small part of this book, and I doubt they can continue to play much of a role later in the series. It's clear that Heather Fawcett kind of wants to build a found family of people who'd want to protect Emily from situations that would cause her discomfort. On the one hand, I love that a book with a character like Emily doesn't rely on neurodivergence to produce tension, and I really appreciate that no one who matters is interested in forcing Emily to needlessly suffer. On the other hand, I can't really detect an alternative source of tension. By the end of this book, things feel very anticlimactic.

If you like Emily's perspective enough, I imagine you should definitely enjoy the novel, and probably the rest of the series as well. I personally needed something else to keep me hooked for well over three hundred pages, and I just didn't find it.