Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Tor Books (2012), 58 pages
Description
There was a time when the woods near Duva ate girls...or so the story goes. But, it's just possible that the danger may be a little bit closer to home. This story is a companion folk tale to Leigh Bardugo's debut novel, Shadow and Bone.
User reviews
LibraryThing member BookaholicCat
A quick, creepy read that will leave you wanting for more.
LibraryThing member MichelleL_15
A very short story from Tor.com. Like with Shadow and Bone, there was a twist that I didn't see coming. It's set in the same world as Shadow and Bone, but with different characters. I would recommend reading this before reading Shadow and Bone.
LibraryThing member krau0098
This is a short story set in the same world as Bardugo’s Grisha series. This story is set in Ravka but it is a prequel (timeline wise) it also follows different characters and is more of a folktale than anything else. The story has a very traditional dark folklore tale feel to it and was
The woods outside of Duva are said to eat girls, at least that has what Nadya has been raised believing. She gets to test the tale when her evil stepmom forces her out of the house at night and she finds herself at the door of the Witch of Duva herself.
Bardugo has said that Hansel and Gretel influenced this folktale, and you can definitely see the influences here...although this tale kind of turns Hansel and Gretel on its head.
Nadya is an excellent heroine, she is so easy to sympathize with. She’s a young girl with an okay life, but then as circumstances change and her father marries another woman and things get worse and worse for her. She is forced into a desperate situation where she must flee into the forest and confront the very thing that has always haunted her.
I was surprised at how engaging and entertaining all of the characters in this story were. They are so well developed and really came alive for me even though this was a very short story.
The suspense behind who/what the witch of Duva is and around the strange case of the disappearing girls is absolutely engrossing. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time trying to figure out and predict what was going on.
There are a lot of twists and turns and by the end of the story no one is who you thought they would be and everyone is different from what you initially expected. The ending totally caught me by surprise, but then when I stopped to think about it I realized that there were a lot of carefully hidden hints throughout the story that supported the surprise ending. It takes a very masterful writter to mislead the reader so deftly and pull such a huge twist that is completely surprising but totally seamless with the rest of the story.
This is a dark and twisted folk tale and echoes many of the original Grimm fairy tales. Children are eaten and disappear, and dark things hunt the woods of Duva. Humanity follows a much harsher code and is much crueler than what we typically see in our day to day life now.
Overall an absolutely outstanding short story, I absolutely loved it. I immediately went out and bought The Too Clever Fox for my Kindle as well and can’t wait to read that. It is amazing that Bardugo can write not only spectacular novels but also spectacular short stories. In my opinion really well done short stories are very hard to write because you have to set up the world, characters, and plot is such a short amount of space. I highly recommend this short story to fans of the Grisha series and to fans of dark and grimm fairy tales.
Show More
absolutely engrossing. I was amazed at what a great story Bardugo wove in such a small space. The characters were absolutely engaging and the story just sucked me right in.The woods outside of Duva are said to eat girls, at least that has what Nadya has been raised believing. She gets to test the tale when her evil stepmom forces her out of the house at night and she finds herself at the door of the Witch of Duva herself.
Bardugo has said that Hansel and Gretel influenced this folktale, and you can definitely see the influences here...although this tale kind of turns Hansel and Gretel on its head.
Nadya is an excellent heroine, she is so easy to sympathize with. She’s a young girl with an okay life, but then as circumstances change and her father marries another woman and things get worse and worse for her. She is forced into a desperate situation where she must flee into the forest and confront the very thing that has always haunted her.
I was surprised at how engaging and entertaining all of the characters in this story were. They are so well developed and really came alive for me even though this was a very short story.
The suspense behind who/what the witch of Duva is and around the strange case of the disappearing girls is absolutely engrossing. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time trying to figure out and predict what was going on.
There are a lot of twists and turns and by the end of the story no one is who you thought they would be and everyone is different from what you initially expected. The ending totally caught me by surprise, but then when I stopped to think about it I realized that there were a lot of carefully hidden hints throughout the story that supported the surprise ending. It takes a very masterful writter to mislead the reader so deftly and pull such a huge twist that is completely surprising but totally seamless with the rest of the story.
This is a dark and twisted folk tale and echoes many of the original Grimm fairy tales. Children are eaten and disappear, and dark things hunt the woods of Duva. Humanity follows a much harsher code and is much crueler than what we typically see in our day to day life now.
Overall an absolutely outstanding short story, I absolutely loved it. I immediately went out and bought The Too Clever Fox for my Kindle as well and can’t wait to read that. It is amazing that Bardugo can write not only spectacular novels but also spectacular short stories. In my opinion really well done short stories are very hard to write because you have to set up the world, characters, and plot is such a short amount of space. I highly recommend this short story to fans of the Grisha series and to fans of dark and grimm fairy tales.
Show Less
LibraryThing member fyrefly98
Girls are disappearing in the woods near the small village of Duva, and Nadya begins to suspect that her new stepmother, who is cruel and hostile and wants nothing more than to get Nadya out of the house so that she can have Nadya's father all to herself, might have something to do with it. I loved
Show More
this. I love fairy and folk tales, particularly retellings, particularly dark retellings. And this story is based on Hansel & Gretel, but it's darker and more complicated and sadder - and darker - than the familiar version of the story (which features children being sent out into the woods to starve, so that's already pretty dark.) Leigh Bardugo's novels were already on my wishlist, but this story has bumped them up to near the top. Show Less
LibraryThing member Meggle
It is said that long ago the woods around the small village of Duva ate girls. Now, when girls begin disappearing Nadya suspects her cruel new stepmom has something to do with it. Based on the story of Hansel and Gretel, The Witch of Duva is a short story retelling of the classic fairy tale with a
Show More
surprising ending. Show Less
LibraryThing member theindigoshelf
The ending to The Witch of Duva is excruciatingly sad. The tone from the very beginning is dreary. The village is terrified that their own children will be taken and killed by an evil witch after multiple girls have gone missing. The protagonist is a young girl who believes her new stepmother is
Show More
that evil witch and she needs to get away from home because her brother has conveniently left her and her father is now being brain-washed. She ends up heading into the woods where she finds an old witch that is seemingly harmless while a bunch of strange things happen. When the girl returns home there is a monster waiting, but who will it be? Show Less
LibraryThing member v_allery
This is a beautifully written story that kept me captivated from the first to the last sentence. Leigh Bardugo dreamt up a sad and cruel world, full of secrets and mysteries, transporting the reader right to the middle of it all. I have not read many short stories lately, but this one is definitely
Show More
worth reading! Show Less
LibraryThing member wealhtheowwylfing
Nadya's mother dies and her brother leaves for the army, leaving her alone with her father. It's been a hard winter, the village is nearly starving, and to make matters worse, girls have started disappearing into the woods. Nadya's new step-mother might be behind it all, and Nadya ventures into the
A really wonderful short story, rich with sensory details (the food alone would be worth reading this tale!), tangled emotions, and a haunting plot.
Show More
woods herself to find out.A really wonderful short story, rich with sensory details (the food alone would be worth reading this tale!), tangled emotions, and a haunting plot.
Show Less
LibraryThing member bookandsword
WOW
This must be witchcraft because holy smokes it was fantastic! In few pages I was both mesmerized and creeped out.
This felt a lot like something Brothers Grimm would write : dark, delicious and traumatizing.
And I LOVED it.
This really has nothing to do with Grisha (now Shadow and Bone) trilogy. So
This must be witchcraft because holy smokes it was fantastic! In few pages I was both mesmerized and creeped out.
This felt a lot like something Brothers Grimm would write : dark, delicious and traumatizing.
And I LOVED it.
This really has nothing to do with Grisha (now Shadow and Bone) trilogy. So
Show More
even if you haven't read anything by Leigh read this. Give yourself a treat. A dark, very creepy treat. Show Less
LibraryThing member Great_East_Road
See my review of this book, and many more, at Tales from the Great East Road.
Once, long ago, it was believed that the woods near Duva ate young girls, and that a witch lived deep in the depths of the forest. Nayda, like all the other girls in their starving village, knows not to venture too far
To sum this short story up in one word would be: charming. It is written in the perfect fairy-tale style, omnipresent third person, with beautiful detail to the world. The hunger of the starving villagers is captured in a way that is painfully realistic and make the read huger in sympathy, and Nayda's fears and loneliness is evident throughout the story.
The best part of this story, however, is that even though it starts as a typical fairy-tale, it actually challenges the troupes often used within these tales - the evil stepmother, the unloved and ignored child, the women who use magic always being witches - and turns them on their head. Traditional fairy-tales have a habit of using two-dimensional characters and categorising women as either the sweet, naive virgin, or the evil, seductive, or bitter villain. Leigh Bardugo uses these troupes only to then twist them around and rip them apart at the end, in a way that makes you see the whole story in a new light and question who is really the villain and try to see the hidden motives of the characters. Even with this though, there is no true villain: no one person who is pure evil through and through. This brings a realistic light to a genre that created many stereotypes, and make Leigh Bardugo an author to watch.
5 stars.
Once, long ago, it was believed that the woods near Duva ate young girls, and that a witch lived deep in the depths of the forest. Nayda, like all the other girls in their starving village, knows not to venture too far
Show More
alone, for girls have disappeared, said to have been lured by the intoxicating smell of food. Nayda finds it hard to ignore the wood when her brother Havel has leave to join the army and her father has married Karina, who seems to hate her unreservedly. Soon, Nayda worries that Karina may actually be a khitka: a bloodthirsty forest spirit that can take any shape, especially that of a beautiful woman.To sum this short story up in one word would be: charming. It is written in the perfect fairy-tale style, omnipresent third person, with beautiful detail to the world. The hunger of the starving villagers is captured in a way that is painfully realistic and make the read huger in sympathy, and Nayda's fears and loneliness is evident throughout the story.
The best part of this story, however, is that even though it starts as a typical fairy-tale, it actually challenges the troupes often used within these tales - the evil stepmother, the unloved and ignored child, the women who use magic always being witches - and turns them on their head. Traditional fairy-tales have a habit of using two-dimensional characters and categorising women as either the sweet, naive virgin, or the evil, seductive, or bitter villain. Leigh Bardugo uses these troupes only to then twist them around and rip them apart at the end, in a way that makes you see the whole story in a new light and question who is really the villain and try to see the hidden motives of the characters. Even with this though, there is no true villain: no one person who is pure evil through and through. This brings a realistic light to a genre that created many stereotypes, and make Leigh Bardugo an author to watch.
5 stars.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jercox
I was prepared not to like this; magic and death and darkness. But a surprise twist redeemed it, despite still being very dark.
LibraryThing member wanderlustlover
2021 Winter (February);
2021 Grishaverse Show Prep Read/Reread in preparation for the tv show dropping in late April 2021. I still love so, so much how much this story pulls the carpet out from under all expectations around 'The Witch,' 'The Stepmother' and 'The Monster.' This is harrowing but so
2016;
The Witch of Duva is another of those surprise-ending stories, she is so good at, where you're brows go up and your mouth falls open in such horror and astonishment before the ending, but I love how this one ends for the young girl, too. I love how we all get together to feel the same way about things that are turned on their head (from the stepmother to the missing girls, to the witch herself, and magic as it is). This was masterfully done.
2021 Grishaverse Show Prep Read/Reread in preparation for the tv show dropping in late April 2021. I still love so, so much how much this story pulls the carpet out from under all expectations around 'The Witch,' 'The Stepmother' and 'The Monster.' This is harrowing but so
Show More
gorgeous, and I like where everything is left in the ending. 2016;
The Witch of Duva is another of those surprise-ending stories, she is so good at, where you're brows go up and your mouth falls open in such horror and astonishment before the ending, but I love how this one ends for the young girl, too. I love how we all get together to feel the same way about things that are turned on their head (from the stepmother to the missing girls, to the witch herself, and magic as it is). This was masterfully done.
Show Less
Language
Original publication date
2012-06-06
Physical description
48 p.