Review: Whichwood

Whichwood by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

When I first read Furthermore, I said that I was eagerly awaiting a potential sequel to that book, as well as the #ownvoices Persian fantasy Tahereh Mafi had also promised. Naturally, Mafi being Mafi, she couldn't help but get us a book that could be both - and Whichwood delivers very well as both. Slightly less surreal than its predecessor owing to its nature being less of an Alice in Wonderland retelling, this book is still no less richly detailed, and of course it's heavy on fourth-wall breakage just like Furthermore was.

I was a little confused about some aspects of the world-building - like, if Whichwood is a Persian-inspired fantasy realm somewhere close by Fernewood, why does Whichwood have an equally English-sounding name? (Unless Translation Convention is in effect? Or perhaps there's enough cultural cross-pollination between Fernewood and Whichwood to explain it, likely given their apparent proximity and the fact that Alice and Oliver can communicate with Laylee with next to no difficulty.)

That said, though, Whichwood, while pretty whimsical, is also a darker and more thought-provoking story than Furthermore. Of course, a lot of this owes to Laylee's job, washing the dead. And also to Alice and Oliver's initial considerable revulsion at the thought of lending her a hand in her duties as mordeshoor, for which the narrator takes a few opportunities to teach the reader that, maybe, helping others should be done out of the goodness of your own heart and not with the expectation of a reward. And Laylee needs to learn a good lesson too, that she shouldn't be so proud as to insist on working alone. After all, this job is literally killing her...but Mafi's not about to let Death take her without a fight, is she?

A special mention goes to Benyamin, largely because of his buggy little powers. I think that's a sign of Ransom Riggs' influence on Mafi - I mean, it can't be a coincidence she describes him as "peculiar," no?

Whichwood helps do for Persian views of mortality and the afterlife what The Book of Life and Coco do for Day of the Dead, and on that level, I highly recommend it. Though you could do with reading Furthermore first, this book's just standalone enough to jump into it headfirst instead (and don't worry, Mafi's got you covered with the occasional humorous footnote to recap the first book if you need it.)

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