TL;DR Review: A deeply emotional, heartfelt, and poignant exploration of loss and grief wrapped up in a cozy story.
Synopsis:
A warm and hopeful story of a lonely witch consumed by grief who discovers a whimsical cast of characters in a magical arboretum—and the healing power of found family.
Powerless witch Saika is ready to enact her sister’s final request: to plant her remains at the famed Ash Gardens. When Saika arrives at the always-stormy sanctuary, she is welcomed by its owner, an enormous knit-cardiganed mythical beast named Frank, who offers her a role as one of the estate’s caretakers.
Overcome with grief, Saika accepts, desperate to put off her final farewell to her sister. But the work requires a witch with intrinsic power, and Saika’s been disconnected from her magic since her sister’s death two years prior. Saika gets by at the sanctuary using a fragment of a fallen star to cast enchantments—while hiding the embarrassing truth about herself.
As Saika works harder in avoidance of her pain, she learns more about Frank, the decaying house at Ash Gardens, and the lives of the motley staff, including bickering twin cherubs, a mute ghost, a cantankerous elf, and an irritating half witch, among others. Over time, she rediscovers what it means to love and be wholly loved and how to allow her joy and grief to coexist. Warm and inventive, House of Frank is a stirring portrait of the ache of loss and the healing embrace of love.
Full Review:
I’ll be honest: I don’t quite know how to do The House of Frank proper justice in a review. Words fail me to fully express just how deeply emotional this story was…but I’m going to give it a try.
The House of Frank follows Saika, a witch grieving the loss of her sister, Fiona, carrying out her sister’s final wish to be buried in Ash Gardens, a magical arboretum where planted ashes grow into trees. Even just this setup is wonderful. The notion that we’re not just saying goodbye to a loved one, but through the piece of them we leave behind, something beautiful is born. No silent headstone or grave marker, but a tree, a living, breathing memory of the ones we once loved.
Ash Gardens is home to Frank, a giant cardigan-loving mythical beast (never fully explained, but it doesn’t matter), who keeps alive this homage to his dead wife. In his home, he has gathered other souls as dented and damaged as Saika—from an aging witch who’s lost her coven to a pair of twin cherubs who couldn’t be more opposite, from a speechless ghost in a bowler hat to a half-gargoyle, half-elf witch.
Saika attempts to leave her sister’s ashes, but it’s clear from the first page—when she’s talking directly to Fiona (really interesting use of “second-person” dialogue)—that she’s not ready to let go. Frank invites her to stay as long as she likes, until she is ready to say goodbye. All he asks is that she helps around the house, which is crumbling as such old houses are prone to.
Through her interactions with every member of this eclectic—and eccentric—household, the protective layers Saika has built around herself are slowly stripped away and the truths of her heart and soul laid bare. We learn why she carries so much guilt around her sister’s death and why she feels so alone in a world where she has family, a chance at a prestigious career.
At its core, The House of Frank is a story about grief. The pain of loss, the burden of guilt associated with death, the fear of letting a departed loved one go, the struggle to try and “live life to the fullest in honor of those gone”, and the fight to keep their memory alive as life continues to fly past all around you.
If you’ve lost anyone—family, a friend, pets, distant relatives, a random person you met one time—this one is going to break you into little bits and pieces. And I say that as a good thing.
As I embarked on this emotional journey along with Saika, it felt like I was given a safe space to face the emotions and feelings I have carried for years over the deaths of two of my brothers (long ago, but still hard to deal with). The character’s struggles mirrored my own, in a way, and the things she came to understand through her interactions with everyone else who had lost someone or something special gave me insight into my own life, situation, and heart. And in the end, when Saika gets her happy ending, I felt a true sense of catharsis, a burden lifted.
As the book makes clear, “The loss remains, but the pain lessens, grows easier to bear.”
Get ready to cry, but it will be a freeing, healing cry, and I promise that when you come out the other side, it will be with a smile on your face and a new lightness in your heart.
With a colorful cast similar to Becky Chambers’ The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet, a cozy feel, and a deeply emotional theme, this is a book that anyone who has lost someone needs to read.
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