I didn’t go into Emily Wilde’s Compendium of Lost Tales expecting a lot. After thinking the sequel was just decent relative to my enjoyment of the first novel, I really just picked up the third to finish the series. I would say the quality of the books decreased with every installation, though that isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy reading them all or the series as a whole.
Unfortunately, I didn’t remember as much of the first two books as I would have liked before I started reading the third book, so some of the references and callbacks were a test to my memory. I might have to re-read them all in succession whenever I feel like deep-diving into cozy fantasy.
Compendium was an incredibly slow start, and the pace only picked up for moments throughout the novel before it lagged again. It felt very low stakes. Emily’s grand plan to take over the castle was literally to just dress intimidatingly while walking in (that was it, I’m not joking). Supposedly taking over the throne was scary and trying, but I didn’t feel any of the pressure. The stakes did grow to an acceptable level as the novel progressed, though it was bogged down with episodes of Emily doing research away from Wendell. All the novels excel when Emily and Wendell are together and playing off each other, and I felt like Wendell was either not featured enough or was too much of a puppy following along behind Emily in this novel.
Was it a new thing introduced in this book that folkloric stories not only informed a situation and were helpful resources, but a current situation could not deviate from the folklore parallel? Emily found a story that kind of matched her current situation and then refused to believe that anything other than matching their behavior to that story exactly would help them. I think it was too much of a literal approach. It felt restricting, and I don’t remember stories being used that literally in the previous novels.
The biggest bummer was that the novel was less humorous. I still enjoyed the characters, but I missed the banter and the chemistry between Emily and Wendell. Perhaps because they are not in a firm relationship so there was less teasing and flirting? I’m not sure, but this one had even less charm than the second one compared to the first.
However, I am in a reading slump, and while this didn’t take me out of it, perhaps that and the fact that my memory didn’t serve me well in remembering the first two books compounded and affected my enjoyment of the novel. Perhaps whenever I read them back to back, I’ll think more fondly of the subsequent installments, particularly the third.
