UptownOracle in Book Reviews

Uptown Oracle Reads… The Wicker King | Exploring Friendship and Mental Illness in Multimedia Format

Name: The Wicker King
Author: K. Ancrum

The Wicker King by K Ancrum

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When August learns that his best friend, Jack, shows signs of degenerative hallucinatory disorder, he is determined to help Jack cope. Jack’s vivid and long-term visions take the form of an elaborate fantasy world layered over our own—a world ruled by the Wicker King. As Jack leads them on a quest to fulfill a dark prophecy in this alternate world, even August begins to question what is real or not.

August and Jack struggle to keep afloat as they teeter between fantasy and their own emotions. In the end, each must choose his own truth.

The Wicker King is part of a world within Jack’s head that he can see alongside the real world. Before going into this book, I thought the world and the Wicker King would be a bigger part (I’d thought this was a fantasy!) and actually it’s focused a lot more on the real world, mental illness and the relationship between Jack and August.

The story as a whole focuses on the slow burn of friends to lovers. It does call out the unhealthy aspects of the relationship, being codependent and toxic with it negatively impacting the lives of both parties which I thought was good. But on a whole, the relationship felt realistic and developed as Jack’s hallucinations too.

Both the format and pace of the book match the build up in Jack’s mind to the quest they’re having, and the “darkness” slowly takes over their imagined world. The actual pages of the paperback get darker and darker, until it’s white writing on black paper – this was amazing to get across to the enveloping darkness of Jack’s mind, however it could be an accessibility issue for some.

Speaking of characters, August was our narrator and he has his own problems. He’s a pyromaniac, drug dealer and takes the time to care for Jack and also his mom. I enjoyed the internal conflict he has as he tries to be there for Jack, whilst knowing he’s going to get into trouble but he goes ahead and does it anyway.

Jack as a character is seen through rose-tinted glasses as we’re very much in August’s head. However, he’s a troubled teen who has no support system, and relies heavily on the imagined world that he can see to get through his life, as well as leaning on August a lot. We see as mental illness changes him from popular, charming jock who’s doing okay socially and in life, and it slowly wears him down.

There’s other characters like the Twins, Peter and Roger as well as Rina who try to help Jack and August, but the pair just don’t open up outside the two of them to allow the others to truly help. I found that these characters had clear characteristics but didn’t get as much depth as our two main characters, again possibly due to the narrator being August. I like that we see others trying to help, and that August acknowledges that they do as often in other books you’re left wondering why no one sees the issue.

The book itself poses a lot of questions and pulls important topics to the forefront, although it doesn’t always discuss those topics at length (which I think is a disservice). I find that some people have been claiming Jack and August are some kind of “goals” relationship, which is worrying as the book says they’re toxic/abusive/codependent at best.

Overall I found the book to be super gripping to read, and was one of the fastest reads for me in a while. I think it’s important for anyone wanting to read this to understand the possible triggers though, as it’s quite a hard book to get through.

Trigger warnings include: pyromania, arson, violence, mental illness, anxiety and panic attacks, parental neglect, toxic/controlling relationships