The Tiny Witch from the Woods whizzes its way through its narrative in a manner that leaves no real impact on the reader. All of its attempts at establishing settings and characters are told so matter-of-factly that the story is robbed of any major intrigue or drama. I certainly didn't dislike the story, but it left me wishing there was something more substantive within its passages.

The story is divided into two distinct halves. The first has its young heroine, Misha, going to a mansion to save her father, while the second has her accompanied by the knight Geord as she travels off to a foreign nation. The second half is more episodic than its first, and has Misha exploring forests, beaches, and, in one chapter, a flashback into her past. Things move in the way a story like this should, at least on a technical level.

With its main character, Misha, being the classic youth whisked away by the call of adventure, there's certainly a lot of room to make it about growth and maturity. I mean, nothing forces you to take responsibility and be an adult more than being forced to heal your father when he's on the verge of death. The problem here is that all these themes remain in the background and never quite emerge. The pacing of Tiny Witch's events is too rushed, and the prose too expository to develop its world. Some sequences even feel like they were developed on the spot. We don't know Misha's father's name until a quarter-way in and well after his character introduction. There's even mention of a war happening in the novel's first act, yet we never really see how it impacts the characters' psyches. It's mentioned just a scant few times, and that's about it. There's not much you can latch onto.

The characters feel very thin as a result. Misha is burdened by tasks that force her to grow up quicker than she should, although none of the events seem to have too big an effect on her personality. She merely drifts from page to page with the same bland shade of meekness. The story decides to kill off Misha's mother in a moment early on that seems a bit forced (Instant drama! Just add parental death!) and only slightly impacts Misha's personality. Moments of forlornness pop up from time to time to hint at personality, yet not enough time is given to Misha to properly reflect on her trauma.

When it comes to describing the secondary characters, my mind draws blanks. I can only really describe what they are: Misha's mother, Leyas, is a competent enough apothecary, the father, Deel, is a wounded noble, and the knight Geord makes for a suitable and protective guardian for Misha. But who they are exactly is a tough one. Some of their backstories are given through occasional infodumps that feel rammed in and without further developing their personalities. Some characters even exit the story as quickly as they entered it. An issue I have with these types of stories is that, oftentimes, they confuse characters that have interesting lore with characters that have interesting personalities. A character that, say, starts as an amnesiac and is later revealed to be a noble might make for an intriguing past, but not enough to make the character feel like a real person in the present.

This isn't to say that there aren't some memorable moments in Tiny Witch. I love slice of life, meaning I did like the part of the book where Misha and Geord journey through a seaside town. For a passage bereft of any real action, it might be the strongest part of the book, with its prose here being descriptive enough to effectively conjure the scenery of the sun-baked village by the ocean. Plus, the idea of Misha and Geord settling down for a moment after so much adventuring and drama allows the story to slow down with something tonally breezier. I also liked the lore involving Misha's People of the Forest and their healing capabilities; a passage reveals that their abilities are widely sought yet not to be taken for granted, and those who do soon learn the error of their ways in more ways than one. The book's final chapters build intrigue with a mystery involving a disappeared youth and a ritual for an oceanic Dragon God, even if its ending is a bit lackluster.

There's a lot in Tiny Witch that I can appreciate, but only in a conceptual, theoretical sense. All of the pieces to make an engaging story are there, yet it's not equipped with the narrative toolshed to put it all together.