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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
Favorite book of the year.
I can honestly say that not many authors have been able to pull me into what feels like part magic (It's not), part melancholy and make me feel that I am truly alive in the moment with the characters.
Most times I read more than one book at a time, but when I pick up Hargrave's novels.. that changes. I am ONLY in the world that she has created. I dream about the characters, I find myself sipping coffee and remembering what Bet has said... Nethe has done...
I physically felt pain in my heart during some of the scenes,.. I was so THERE. This review isn't making any sense, but if you've read this wonderful novel then you already KNOW.
Universal themes present: Loss. So so so much loss. The impossible constraints placed on women. What society looks like when the cultural norm is intolerance. The longing of the heartbroken. Desire. Love. Lust. Family. Duty. Oh I could go on and on...
If you haven't, trust me... pick this one up. Make sure to give yourself the time and space that this wonderful work of fiction deserves. This isn't one to rush to completion. It is meant to be savored and explored.
I can honestly say that not many authors have been able to pull me into what feels like part magic (It's not), part melancholy and make me feel that I am truly alive in the moment with the characters.
Most times I read more than one book at a time, but when I pick up Hargrave's novels.. that changes. I am ONLY in the world that she has created. I dream about the characters, I find myself sipping coffee and remembering what Bet has said... Nethe has done...
I physically felt pain in my heart during some of the scenes,.. I was so THERE. This review isn't making any sense, but if you've read this wonderful novel then you already KNOW.
Universal themes present: Loss. So so so much loss. The impossible constraints placed on women. What society looks like when the cultural norm is intolerance. The longing of the heartbroken. Desire. Love. Lust. Family. Duty. Oh I could go on and on...
If you haven't, trust me... pick this one up. Make sure to give yourself the time and space that this wonderful work of fiction deserves. This isn't one to rush to completion. It is meant to be savored and explored.
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I love Kiran Millwood Hargrave. She takes readers into history we don’t think of much and brings it to life with well developed characters. I definitely recommend this book if you like LGBTQ+ representation that is challenging but not grotesquely so, female voices, and history.
A wonderful yet complicated book about love and loss, hate and acceptance, salvation and damnation. It is also a story of miscarriages, pregnancy, queer love, and the dancing frenzy in Strasbourg. I really don't want to describe the content too much, but it is mostly about Lisbeth, a pregnant beekeeper who hopes to keep both her child and her bees while a woman starts dancing in the town closest to her farm and does not stop. Is it mania? Religious frenzy? Whatever the cause, it leads to unrest, change, and Lisbeth is drawn into it. 4.5 stars
This was so dark, gritty, and beautiful! I enjoyed this; the dancing plague of 1518 has always been on my long list of historical mysteries/events that interest me. I thought this was a great take on it. The setting felt suffocating, as it felt for the characters; everything was controlled and scrutinized. I thought that was really well done! The pacing was a bit slow, but I thought it was a good read. 3.5 stars! ✨
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
a beautifully sad novel about the heartache of love and passion. i found lisbet's stpry so compelling and her inner world to be complex. the characters of agneta and ida were so well written and heren, god HEREN!!!! beautiful. cried. amazing.
~It is an old claim, made every two years or son, that everything from their bees to their honey is stolen from the monks at Altorf.~
~The bees are her anchor in this place, in her life where she drifts without a child to keep her steady. They alone - their care, their needs, their inscrutable patterns and wildness - keep her sane. To lose the bees, after so much loss, would be to lose her mind.~
~If you were a mother...
But I am, she tells herself. Many times over. She loves each lost child though they are not here, though all she had of them was blood or else bloodless bodies - is that not enough?~
~The story of her birth is the story of a comet.~
~That you cannot truly keep bees. You can only make them want to stay.~
~They loved their children, and their children died, and now they begin at the beginning. She slides in among them, her [dead] child clasped to her chest, and starts to dance herself back to before.~