Reviews - The Bear and the Nightingale

15.9k reviews for:

The Bear and the Nightingale

Katherine Arden

4.09 AVERAGE

lifeasliza's review against another edition

3.25

slow-paced

bookishlola's review against another edition

2.5

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

spiffybumble's review against another edition

2.0

Felt like a book I’d have been assigned in high school, where I don’t fully understand what’s going on, the plot isn’t exciting enough for me to try harder to pay attention, and the whole thing is meandering with a lot of filler that doesn’t actually add to the plot and so you have to read the Wikipedia article on the book after finishing the actual book to get a better grip on what the story is.

Granted, I know people adore this book, so I’ll say that I audiobooked it and I haven’t read any Russian or Russian-inspired literature before, but this one was ultimately disappointing to me.

tealeh11's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

redival_j's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This is not a story set in Russia, it’s a Russian story. Which means everyone has at least 3 names. Bit slow to start, but ended getting sucked in to the world created

jrdrew's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous slow-paced

kyliehihey's review against another edition

3.0

I loved the frosty atmosphere of this fairytale set within this Russian forest full of ancient magic and folklore. I wish I liked the story and characters more, though. With such a rich environment, I was lukewarm about most of the characters - I kept hoping to get more out of each of them. Still a perfect winter read.