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4.09 AVERAGE
4.09 AVERAGE
adventurous
mysterious
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
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'm very behind on reviewing. My daughter was super sick for a couple weeks and I've had a few other writing projects to work on. Anyway, hopefully I'll catch up this week.
"The Bear and the Nightingale" has been all over social media. I keep seeing the cover and it's been recommended to me as someone who loves Neil Gaiman books. I always like a good take on a fairy tale.
I was lucky enough to score a copy of the second book in the Winternight Trilogy through NetGalley. While I haven't yet jumped into "The Girl in the Tower", when the first book finally came through from the library, I dove it.
"The Bear and the Nightingale" was slower going than I expected. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. There was a lot to like about the book, but it was also very slowly paced.
The book follows the story of a northern lord and his family in Russia. They live on the borders of a great forest and struggle all year to grow enough to survive the harsh winter. The lord and his wife have several children, but their last daughter, Vasilisa's birth takes the mother's life, leaving their family devastated.
Vasilisa grows up on the borders of civilization. Her people are Christian, but have not forgotten the old ways and the old gods. They still leave out food for the household spirits, who only Vasilisa can see.
As she grows older, her father is concerned that she is too wild. He comes to believe that she needs the firm hand of a mother and takes off to Moscow with two of his sons to broker a marriage for his older daughter, as well to find a wife for himself.
Due to political machinations, he ends up arranging an incredible marriage for his daughter, Olga, to a prince and in exchange, takes on the daughter of Moscow's prince. What he does not know is that Anna - his new wife - is considered crazy by some. Turns out that like Vasilisa, she can see spirits. She is fiercely devoted to Christianity, though, and believes the creatures she sees are evil demons.
She was determined to spend her life cloistered in a convent but instead finds herself married to a much older man, living her life on the fringes of civilization, where nature and household spirits are still remembered.
Enter a new, fanatical priest, Father Konstantin, who is determined to civilize the rough Northerners. He is enchanted by and disgusted with the wild Vasya, who rides horses like she was born to it and spends much of her time in the woods. His presence is all the excuse Anna needed to forbid the people from continuing to honor the old spirits. Caught up in a wave of religious fanaticism, the townspeople neglect the spirits, who begin to weaken.
At the same time, an old and evil power in the woods is growing stronger.
Vasya grows older, blossoming in a lovely and strange teenager, who only wants to live her life freely. She wants nothing to do with marriage or the typical woman's life of that time period. Her father hardly knows what to do with her. An attempt at an arranged marriage ends disastrously.
Vasya has been marked by the frost-king Morozko as someone needed to fight against his brother, the Bear, who promises to bring death and destruction to the world. Years before, her father was given an ice-blue jewel by the mysterious Morozko for Vasya. It is years before she gets it from her old nurse, with barely any time to prepare her to make a stand against the Bear.
So here's what's good: the atmosphere. You can practically feel the bitter cold emanating from the pages of the book. I do not know much about medieval Russian history, but Arden does a wonderful job of setting the scene. I loved the closeness between Vasya and her siblings as well. I empathized with Vasya's desire to be free despite the social constraints of her time. She was brave in the face of overwhelming adversity, in a time when any hint of strange powers could mark her as a witch. As someone who has studied and taught the role of Christianity in subjugating pagan culture, I am very familiar with the danger Father Konstantin brought to Vasya's life.
Here's what I struggled with: the pace was very slow. It took a long time for anything real to happen that advanced the plot. The ending was super abrupt, with the "battle" between Vasya and the Bear ending much quicker than I would have expected. The description of the book was much more of a fairy tale than the book itself. Sure it was populated by fantasy spirits and hints of magic, but it takes years for the tension between Anna and Vasya to come to a head. And really, Anna isn't the major push behind banning the old spirits; that comes from the fanaticism of the priest.
I've been dragging my heels a bit on reading the sequel. I'm sure I will eventually, especially with the third one coming out this August. Again, I'm intrigued by the plot, especially with Vasya getting to spend time in Moscow, with her older sister, but I'm not sure how I feel about diving into another very slow book with little action.
Reviews of the book have been mixed. It's mostly beloved by readers, but I've also seen a lot of complaints about the pacing. I'm curious as to what you all think. Am I way off the mark? Is there something I'm missing? Anyone like the sequel better? Looking forward to reading your thoughts!
"The Bear and the Nightingale" has been all over social media. I keep seeing the cover and it's been recommended to me as someone who loves Neil Gaiman books. I always like a good take on a fairy tale.
I was lucky enough to score a copy of the second book in the Winternight Trilogy through NetGalley. While I haven't yet jumped into "The Girl in the Tower", when the first book finally came through from the library, I dove it.
"The Bear and the Nightingale" was slower going than I expected. That's not to say I didn't enjoy it. There was a lot to like about the book, but it was also very slowly paced.
The book follows the story of a northern lord and his family in Russia. They live on the borders of a great forest and struggle all year to grow enough to survive the harsh winter. The lord and his wife have several children, but their last daughter, Vasilisa's birth takes the mother's life, leaving their family devastated.
Vasilisa grows up on the borders of civilization. Her people are Christian, but have not forgotten the old ways and the old gods. They still leave out food for the household spirits, who only Vasilisa can see.
As she grows older, her father is concerned that she is too wild. He comes to believe that she needs the firm hand of a mother and takes off to Moscow with two of his sons to broker a marriage for his older daughter, as well to find a wife for himself.
Due to political machinations, he ends up arranging an incredible marriage for his daughter, Olga, to a prince and in exchange, takes on the daughter of Moscow's prince. What he does not know is that Anna - his new wife - is considered crazy by some. Turns out that like Vasilisa, she can see spirits. She is fiercely devoted to Christianity, though, and believes the creatures she sees are evil demons.
She was determined to spend her life cloistered in a convent but instead finds herself married to a much older man, living her life on the fringes of civilization, where nature and household spirits are still remembered.
Enter a new, fanatical priest, Father Konstantin, who is determined to civilize the rough Northerners. He is enchanted by and disgusted with the wild Vasya, who rides horses like she was born to it and spends much of her time in the woods. His presence is all the excuse Anna needed to forbid the people from continuing to honor the old spirits. Caught up in a wave of religious fanaticism, the townspeople neglect the spirits, who begin to weaken.
At the same time, an old and evil power in the woods is growing stronger.
Vasya grows older, blossoming in a lovely and strange teenager, who only wants to live her life freely. She wants nothing to do with marriage or the typical woman's life of that time period. Her father hardly knows what to do with her. An attempt at an arranged marriage ends disastrously.
Vasya has been marked by the frost-king Morozko as someone needed to fight against his brother, the Bear, who promises to bring death and destruction to the world. Years before, her father was given an ice-blue jewel by the mysterious Morozko for Vasya. It is years before she gets it from her old nurse, with barely any time to prepare her to make a stand against the Bear.
So here's what's good: the atmosphere. You can practically feel the bitter cold emanating from the pages of the book. I do not know much about medieval Russian history, but Arden does a wonderful job of setting the scene. I loved the closeness between Vasya and her siblings as well. I empathized with Vasya's desire to be free despite the social constraints of her time. She was brave in the face of overwhelming adversity, in a time when any hint of strange powers could mark her as a witch. As someone who has studied and taught the role of Christianity in subjugating pagan culture, I am very familiar with the danger Father Konstantin brought to Vasya's life.
Here's what I struggled with: the pace was very slow. It took a long time for anything real to happen that advanced the plot. The ending was super abrupt, with the "battle" between Vasya and the Bear ending much quicker than I would have expected. The description of the book was much more of a fairy tale than the book itself. Sure it was populated by fantasy spirits and hints of magic, but it takes years for the tension between Anna and Vasya to come to a head. And really, Anna isn't the major push behind banning the old spirits; that comes from the fanaticism of the priest.
I've been dragging my heels a bit on reading the sequel. I'm sure I will eventually, especially with the third one coming out this August. Again, I'm intrigued by the plot, especially with Vasya getting to spend time in Moscow, with her older sister, but I'm not sure how I feel about diving into another very slow book with little action.
Reviews of the book have been mixed. It's mostly beloved by readers, but I've also seen a lot of complaints about the pacing. I'm curious as to what you all think. Am I way off the mark? Is there something I'm missing? Anyone like the sequel better? Looking forward to reading your thoughts!
slow-paced
Very pretty and captivating storytelling. Intricate and straightforward all at once. Just really excellent.
Started slowly and had a lot of cultural sexism from the supporting characters. The descriptions of the creatures is fairly vague, but that felt purposeful from the author. The amount of Russian folklore included was very cool. I really like the protagonist, and seeing her grow into the strong character she is in the last chapter was very fulfilling.
4.0. Trying to mix genres other than historical fiction this year. My American brain struggled keeping the Russian names straight at first, but once I caught on to the story, it kept my attention. Strong female protagonist (natch) with a dystopian (or not nowadays?) religious underpinning. It's like historical fantasy fiction though so it feels like I'm not far from my comfort lane, but I can appreciate the story-building and will continue the series at my leisure. (Audiobook, Kathleen Gati, her accent is delicious to listen to.)
- 5 stars for a gorgeously rendered winter-bound setting that is actually chill-inducing. There's a real sense of danger, mystery, and awe that suffuses the book from its frigid setting where real creatures stalk the darkling woods
- 5 stars for authentic historical and cultural representation of Russia - tip of the hat for accurately describing the situation between the princes of Russia, Constantinople (or Tsargrad), and the Mongols, and for the depiction of Orthodox priests
- 4 stars for the fairy tale elements, since I'm a real sucker for the idea of nature and household spirits. However, I wish they were utilized more. The focus of the plot was on Vasya and how she suffers for being an outsider for being able to see the spirits, which was mildly disappointing. I wish she interacted with the spirits more, but due to Plot she had to hide her relationship with them, so the 'camera' was not on these magical beings as much as I'd like.
- 4 stars for family relationships being complex and rich.
- 3 stars for characters which are interesting and diverse in opinion and personality, yet they didn't meaningfully change or develop throughout the novel, which disappointed me. While the plot does stress the characters and challenge them, I felt like it did not do so in a way that would have actually challenged their core values. The religious zealot remains a proud zealot, the mad lady stays mad, Vasya stays defiant and adventurous.
- 2.5 stars for plot, in which it had the thing that annoyed me in Penny Dreadful where two mythical guys are foreshadowed to have interest in some young woman and it's supposed to be tense yet you have no idea what's going on and it's too drawn out and vague to have the impact that it should and ends up feeling superfluous and intrusive to the actual interesting stuff. Essentially, I thought that the foreshadowing was too vague but also...happened too often. It became tedious to me when Yet Again we are reminded that Vasya is important to blah blah something about winter, and when the threads came together, I thought - "finally! Let's get this over with."
I was also somewhat bored by the plotline, in general. It's not like the book had nothing going on, and I remember being decently engrossed, but (maybe) due to the trappings of the setting of a remote village, the range of events that happened was mostly limited to 'Vasya is defiant, annoying family; supernatural thing is kind of creepy and Vasya deals with it; Anna/evil priest boi are fire-and-brimstone obsessed fundamentalist Christians and they scare people, vague foreshadowing about winter and bears', rinse-repeat. I do not have many stand-out moments. Maybe the first vampire bit.
So averaging around a 3.5/5.
Overall pretty good, I considered 4/5, due to the setting and 'feel' and aesthetics of the book, but I went with 3/5 because the structural elements were stagnant for me. A bunch of people stuck together in a remote village in the heart of winter, with brewing religious discontent, should be a powder keg waiting to go off, but the long time-scale, the lack of meaningful character development, and the samey-ness of the small conflicts throughout the book dulled it to a wet thump.
(As another note, I found the treatment of Christianity very... interesting. I feel like modern fantasy has pivoted away from Christianity good other stuff bad to the exact opposite. It is rare nowadays for Christianity to be portrayed in a good light. Its portrayal features imperialism, convert or die, inquisitions, witch burning, oppression of women, silencing radical thoughts, fear mongering, etc. I found the novel disappointing for going along with this very unflattering and simplistic look at Christianity. I am not Christian and I don't really have a horse in this race but it bothered me. Maybe later novels are more nuanced)
- 5 stars for authentic historical and cultural representation of Russia - tip of the hat for accurately describing the situation between the princes of Russia, Constantinople (or Tsargrad), and the Mongols, and for the depiction of Orthodox priests
- 4 stars for the fairy tale elements, since I'm a real sucker for the idea of nature and household spirits. However, I wish they were utilized more. The focus of the plot was on Vasya and how she suffers for being an outsider for being able to see the spirits, which was mildly disappointing. I wish she interacted with the spirits more, but due to Plot she had to hide her relationship with them, so the 'camera' was not on these magical beings as much as I'd like.
- 4 stars for family relationships being complex and rich.
- 3 stars for characters which are interesting and diverse in opinion and personality, yet they didn't meaningfully change or develop throughout the novel, which disappointed me. While the plot does stress the characters and challenge them, I felt like it did not do so in a way that would have actually challenged their core values. The religious zealot remains a proud zealot, the mad lady stays mad, Vasya stays defiant and adventurous.
- 2.5 stars for plot, in which it had the thing that annoyed me in Penny Dreadful where two mythical guys are foreshadowed to have interest in some young woman and it's supposed to be tense yet you have no idea what's going on and it's too drawn out and vague to have the impact that it should and ends up feeling superfluous and intrusive to the actual interesting stuff. Essentially, I thought that the foreshadowing was too vague but also...happened too often. It became tedious to me when Yet Again we are reminded that Vasya is important to blah blah something about winter, and when the threads came together, I thought - "finally! Let's get this over with."
I was also somewhat bored by the plotline, in general. It's not like the book had nothing going on, and I remember being decently engrossed, but (maybe) due to the trappings of the setting of a remote village, the range of events that happened was mostly limited to 'Vasya is defiant, annoying family; supernatural thing is kind of creepy and Vasya deals with it; Anna/evil priest boi are fire-and-brimstone obsessed fundamentalist Christians and they scare people, vague foreshadowing about winter and bears', rinse-repeat. I do not have many stand-out moments. Maybe the first vampire bit.
So averaging around a 3.5/5.
Overall pretty good, I considered 4/5, due to the setting and 'feel' and aesthetics of the book, but I went with 3/5 because the structural elements were stagnant for me. A bunch of people stuck together in a remote village in the heart of winter, with brewing religious discontent, should be a powder keg waiting to go off, but the long time-scale, the lack of meaningful character development, and the samey-ness of the small conflicts throughout the book dulled it to a wet thump.
(As another note, I found the treatment of Christianity very... interesting. I feel like modern fantasy has pivoted away from Christianity good other stuff bad to the exact opposite. It is rare nowadays for Christianity to be portrayed in a good light. Its portrayal features imperialism, convert or die, inquisitions, witch burning, oppression of women, silencing radical thoughts, fear mongering, etc. I found the novel disappointing for going along with this very unflattering and simplistic look at Christianity. I am not Christian and I don't really have a horse in this race but it bothered me. Maybe later novels are more nuanced)
medium-paced
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced