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A review by chrissie_whitley
The Thief on the Winged Horse by Kate Mascarenhas
3.0
As much as I adored Mascarenhas's previous book, [b:The Psychology of Time Travel|41035725|The Psychology of Time Travel|Kate Mascarenhas|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1533307735l/41035725._SY75_.jpg|59987350], I tried to go into this with tempered expectations. Realizing how difficult it would be to compose a story that was up to the challenge of her debut novel, I let this remain on my unread shelf for over a year. All-in-all, this rounded out and finished up being a pretty standard magical realism book.
The story itself is about the descendants of three of the four families who founded a doll-making shop near Oxford, on a small, fictional island named, Paxton's Eyot. The dolls are carefully constructed and topped with magical enhancements that evoke a particular feeling. The ability to apply these enhancements is a strongly held secret and only particular male descendants of the original four are permitted to become doll makers and learn the magic skill. Despite the fact that all four original makers were female, the following generations all decide that the magic is too much for the women — who just aren't capable enough.
A stranger walks onto the island one day, disrupting everything by claiming to be a descendant of the one original doll maker who died with no children. Larkin claims his right to learn magic doll making because his antecedent had actually absconded to France with the baby everyone had thought died. Meanwhile, Persephone, another descendant from another founder, has gotten it into her head that she wants to be a doll maker despite her gender. Larkin and Persephone make up the bulk of the main storyline and, regardless of the point of view shifting to a few others, really pull along the story on their own.
The feminist angle is a bit too on the nose for the reader — and thus really obviously for the upcoming plot — and yet the women on the island never seem to be at odds with their set circumstances. Other than Persephone, who is never that passionate about it and instead is just takes her desired future as 'one day' inevitable, none of the other women — daughters, wives, and mothers — ever seem that interested in learning the enchantments that set them so far apart from other doll makers in the world.
The characters are pretty well developed, but the story suffers by way of the friction created in the setting and style. Set in present day, the magical fairytale style in which Mascarnenhas has written continually butted heads with the random and spontaneous belches of modern speech — especially anything that might be considered profane. While I liked the majority of the story, the closer I got to the ending, the less focused it became. In fact, the ending was so lackluster, I wasn't even sure it made sense with the characters, particularly the women of the eyot. An admirable sophomore novel, but one that didn't quite bring on the wonder and complexity I remembered from her first novel.
The story itself is about the descendants of three of the four families who founded a doll-making shop near Oxford, on a small, fictional island named, Paxton's Eyot. The dolls are carefully constructed and topped with magical enhancements that evoke a particular feeling. The ability to apply these enhancements is a strongly held secret and only particular male descendants of the original four are permitted to become doll makers and learn the magic skill. Despite the fact that all four original makers were female, the following generations all decide that the magic is too much for the women — who just aren't capable enough.
A stranger walks onto the island one day, disrupting everything by claiming to be a descendant of the one original doll maker who died with no children. Larkin claims his right to learn magic doll making because his antecedent had actually absconded to France with the baby everyone had thought died. Meanwhile, Persephone, another descendant from another founder, has gotten it into her head that she wants to be a doll maker despite her gender. Larkin and Persephone make up the bulk of the main storyline and, regardless of the point of view shifting to a few others, really pull along the story on their own.
The feminist angle is a bit too on the nose for the reader — and thus really obviously for the upcoming plot — and yet the women on the island never seem to be at odds with their set circumstances. Other than Persephone, who is never that passionate about it and instead is just takes her desired future as 'one day' inevitable, none of the other women — daughters, wives, and mothers — ever seem that interested in learning the enchantments that set them so far apart from other doll makers in the world.
The characters are pretty well developed, but the story suffers by way of the friction created in the setting and style. Set in present day, the magical fairytale style in which Mascarnenhas has written continually butted heads with the random and spontaneous belches of modern speech — especially anything that might be considered profane. While I liked the majority of the story, the closer I got to the ending, the less focused it became. In fact, the ending was so lackluster, I wasn't even sure it made sense with the characters, particularly the women of the eyot. An admirable sophomore novel, but one that didn't quite bring on the wonder and complexity I remembered from her first novel.