A review by daiinty
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

“She would build herself a life of plenty. She would force her world to bloom as she’d made the pomegranate tree grow and Santángel would help her do it. Even if blood watered the soil.” — Leigh Bardugo

the merger of two of my favorite things: history and fantasy. 1500s spain is only an area of history in vaguely aware of, but i love when pieces of historical fiction introduce me to different eras in different countries and lead me down a rabbit hole of research. the aesthetics of this book were absolutely immaculate and transported me back to madrid, toledo and valencia that i visited two summers ago. i also love the emphasis of language and a remembered culture and that is what gives luzia her magic. contrary to some criticisms i’ve seen, i do believe this was a well done stand alone, i felt that luzia’s arc had been completed by the end of the book. her main goal and wish from the beginning of the book was to claw her way out of the kitchens and find the better life for herself she so desired. while the romance was a significant part of the book — and don’t get me wrong, i love it — it also felt like there was so much going on not only with luzia outside of that, but with the other characters as well. many of them felt fleshed out to me, particularly santángel, hualit, and doña valentina. 

while i have loved bardugo’s writing, the start to this felt a little clunky technically. i found myself dealing with some issues of spatial awareness, unsure when we got to a certain setting/scene or when we switched POVs. in the past i have lauded bardugo’s ability to seamlessly transition between POVs in a single chapter, but in the beginning of this book i found myself getting a little lost. this did improve as the book went on though. i also didn’t understand the role of the lady playwright quiteria escárega. i feel like she was built up to play a bigger role in the story but then ended up feeling like a very random add-in. my last critique is about the ending. while i loved it to the most part, how you were unsure of luzia and santángle’s fates until the very end, i do feel like the ending would have been more impactful had santángle died, which i don’t normally say. but i feel after centuries of service to the de paredes family and all of the bad he is alluded to have done, it would be very poetic for him to give his life for the woman who changed him irrevocably and finally find peace. i didn’t really understand why he came back to life everyday, that didn’t seem explained at all other than ~magic~. 

overall i found this to be a very compelling story with a cast of compelling characters.