A review by venneh
Or What You Will by Jo Walton

5.0

This is so unbelievably my kind of meta and retelling that I’m having difficulty finding words for it, and how much I love what Walton has done here. Telling you what this is technically a retelling of is a big enough spoiler that I won’t say it, but the bricks of it are laid early on. This feels like a book I’m probably going to end up going back to again, just to marvel at how it all comes together. And centering the story on the author (going to use her name to avoid confusion, Sylvia)’s muse and co-conspirator makes the telling of the story to ensure she won’t die, and the telling of the author’s story herself that much more intriguing. Yes, there is a book in a book. Yes, our narrator has no name. Yes, there is gratuitous Shakespeare. But the way that ideas Sylvia had at the beginning of her writing career are interrogated and eventually change in the world she’s made feels like Walton being open about her own growth as a writer. And the way the book in a book unfolds in parallel to us learning Sylvia’s story is extremely well done and highlights things about Sylvia herself. The love for Florence shines through brilliantly too. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into when I started this, but this feels like a masterwork in the best way. Get this when it comes out.