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A review by bookph1le
Nimona by ND Stevenson
2.0
I'm really pretty confused about this book. I've heard so many good things about it that I wonder if I missed something? While it was refreshing to see a different sort of protagonist, and while I did appreciate the diversity, I'm left wondering what the book was all about. Spoilers to follow.
In the end, my big question is: am I supposed to root for Nimona? If so, why? Okay, so she's a tortured soul who obviously had a hard past, but so what? She does a lot of really, really terrible things in this book, and that makes me less than sympathetic to her cause. I kept wondering if Ballister would teach her something--for all his "evilness", he has a highly developed sense of morality--but, as far as I can tell, he didn't. To me, it's a real shame that Nimona apparently didn't learn anything from Ballister, though she clearly could have benefited from his wisdom.
I did like the relationship between Ballister and Ambrosious. It was interesting and unconventional, and not just because it's a depiction of a male/male relationship. Their past is complicated, and Ambrosious is clearly not the hero everyone makes him out to be--much like Ballister isn't the villain everyone makes him out to be. I appreciated these shades of gray as they made the characters more complex and interesting. I may be in the minority, but I appreciated that Ambrosious owned his pettiness and that he tried to do something about it in the end. I found his story a well-done redemption arc.
The real winner for me, though, was Ballister, which is why it's such a shame that this book leaves so much unresolved. I like Ballister's taciturn nature, and I like that, while he hated an institution, he possessed enough nuanced wisdom that he understood that everyone who works for the institution is not necessarily a problem. I liked the empathy that he had for Nimona as well, and his willingness to try to forgive her even when she didn't deserve his forgiveness. He has a great deal of compassion, and I was disappointed that I felt his compassion was unmerited.
Maybe it's not a flaw of the book, maybe it's just my take on it, because, while I don't want this to sound After School Special, I did want to see Nimona grow in the end, and the fact that she didn't contributed to my overall disappointment with the book, despite how much I liked Ballister and Ambrosious. Even so, I was happy to see something different, something that broke most of the common tropes of fantasy narratives. It's nice to see characters who aren't all good or all bad. I enjoyed this author's style and hope to get more out of her future books.
(One last note--why was this classified as YA? It is no way strikes me as fitting into the genre.)
In the end, my big question is: am I supposed to root for Nimona? If so, why? Okay, so she's a tortured soul who obviously had a hard past, but so what? She does a lot of really, really terrible things in this book, and that makes me less than sympathetic to her cause. I kept wondering if Ballister would teach her something--for all his "evilness", he has a highly developed sense of morality--but, as far as I can tell, he didn't. To me, it's a real shame that Nimona apparently didn't learn anything from Ballister, though she clearly could have benefited from his wisdom.
I did like the relationship between Ballister and Ambrosious. It was interesting and unconventional, and not just because it's a depiction of a male/male relationship. Their past is complicated, and Ambrosious is clearly not the hero everyone makes him out to be--much like Ballister isn't the villain everyone makes him out to be. I appreciated these shades of gray as they made the characters more complex and interesting. I may be in the minority, but I appreciated that Ambrosious owned his pettiness and that he tried to do something about it in the end. I found his story a well-done redemption arc.
The real winner for me, though, was Ballister, which is why it's such a shame that this book leaves so much unresolved. I like Ballister's taciturn nature, and I like that, while he hated an institution, he possessed enough nuanced wisdom that he understood that everyone who works for the institution is not necessarily a problem. I liked the empathy that he had for Nimona as well, and his willingness to try to forgive her even when she didn't deserve his forgiveness. He has a great deal of compassion, and I was disappointed that I felt his compassion was unmerited.
Maybe it's not a flaw of the book, maybe it's just my take on it, because, while I don't want this to sound After School Special, I did want to see Nimona grow in the end, and the fact that she didn't contributed to my overall disappointment with the book, despite how much I liked Ballister and Ambrosious. Even so, I was happy to see something different, something that broke most of the common tropes of fantasy narratives. It's nice to see characters who aren't all good or all bad. I enjoyed this author's style and hope to get more out of her future books.
(One last note--why was this classified as YA? It is no way strikes me as fitting into the genre.)