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A review by crystalstarrlight
Company of Liars by Karen Maitland
5.0
Bullet Review:
It may have taken me all summer to finish this, but not because the book was boring and dull and a drag - heavens no! This was absolutely fascinating from beginning to end. Excellent, well-drawn, complex characters. A thoroughly immersive world. An intriguing, building dread as we screech to that ending, which was nowhere near as out of this world and bizarre as I got the impression from other reviewers (your mileage may vary, but I thought the ending was absolutely perfect).
I am exceedingly grateful to the barista who recommended this author to me and would not hesitate to read more of her works, if they are as fine and well done as this.
I don't hand out many 5-stars these days (and often end up taking them back from books I've reread), but I enjoyed myself so thoroughly, this is a 5-star read and will probably end up being my only 5-star novel this year.
And now, if you will excuse me, I need to huddle in a corner, trying to find meaning in my life again and get over finishing this fantastic book. I'll try to write a full review later if I can put two words together into a cohesive sentence.
Bullet Review:
Camelot is a traveling salesman. He travels England, stopping at various towns and villages to sell his wares - varied and sundry religious talismans and tokens. On Midsummer's Day, he happens to meet Narigorm (Warning: I listened on audiobook, so I'll try to suss out the character names, but apparently this book was never popular enough to warrant more than a two paragraph Wikipedia page). The girl is a reader of runes, and from the moment Camelot meets her, his life will never be the same.
The story of how I came to read this book is somewhat amusing. I got this recommendation from a barista, after we were discussing what we were reading. I cannot even remember what I was reading at the time, but this book will live with me for a long, long time.
Lately, I keep talking about what makes successful stories. Hint: it's not a particular character or storyline or setting. It's much, much simpler than that: it's an author who brings to life a character with hopes, dreams, strengths and weaknesses and sets him or her loose in a well realized world. Such simple words, but really when you break down some of the most successful, engaging stories at least I've come across, the reasons they are so good can be boiled in that one sentence. And stories that fail do so because they break that rule: the characters are half realized, the setting is weak, the plot dictates the story to the extent that characters have to break their own morality and rules in order to make the plot work.
"Company of Liars" is a success in all those ways. The characters from ones we love like Camelot and Rodrigo to ones we despise like Zophiel or ones we sigh in disgust at like Joffre, all the characters are so vivid and authentic. Not only do these people feel like ones we might meet today, but these characters all act in accordance to their own personal set of morals and codes. This is what makes a character a success; a character like Zophiel is hardly a "likeable" character, but I genuinely cared about him and wanted to know what would happen to him. Certain actions that characters take (thievery, murder, incest) are despicable but we come to understand WHY the characters did these things; never once was I broken out of the ambiance and magic of the story. Even at the controversial ending, which irritated many a reader, I bought it. I honestly felt it was true to the characters and message of the story.
The other key component of any story is the setting, and here again, Maitland had a winner. For the entire time I was listening to this book, I was transported to mid-1300's England, starting with the beautiful summer leading to the building dread as the cast is desperately fleeing that which cannot be seen. It was eerie and creepy, and at the end, I felt I could not listen fast enough to find out what would happen next. There are deaths in this book, but they don't feel cheap, tacked on for gory voyeurism. Each one is a knife wound to the heart as characters you've come to love slip away from the story.
I have not fallen in love with characters and a story since Pauline Gedge's Lords of Two Lands Trilogy. This is a book that even days after finishing, I am missing listening to (and kudos to a fantastic narrator who brings to life all these fantastic characters!) and longing to go back to this world and these people to learn more. Karen Maitland impressed the hell out of me with "Company of Liars", a book I never would have picked up had I not gotten the recommendation I did. I cannot wait to dive into the other books she's written and check them out.
It may have taken me all summer to finish this, but not because the book was boring and dull and a drag - heavens no! This was absolutely fascinating from beginning to end. Excellent, well-drawn, complex characters. A thoroughly immersive world. An intriguing, building dread as we screech to that ending, which was nowhere near as out of this world and bizarre as I got the impression from other reviewers (your mileage may vary, but I thought the ending was absolutely perfect).
I am exceedingly grateful to the barista who recommended this author to me and would not hesitate to read more of her works, if they are as fine and well done as this.
I don't hand out many 5-stars these days (and often end up taking them back from books I've reread), but I enjoyed myself so thoroughly, this is a 5-star read and will probably end up being my only 5-star novel this year.
And now, if you will excuse me, I need to huddle in a corner, trying to find meaning in my life again and get over finishing this fantastic book. I'll try to write a full review later if I can put two words together into a cohesive sentence.
Bullet Review:
Camelot is a traveling salesman. He travels England, stopping at various towns and villages to sell his wares - varied and sundry religious talismans and tokens. On Midsummer's Day, he happens to meet Narigorm (Warning: I listened on audiobook, so I'll try to suss out the character names, but apparently this book was never popular enough to warrant more than a two paragraph Wikipedia page). The girl is a reader of runes, and from the moment Camelot meets her, his life will never be the same.
The story of how I came to read this book is somewhat amusing. I got this recommendation from a barista, after we were discussing what we were reading. I cannot even remember what I was reading at the time, but this book will live with me for a long, long time.
Lately, I keep talking about what makes successful stories. Hint: it's not a particular character or storyline or setting. It's much, much simpler than that: it's an author who brings to life a character with hopes, dreams, strengths and weaknesses and sets him or her loose in a well realized world. Such simple words, but really when you break down some of the most successful, engaging stories at least I've come across, the reasons they are so good can be boiled in that one sentence. And stories that fail do so because they break that rule: the characters are half realized, the setting is weak, the plot dictates the story to the extent that characters have to break their own morality and rules in order to make the plot work.
"Company of Liars" is a success in all those ways. The characters from ones we love like Camelot and Rodrigo to ones we despise like Zophiel or ones we sigh in disgust at like Joffre, all the characters are so vivid and authentic. Not only do these people feel like ones we might meet today, but these characters all act in accordance to their own personal set of morals and codes. This is what makes a character a success; a character like Zophiel is hardly a "likeable" character, but I genuinely cared about him and wanted to know what would happen to him. Certain actions that characters take (thievery, murder, incest) are despicable but we come to understand WHY the characters did these things; never once was I broken out of the ambiance and magic of the story. Even at the controversial ending, which irritated many a reader
Spoiler
when Narigorm reappears at Camelot's homeThe other key component of any story is the setting, and here again, Maitland had a winner. For the entire time I was listening to this book, I was transported to mid-1300's England, starting with the beautiful summer leading to the building dread as the cast is desperately fleeing that which cannot be seen. It was eerie and creepy, and at the end, I felt I could not listen fast enough to find out what would happen next. There are deaths in this book, but they don't feel cheap, tacked on for gory voyeurism. Each one is a knife wound to the heart as characters you've come to love slip away from the story.
I have not fallen in love with characters and a story since Pauline Gedge's Lords of Two Lands Trilogy. This is a book that even days after finishing, I am missing listening to (and kudos to a fantastic narrator who brings to life all these fantastic characters!) and longing to go back to this world and these people to learn more. Karen Maitland impressed the hell out of me with "Company of Liars", a book I never would have picked up had I not gotten the recommendation I did. I cannot wait to dive into the other books she's written and check them out.