A review by wishbea
Orfeia by Joanne M. Harris

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

A mother strives to bring her recently deceased daughter back to life by journeying to Death and singing him a ballad. This is a retelling of the Orpheus myth, I think this novella is weaker than previous works by Harris, I didn't fall in love with the story like I did with A Pocketful of Crows. The side characters felt pointless to me and the answers to the riddles didn't feel satisfying. However the emotional aspect of the mother's devotion to her daughter was beautiful, the reveal at the end was heartbreaking.

Harris also added in overt references to her previous work which took me out of the story, she references A Pocketful of Crows with "A named thing is a tamed thing." and multiple uses of the word "honeycomb" as reference to her short story collection Honeycomb. I don't know if all these stories are meant to be taking place in the same universe, but the references felt very out of place regardless.
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