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A review by katharine_opal
We Are the Song by Catherine Bakewell
4.0
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!
The story of "We Are the Song" follows Elissa, a young girl who is gifted with the magical power of song by their Goddess. She is on a journey to share her gift and grant succor to the people of the world. The writing style of the author is very poetic and even luxuriant at times. Rarely do I read a story where I am seized by the desire to get up and draw out the scene, but this happened to me at multiple points during this story. The way certain locales are described made me think of real-life places. I feel as if the author got inspiration from places such as Mykonos, Greece or Florence, Italy, or the beautiful towns in the French countryside. The beauty of the scenes within the story matches the gorgeous book cover. The cover is actually what drew me in and made me curious about the book! The story is good but starts a little oddly. When I first started to read, I thought I'd accidentally jumped to the middle of the book. I didn't, the opening of the book just makes you feel as if you started in the middle of the final book in a series. The plot is fairly simple but still compelling. I really enjoyed Elissa as a character. Reading as she struggles with her faith and her devotion, but tries her best to stay true to her morals, was fascinating. Someone mentioned that they disliked her questioning herself so much, but Elissa is twelve years old. I'm pretty sure many twelve-year-old girls in real life question and second guess themselves when it comes to big decisions like the ones Elissa has to make. Normally, I dislike reading anything to do with religion, but this captured me. I really did like the subtle messages about the issues of blind faith and the issues with religion being twisted for evil means. While I'm not sure if that was the intended message, it is what I received. This book is very short, so it does feel like it moved very quickly, but they only could fit so much plot into so many pages. One thing I that baffled me is that the book's plot blurb describes the character Lucio as "Her vain and jealous music tutor". I don't know if I would call him either vain or jealous? Lucio is as much of a child as Elissa but is expected to act the part of a fully-fledged adult. Both Elissa and Lucio have an incredible amount of pressure put on them by their religion, their religious leaders and the world at large while being only children themselves. (I feel like there's another message hidden in that, but I could be reading too much into that one.) The magic system in "We Are the Song" is also very interesting to read about! The concept of magic through singing or spell work done with magical voices is nothing new, but the way it is written in this story makes it feel as if it IS new! I'm a bit sad the story is so short, I would have loved to learn more about the Singers and the other characters. This story was so wonderful, and I really fell in the love with the author's writing style. I will totally be on the lookout for anything else they write in the future!
The story of "We Are the Song" follows Elissa, a young girl who is gifted with the magical power of song by their Goddess. She is on a journey to share her gift and grant succor to the people of the world. The writing style of the author is very poetic and even luxuriant at times. Rarely do I read a story where I am seized by the desire to get up and draw out the scene, but this happened to me at multiple points during this story. The way certain locales are described made me think of real-life places. I feel as if the author got inspiration from places such as Mykonos, Greece or Florence, Italy, or the beautiful towns in the French countryside. The beauty of the scenes within the story matches the gorgeous book cover. The cover is actually what drew me in and made me curious about the book! The story is good but starts a little oddly. When I first started to read, I thought I'd accidentally jumped to the middle of the book. I didn't, the opening of the book just makes you feel as if you started in the middle of the final book in a series. The plot is fairly simple but still compelling. I really enjoyed Elissa as a character. Reading as she struggles with her faith and her devotion, but tries her best to stay true to her morals, was fascinating. Someone mentioned that they disliked her questioning herself so much, but Elissa is twelve years old. I'm pretty sure many twelve-year-old girls in real life question and second guess themselves when it comes to big decisions like the ones Elissa has to make. Normally, I dislike reading anything to do with religion, but this captured me. I really did like the subtle messages about the issues of blind faith and the issues with religion being twisted for evil means. While I'm not sure if that was the intended message, it is what I received. This book is very short, so it does feel like it moved very quickly, but they only could fit so much plot into so many pages. One thing I that baffled me is that the book's plot blurb describes the character Lucio as "Her vain and jealous music tutor". I don't know if I would call him either vain or jealous? Lucio is as much of a child as Elissa but is expected to act the part of a fully-fledged adult. Both Elissa and Lucio have an incredible amount of pressure put on them by their religion, their religious leaders and the world at large while being only children themselves. (I feel like there's another message hidden in that, but I could be reading too much into that one.) The magic system in "We Are the Song" is also very interesting to read about! The concept of magic through singing or spell work done with magical voices is nothing new, but the way it is written in this story makes it feel as if it IS new! I'm a bit sad the story is so short, I would have loved to learn more about the Singers and the other characters. This story was so wonderful, and I really fell in the love with the author's writing style. I will totally be on the lookout for anything else they write in the future!