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lottiezeb 's review for:
Vespertine
by Margaret Rogerson
So What’s It About?
The dead of Loraille do not rest.
Artemisia is training to be a Gray Sister, a nun who cleanses the bodies of the deceased so that their souls can pass on; otherwise, they will rise as spirits with a ravenous hunger for the living. She would rather deal with the dead than the living, who trade whispers about her scarred hands and troubled past.
When her convent is attacked by possessed soldiers, Artemisia defends it by awakening an ancient spirit bound to a saint’s relic. It is a revenant, a malevolent being that threatens to possess her the moment she drops her guard. Wielding its extraordinary power almost consumes her—but death has come to Loraille, and only a vespertine, a priestess trained to wield a high relic, has any chance of stopping it. With all knowledge of vespertines lost to time, Artemisia turns to the last remaining expert for help: the revenant itself.
As she unravels a sinister mystery of saints, secrets, and dark magic, her bond with the revenant grows. And when a hidden evil begins to surface, she discovers that facing this enemy might require her to betray everything she has been taught to believe—if the revenant doesn’t betray her first.
What I Thought
I think Vespertine is an example of the best YA fantasy has to offer today. :)
By far my favorite part of the book is the relationship that develops between Artemesia and the revenant inhabiting her. Mistrust and a grudging alliance eventually transform into a unique bond where they truly care for each other (even if that care doesn’t look the way we typically expect it to). A huge part of the connection they form comes from Artemisia realizing that no one has ever treated the revenant like a person or cared for it in all its years being a bound spirit. She is able to realize this and empathize because of how she has been dehumanized for a large part of her life as well. I love both of their personalities and how well they work together - to a certain extent, they’re both morbid, misanthropic weirdos! The revenant definitely steals the show a lot of the time with its macabre sense of humor and disgust for humans (and nuns in particular).
Artemisia is a great character in her own right. She is odd and unhappy and socially awkward due to all the time she was forced to spend in isolation, and she has some very thoughtfully incorporated trauma responses such as not really knowing how to take care of her body or notice what’s happening to it. The revenant notices this and helps her learn to take care of herself in another example of what makes their relationship unique. The book has a bit of a sense of humor about Artemesia’s social awkwardness and negativity sometimes, such as when she’s miserable when dragged along to windowshop on a holiday, but it’s always done in a very understanding, loving way.
She is also able to form some lovely relationships with humans. There’s a great moment where she and her convent roommate Marguerite realize how they have both made assumptions and miscommunicated with each other and turn over a fresh leaf after that. She is also able to understand and protect a traumatized soldier who everyone fears and get the help of a truly badass convent Mother named Mother Dolours.
My only critiques are very minimal. I don’t know quite how to explain the first one, but it feels like there is no real sense of what is happening with the world’s magic and lore or what is actually possible with them until Artemesia uncovers a new plot-related discovery. It’s all complicated enough that I’m not sure how Rogerson could have done this more effectively, but it did feel a bit like grasping at straws all the way through as a reader. My final thought is just a passing silly one - while I think Leander is an interesting character and his relationship with Artemesia is good, I feel like he never gets described without a reference to his angelic, chiseled face, his elegant, long-fingered hands, his hard chest, his spare, tense, taut body etc etc lol. We get it!!
This was such a thorough pleasure to read that I’m bumping A Sorcery of Thorns up in my TBR queue. I really hope I enjoy it just as much!!
The dead of Loraille do not rest.
Artemisia is training to be a Gray Sister, a nun who cleanses the bodies of the deceased so that their souls can pass on; otherwise, they will rise as spirits with a ravenous hunger for the living. She would rather deal with the dead than the living, who trade whispers about her scarred hands and troubled past.
When her convent is attacked by possessed soldiers, Artemisia defends it by awakening an ancient spirit bound to a saint’s relic. It is a revenant, a malevolent being that threatens to possess her the moment she drops her guard. Wielding its extraordinary power almost consumes her—but death has come to Loraille, and only a vespertine, a priestess trained to wield a high relic, has any chance of stopping it. With all knowledge of vespertines lost to time, Artemisia turns to the last remaining expert for help: the revenant itself.
As she unravels a sinister mystery of saints, secrets, and dark magic, her bond with the revenant grows. And when a hidden evil begins to surface, she discovers that facing this enemy might require her to betray everything she has been taught to believe—if the revenant doesn’t betray her first.
What I Thought
I think Vespertine is an example of the best YA fantasy has to offer today. :)
By far my favorite part of the book is the relationship that develops between Artemesia and the revenant inhabiting her. Mistrust and a grudging alliance eventually transform into a unique bond where they truly care for each other (even if that care doesn’t look the way we typically expect it to). A huge part of the connection they form comes from Artemisia realizing that no one has ever treated the revenant like a person or cared for it in all its years being a bound spirit. She is able to realize this and empathize because of how she has been dehumanized for a large part of her life as well. I love both of their personalities and how well they work together - to a certain extent, they’re both morbid, misanthropic weirdos! The revenant definitely steals the show a lot of the time with its macabre sense of humor and disgust for humans (and nuns in particular).
Artemisia is a great character in her own right. She is odd and unhappy and socially awkward due to all the time she was forced to spend in isolation, and she has some very thoughtfully incorporated trauma responses such as not really knowing how to take care of her body or notice what’s happening to it. The revenant notices this and helps her learn to take care of herself in another example of what makes their relationship unique. The book has a bit of a sense of humor about Artemesia’s social awkwardness and negativity sometimes, such as when she’s miserable when dragged along to windowshop on a holiday, but it’s always done in a very understanding, loving way.
She is also able to form some lovely relationships with humans. There’s a great moment where she and her convent roommate Marguerite realize how they have both made assumptions and miscommunicated with each other and turn over a fresh leaf after that. She is also able to understand and protect a traumatized soldier who everyone fears and get the help of a truly badass convent Mother named Mother Dolours.
My only critiques are very minimal. I don’t know quite how to explain the first one, but it feels like there is no real sense of what is happening with the world’s magic and lore or what is actually possible with them until Artemesia uncovers a new plot-related discovery. It’s all complicated enough that I’m not sure how Rogerson could have done this more effectively, but it did feel a bit like grasping at straws all the way through as a reader. My final thought is just a passing silly one - while I think Leander is an interesting character and his relationship with Artemesia is good, I feel like he never gets described without a reference to his angelic, chiseled face, his elegant, long-fingered hands, his hard chest, his spare, tense, taut body etc etc lol. We get it!!
This was such a thorough pleasure to read that I’m bumping A Sorcery of Thorns up in my TBR queue. I really hope I enjoy it just as much!!