Scan barcode
A review by jennieartemis
The Winged Histories by Sofia Samatar
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
TL;DR: If you can meet it on its own terms (postmodern and experimental), this is an immensely rewarding literary fantasy
This is a weird one, because I read it twice in the same year (with A Stranger in Olondria in between), and my opinion radically shifted. At first I merely respected the book rather than enjoyed it - I found it very experimental, to the point of too fragmented for me. But even in the first read, the ending really stuck with me in its beauty and use of the fantastic. Returning to it, I was completely sold, now that I knew what to expect. Much better to enter with a framework of postmodernism and postcolonialism than any generic and narrative expectations of fantasy. Once I knew where to look, I found its insights into language, power, and human experiences very powerful, and I really admired the different styles and what that said about stories themselves. Despite an initial bad experience, I'm happy to rate this book very highly because it was genuinely a case where I needed to change rather than it.
10/10 in personal rating system
This is a weird one, because I read it twice in the same year (with A Stranger in Olondria in between), and my opinion radically shifted. At first I merely respected the book rather than enjoyed it - I found it very experimental, to the point of too fragmented for me. But even in the first read, the ending really stuck with me in its beauty and use of the fantastic. Returning to it, I was completely sold, now that I knew what to expect. Much better to enter with a framework of postmodernism and postcolonialism than any generic and narrative expectations of fantasy. Once I knew where to look, I found its insights into language, power, and human experiences very powerful, and I really admired the different styles and what that said about stories themselves. Despite an initial bad experience, I'm happy to rate this book very highly because it was genuinely a case where I needed to change rather than it.
10/10 in personal rating system