Reviews with content warning for Death - Spinning Silver

A fantastic and fresh take on a Fae based fairy tale that has about 20% too much of any given part. I enjoy multiple POV characters but this is over the top, and at the point where I thought it would be nice if the story wrapped up soon there was still a whole damn story arc left.

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ru_bunny's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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madmadmaddymad's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize I was reading a Rumplestiltskin retelling. I was all the way at the wedding of Miryem’s cousin, and watching the fight between the demon and the Staryk before “Tell me your name!” “Never!” Felt like anything other than a quirk of their fantasy race. That being said, I loved the way all the pieces of this story unfolded and came together.

Wanda’s story moved me to tears at several points. I loved when she first learned from Miryem how to do the debt collecting, and she called adding numbers together “magic.” For Wanda, anything sufficiently remarkable is magic, and Miryem, even in the mortal world, was a sufficiently remarkable woman. The book had a really good juxtaposition of the ordinary with the fantastic, and Wanda, watching it all come to pass really made me feel like lots of things can be magic… I was crying during the entire last chapter, when Miryem called her “sister” and Sergey and Stepon “brothers”

Oh, and I LOVED the love story and how it genuinely snuck up on me. I am a simp for fae and monsters, and even though I got to the wedding and the three storerooms of silver-to-gold, the fight between the two evil husbands, and watching the demon carry the Staryk away, I thought, “Oh. Bummer.” Because I was a little bit rooting for them to fall in love.

AND THEN. Like I was having a dream…!

Miryem returns to free the Staryk!

And he *asks* to court her in the mortal way!

Oh! And Irina and Mirnatious! The way she saved him with the silver ring was so satisfying!!!!!!!! AND HE THOUGHT SHE WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING IN THE WORLD!

Just such a wonderful, wonderful read. Definitely a top 10 of all time for me. 5 stars, and it deserves more, to be honest.

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blewballoon's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

I had a hard time with the first half of the book. It reads very much like a fairy tale, and I found it hard to connect with the characters despite the multiple points of view, because it felt like there was more focus on plot than character. Towards the end though, it became a lot more compelling and I really enjoyed watching all the plot threads weave together into the ending. It's a very a well crafted story, I just wish I could have felt more connection with the characters sooner. While the story is dark, it never crossed the line for me to where I'd be too uncomfortable, but please check the content warnings.

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tak_everlasting's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I'd read a whole book of just Irina and Melirnous, but unfortunately Novik didn't feel the same way about writing them, and

Spoiler

robbed us by having their final scene be from the prespective of Margreta. No. I wanted either a Irina or Melirnous ending, not the side character. Yes, Margreta and Stefan are important perspectives, but the scenes from them could easily been reduced by 50% and given to characters with a more active role.

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raquelrose's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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mar_gier's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I really loved Spinning Silver, but it could be a bit of a slog to get through at times.

All of the characters were very wordy in both their thoughts and their descriptions of things. Also, dialogue exchanges seemed few and far between at times, and I do wish that there was a bit of them.

Nonetheless, I really did adore this book. The cast of characters were all relatively likeable to some degree, and they all felt extremely distinct from one another. Like, despite the fact that the chapters and scenes weren't labeled when there was a change in POV, you could always tell within the first sentence or three. (BTW, this book is all in 1st Person with like 6 distinct POVs.)

My favorite thing was seeing all the plot threads intertwining with one another, along with all of the characters' arcs. The character development and motivations are so deeply entrenched with the former that I think it's impossible to separate the two without having the story structure collapse.

But yeah, loved this book, but it was a bit slow-paced for my liking. You should read it.

(Also, all of the TWs I listed aren't super prevalent in the book except to one character really, but I wanted to be thorough just in case.)

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haley49's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was such an intricate and beautiful fantasy. All the povs fit together so well and told a story that was masterfully done. There were some skimmable parts, too many povs, some pacing issues, and a need (in my opinion) for more side character character depth. However, in the end the world building and continuous story was so well done I couldn’t help but enjoy it. I liked how the MC was Jewish as I hadn’t seen that in fantasy and you can really see how it effects her life.

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