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A review by brennanaphone
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
5.0
The best fantasy book I've read this year. I love that the author pulled from Eastern European folklore instead of creating a whole different world. Much like fables used to be, this takes place in the real world, and it is eerier and more dangerous for it. The other benefit of it being set in our world it that it stars a Jewish girl! Not a shitty fantasy stereotype of a Jew (looking at you, JK Rowling's garbage-ass goblins), a real one, with all the prejudices and difficulties that entails.
This book follows three young women who are each living in vastly different circumstances. They are each fascinating, strong, uniquely gifted characters. Each time it switched from one perspective to another, I was briefly sad to be out of such an engaging perspective.
I will say that in such a dark, dangerous book, I did not expect the romance to creep up on me the way that it did, but it still made me burst into tears (I was postpartum too, but we'll disregard that for the moment). The magical world and the fey creatures in this story were truly unworldly, and while their magic wasn't always necessarily something I understood, I believed that the author had thought it through.
This book follows three young women who are each living in vastly different circumstances. They are each fascinating, strong, uniquely gifted characters. Each time it switched from one perspective to another, I was briefly sad to be out of such an engaging perspective.
I will say that in such a dark, dangerous book, I did not expect the romance to creep up on me the way that it did, but it still made me burst into tears (I was postpartum too, but we'll disregard that for the moment). The magical world and the fey creatures in this story were truly unworldly, and while their magic wasn't always necessarily something I understood, I believed that the author had thought it through.