A review by turrean
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

4.0

A gorgeous fantasy with a Russian folkloric setting. Beautifully told. The audiobook narration was excellent, and sounded authentic to my (admittedly untutored) ear. There were a few point-of-view accounts that I thought were unnecessary (the brother who wants to become a monk, for example.) 

The fate of some of the characters was so distressing!

I found I pitied Anna far more than I disliked her. Her family sees her as a burden, but she’s denied the one choice women had in that era to escape being given to a husband. I know she’s in some ways a dark shadow of Vasya, who makes her own way. But poor Anna had no chance at redemption.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Misogyny, Sexism, Violence, Blood, Grief, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent