A review by letitiaharmon
A City in Winter: The Queen's Tale by Mark Helprin, Chris Van Allsburg

3.0

This is an interesting little book and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Possibly it's because it is the only one in the series I have read. There are things I absolutely adore about it. The writing defies genre and is beautiful. As a child, I think I would have been extremely drawn to this story, not just because of the queen-returning-to-rule narrative, but because of the odd specificity of details and extreme over-categorization of everything, especially food. As an adult, it doesn't follow expected story and plot patterns, and while that might not be a bad thing, I find myself kind of scratching my head about what this little book is actually about. It ends too abruptly, the main character has no arc, and while it could be some kind of political commentary, the allegory is not committed to, or at least not strong enough. However, I am intrigued enough to probably look up the other two in the series and see if I can piece together a better understanding of the writer's viewpoint.