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A review by rikuson1
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
2.75
It was Okay π₯΄
-β β βββ- (2.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 55% (C-)
I've heard about the author Naomi Novik and was interested in her main series she's mostly known for called Temeraire. But I had a schedule of books that threw that series far off with a bunch of other Dragon Rider or Dragon related fantasy novels. Until then, I did hear about her other standalone books like Uprooted and this one right here, Spinning Silver. I am a follower of the popular Booktuber Petrik. He seems like a nice young man and held this one in high regard and Uprooted not so much. So on his recommendation I decided to give this one a go as my first Naomi Novik book and although I found a few things in here to be intriguing or enjoyable for the most part it was disappointing to me.
The start is setting up a quite depressing life of the main character, Miryem, who is struggling to find her way financially. When she finds her way a tad through regaining all the debt from people owe her family and hustling is where the story brings in the second POV character Wanda, who's life is arguably in a worse situation than Miryem especially with her finding a financial outing of sort. So now we follow Wanda for a couple of financially depressing chapters as we jump back and forth between them. That's when the story begins to get a bit interesting because this is when the supernatural aspects start to arise through the Staryk King who pulls Miryem into a deal to flip his silver elf/fey coins into gold. The situation between them only gets more aggressive, which links in the third POV, Princess Irina. So now, at this point, we have our three main POVs, and we come to find out about the Tsar Mirantius who is wedded to Princess Irina and that he has basically a deal with a sort of demon kind. The story at this point is pretty decent shuffling between the three of them although with Miryem being associated with the Staryk King and Irina with Tsar, Wonda's POVs started to quickly become more uninteresting and even extremely boring in comparison, since for the most part it did not feel like a lot with her story or life changed that much and it remained a slow boring burn basically through the entire book.
POVs
At this point, more POVs started to arise, which is where another one of my issues came into play. POV's from Wonda's younger brother, Irina's old maid, and even a few from Tsar, and I may be missing another one. If I am, then that only goes to show how irrelevant they were. Regardless, my point is, to me at least, outside of the few POV chapters from Tsar. When we got these POVs, they did not enhance the experience of the overarching story. Getting a different point of view usually works when it helps the primary point of views you are following by getting an opposing side of the coin or to see portions of the story the main POVs aren't there for but are important or relevant to the overarching story. When it comes to Wonda's little brother it did not feel like any of these reasons for his POV chapters were needed and could have easily been cut entirely because they did not enhance my enjoyment in basically anyway or add to the story in my opinion, if anything his portions were easily the weakest and actively hurt my engagement and the story. I will not forget when there was actually an action scene going on in the story, something I was not expecting, and my engagement rose (yes I'm a meathead what ever action helps if done well). But since he was the POV we were witnessing this from he made it less enjoyable to experience and during some of the scenes literally narrated the fact that he did not want to witness portions of what was going on and actively didn't so we the readers did not get to see it either, when this occurred that bothered me the most.
Naomi Novik's Prose
I was told by a friend that the prose in this book is nothing like hers in Teremaire and that here it feels dull and depressing in comparison, which was probably on purpose and fitting since most of this story was just that. It also being in first person perspective meant a lot of the writing style was written in a way where it's dialogue of a character written out like they are telling you their perspective of what's going on. Since that's the case if a character is a young character (like Wonda's younger brother) then it has to be written in a way of a young child, and I'll commend her of getting that down accurately it did feel that way. But like I said before, since I wasn't a fan of that character, it didn't translate to enjoyment or engagement too much. The main POVs, which were all female characters, although different, felt more similar than they did different. All female POVs of characters struggling to make it with the life they were dealt and the bad male characters that were putting them through it all. So the dialogue for each of them and the writing style for it to me feel quite samey, not enough variety. In a nutshell, they are all victims of a man of some sort, and they all eventually found some sort of way to get away from, outwit, or even eventually fall in love with? Anyway, they go about it in ways that were different enough sure but not enough for me to see a drastic enough of a change in the writing style between each of the main POVs so I didn't really feel connected or engaged to any heavy degree to any of them overall. Although none of the main POVs were bad, they didn't feel like anything worth me praising either, nor the writing style that came with them.
Verdict
It seems that I am in the minority in feeling this way since most out there seem to hold this one in high regard. I unfortunately was disappointed overall by the story, the characters and even the setting which all felt like a slowburn that focused a lot of the depressing struggles of trying to survive, which I guess I want interested enough to care for such a story or journey, especially when the did feel like it led to anything satisfying by the end. The main POVs that kept growing felt like useless fluff and didn't add enough to warrant their existence and since the writing style has to match the characters we are following, I did not enjoy the prose that much either since it had to adhere to the characters' uninteresting characterization. I do not think the book is bad. It obviously was just not for me. Nonetheless and Overall,
It Was Okay
-β β βββ- (2.75/5.00)
My Grading Score = 55% (C-)
I've heard about the author Naomi Novik and was interested in her main series she's mostly known for called Temeraire. But I had a schedule of books that threw that series far off with a bunch of other Dragon Rider or Dragon related fantasy novels. Until then, I did hear about her other standalone books like Uprooted and this one right here, Spinning Silver. I am a follower of the popular Booktuber Petrik. He seems like a nice young man and held this one in high regard and Uprooted not so much. So on his recommendation I decided to give this one a go as my first Naomi Novik book and although I found a few things in here to be intriguing or enjoyable for the most part it was disappointing to me.
The start is setting up a quite depressing life of the main character, Miryem, who is struggling to find her way financially. When she finds her way a tad through regaining all the debt from people owe her family and hustling is where the story brings in the second POV character Wanda, who's life is arguably in a worse situation than Miryem especially with her finding a financial outing of sort. So now we follow Wanda for a couple of financially depressing chapters as we jump back and forth between them. That's when the story begins to get a bit interesting because this is when the supernatural aspects start to arise through the Staryk King who pulls Miryem into a deal to flip his silver elf/fey coins into gold. The situation between them only gets more aggressive, which links in the third POV, Princess Irina. So now, at this point, we have our three main POVs, and we come to find out about the Tsar Mirantius who is wedded to Princess Irina and that he has basically a deal with a sort of demon kind. The story at this point is pretty decent shuffling between the three of them although with Miryem being associated with the Staryk King and Irina with Tsar, Wonda's POVs started to quickly become more uninteresting and even extremely boring in comparison, since for the most part it did not feel like a lot with her story or life changed that much and it remained a slow boring burn basically through the entire book.
POVs
At this point, more POVs started to arise, which is where another one of my issues came into play. POV's from Wonda's younger brother, Irina's old maid, and even a few from Tsar, and I may be missing another one. If I am, then that only goes to show how irrelevant they were. Regardless, my point is, to me at least, outside of the few POV chapters from Tsar. When we got these POVs, they did not enhance the experience of the overarching story. Getting a different point of view usually works when it helps the primary point of views you are following by getting an opposing side of the coin or to see portions of the story the main POVs aren't there for but are important or relevant to the overarching story. When it comes to Wonda's little brother it did not feel like any of these reasons for his POV chapters were needed and could have easily been cut entirely because they did not enhance my enjoyment in basically anyway or add to the story in my opinion, if anything his portions were easily the weakest and actively hurt my engagement and the story. I will not forget when there was actually an action scene going on in the story, something I was not expecting, and my engagement rose (yes I'm a meathead what ever action helps if done well). But since he was the POV we were witnessing this from he made it less enjoyable to experience and during some of the scenes literally narrated the fact that he did not want to witness portions of what was going on and actively didn't so we the readers did not get to see it either, when this occurred that bothered me the most.
Naomi Novik's Prose
I was told by a friend that the prose in this book is nothing like hers in Teremaire and that here it feels dull and depressing in comparison, which was probably on purpose and fitting since most of this story was just that. It also being in first person perspective meant a lot of the writing style was written in a way where it's dialogue of a character written out like they are telling you their perspective of what's going on. Since that's the case if a character is a young character (like Wonda's younger brother) then it has to be written in a way of a young child, and I'll commend her of getting that down accurately it did feel that way. But like I said before, since I wasn't a fan of that character, it didn't translate to enjoyment or engagement too much. The main POVs, which were all female characters, although different, felt more similar than they did different. All female POVs of characters struggling to make it with the life they were dealt and the bad male characters that were putting them through it all. So the dialogue for each of them and the writing style for it to me feel quite samey, not enough variety. In a nutshell, they are all victims of a man of some sort, and they all eventually found some sort of way to get away from, outwit, or even eventually fall in love with? Anyway, they go about it in ways that were different enough sure but not enough for me to see a drastic enough of a change in the writing style between each of the main POVs so I didn't really feel connected or engaged to any heavy degree to any of them overall. Although none of the main POVs were bad, they didn't feel like anything worth me praising either, nor the writing style that came with them.
Verdict
It seems that I am in the minority in feeling this way since most out there seem to hold this one in high regard. I unfortunately was disappointed overall by the story, the characters and even the setting which all felt like a slowburn that focused a lot of the depressing struggles of trying to survive, which I guess I want interested enough to care for such a story or journey, especially when the did feel like it led to anything satisfying by the end. The main POVs that kept growing felt like useless fluff and didn't add enough to warrant their existence and since the writing style has to match the characters we are following, I did not enjoy the prose that much either since it had to adhere to the characters' uninteresting characterization. I do not think the book is bad. It obviously was just not for me. Nonetheless and Overall,
It Was Okay