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missroseroseI bought this as an ebook because it was on sale and people on Twitter had good things to say about it. I started it because I was undergoing a bout of gastroenteritis and didn't honestly feel up to wrangling a physical book when my phone was much easier to hold/prop up.
I burned through the entire thing the same day, because the story was that awesome.
Dashti, the story's narrator, is a fantastic character - funny and sweet, but also human and complex. Unlike so many lower-caste-person-comes-to-question-the-social-order narratives, she's an optimist, willing to make the best of the deal life's dealt her, but she's never passive. In fact, it's almost entirely through her actions that the story takes place, and her eventual awakening to the value of character over class is handled gradually and believably.
Lady Saren, by contrast, spends the vast majority of the book wavering over the border between "object of pity" and "annoying, whimpering lump". Lacking Dashti's character, she does remain passive for almost the entirety of the book, and becomes outright hateful at times. This being a fairy tale, we suspect that she will be redeemed, and she is - but in a way far from magical, and consistent with her character, that impressed me to no end.
The story itself manages that holy grail of fairy-tale adaptations - maintaining the structure and poetry of the genre while becoming a far better-fleshed version than the original. I was particularly impressed with the worldbuilding, which was based largely on Mongol history and culture, and made for a nice change from the usual Western European-inspired medieval storytelling. And I especially liked the recurring theme that doing the right thing, being the better person, is the only way to achieve the best outcome - even when you can't see how it's going to happen, and you have to have faith that others will do the same.
Really, the highest compliment I can pay this story is this: it's almost enough to make me wish I had a daughter, just so I could share it with her when she gets old enough. A++ with cherries on top
I burned through the entire thing the same day, because the story was that awesome.
Dashti, the story's narrator, is a fantastic character - funny and sweet, but also human and complex. Unlike so many lower-caste-person-comes-to-question-the-social-order narratives, she's an optimist, willing to make the best of the deal life's dealt her, but she's never passive. In fact, it's almost entirely through her actions that the story takes place, and her eventual awakening to the value of character over class is handled gradually and believably.
Lady Saren, by contrast, spends the vast majority of the book wavering over the border between "object of pity" and "annoying, whimpering lump". Lacking Dashti's character, she does remain passive for almost the entirety of the book, and becomes outright hateful at times. This being a fairy tale, we suspect that she will be redeemed, and she is - but in a way far from magical, and consistent with her character, that impressed me to no end.
The story itself manages that holy grail of fairy-tale adaptations - maintaining the structure and poetry of the genre while becoming a far better-fleshed version than the original. I was particularly impressed with the worldbuilding, which was based largely on Mongol history and culture, and made for a nice change from the usual Western European-inspired medieval storytelling. And I especially liked the recurring theme that doing the right thing, being the better person, is the only way to achieve the best outcome - even when you can't see how it's going to happen, and you have to have faith that others will do the same.
Really, the highest compliment I can pay this story is this: it's almost enough to make me wish I had a daughter, just so I could share it with her when she gets old enough. A++ with cherries on top
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Date: 2014-04-24 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-04-24 09:49 pm (UTC)