![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
The Kingdom of Back, by Marie Lu
Nov. 15th, 2020 06:31 pmOh I have some mixed feelings about this one!
Nannerl Mozart, older sister of the famous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (familiarly known as Woferl), was also a musically-gifted child -- but because of her gender she didn't get anything like the same kind of attention as her brother. This book tells Nannerl's story, and weaves into it the story of the fairytale kingdom Nannerl and her brother used to tell each other to amuse themselves.
A highly compelling premise and I was super excited to read this book, especially since it's been getting such positive reviews!
And I found it a fascinating and lovely read, for sure. I loved the way that the Kingdom of Back (which was something that the real historical Mozart children did invent) was such a huge part of Nannerl and Woferl's lives, and the way that they affected its reality and it affected their reality in turn. And I LOVED the portrayal of the sibling relationship between Nannerl and Woferl, and the shifting dynamics of it over time, and the things that each do and do not know about each other despite their closeness, and how important they are to each other.
But I feel that the way the narrative beats fail to back up the intended theme of the story ultimately weakens the book and undermines the points it's trying to make. And I felt this disconnect throughout the whole of the book and it meant that even while I was enjoying what I was reading on almost any given page, there was always an underlying sense of unease, of being sure I could see the disappointing way the story was going but HOPING the author would successfully pull the themes together in a way that would work for me but knowing really that that wasn't going to happen.
There's three major facets of this problem for me.
( Cut for a bunch of spoilers )
Nannerl Mozart, older sister of the famous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (familiarly known as Woferl), was also a musically-gifted child -- but because of her gender she didn't get anything like the same kind of attention as her brother. This book tells Nannerl's story, and weaves into it the story of the fairytale kingdom Nannerl and her brother used to tell each other to amuse themselves.
A highly compelling premise and I was super excited to read this book, especially since it's been getting such positive reviews!
And I found it a fascinating and lovely read, for sure. I loved the way that the Kingdom of Back (which was something that the real historical Mozart children did invent) was such a huge part of Nannerl and Woferl's lives, and the way that they affected its reality and it affected their reality in turn. And I LOVED the portrayal of the sibling relationship between Nannerl and Woferl, and the shifting dynamics of it over time, and the things that each do and do not know about each other despite their closeness, and how important they are to each other.
But I feel that the way the narrative beats fail to back up the intended theme of the story ultimately weakens the book and undermines the points it's trying to make. And I felt this disconnect throughout the whole of the book and it meant that even while I was enjoying what I was reading on almost any given page, there was always an underlying sense of unease, of being sure I could see the disappointing way the story was going but HOPING the author would successfully pull the themes together in a way that would work for me but knowing really that that wasn't going to happen.
There's three major facets of this problem for me.
( Cut for a bunch of spoilers )
