soph (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sophia_sol) wrote2020-07-24 08:35 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2020-07-24 08:35 pm
A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher
T. Kingfisher has a new book out!!! AWW YEAH. This is an odd book, like Kingfisher's often are, and I loved it. She's so good at writing books which have a very specific vibe, with practical-minded main characters who do the thing that needs doing because someone's gotta, and with a great deal of darkness but a darkness that does not overwhelm because there are those people who will do things because someone's gotta, even when it's scary.
Kingfisher is also good at including just enough odd and specific details that make her worlds feel really lived in, like she's really thought through the specific variety of weird that's normal here because everywhere is weird in its own way. And like she's aware that the minutiae of your lived experience matters - like, it's really inconvenient for example to try to fight off a murderer when you're wearing pants that are too small for you. It might be a silly detail but it adds to the feeling that what's happening is really happening and I love it.
Anyway this book is about a 14 year old apprentice baker named Mona who can do small magics with baked goods, and discovers a dead body in her bakery one early morning. Then it turns out to be about a bunch of other things as well, like the untrustworthiness of police, what it means to be a hero and why it's not all that it's cracked up to be, how unfair it is when the people in charge won't DO something when there's a big problem that needs fixing, a woman whose power is to control dead horses, and a sourdough starter familiar named Bob.
Mona is wonderful, the street kid Spindle she ends up allying with is a delight, I adore Knackering Molly, and I thought the choices Kingfisher made around the Duchess were really interesting.
All in all an excellent book.
Kingfisher is also good at including just enough odd and specific details that make her worlds feel really lived in, like she's really thought through the specific variety of weird that's normal here because everywhere is weird in its own way. And like she's aware that the minutiae of your lived experience matters - like, it's really inconvenient for example to try to fight off a murderer when you're wearing pants that are too small for you. It might be a silly detail but it adds to the feeling that what's happening is really happening and I love it.
Anyway this book is about a 14 year old apprentice baker named Mona who can do small magics with baked goods, and discovers a dead body in her bakery one early morning. Then it turns out to be about a bunch of other things as well, like the untrustworthiness of police, what it means to be a hero and why it's not all that it's cracked up to be, how unfair it is when the people in charge won't DO something when there's a big problem that needs fixing, a woman whose power is to control dead horses, and a sourdough starter familiar named Bob.
Mona is wonderful, the street kid Spindle she ends up allying with is a delight, I adore Knackering Molly, and I thought the choices Kingfisher made around the Duchess were really interesting.
All in all an excellent book.
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I was BOGGLING when i saw the note about how long ago she actually wrote this, though - between the sourdough and the police brutality, I would NOT have been surprised if she had just written this as a lockdown project.
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