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sophia_sol) wrote2023-04-15 10:52 am
sophia_sol) wrote2023-04-15 10:52 am
Nettle and Bone, by T. Kingfisher
Another of Ursula Vernon's fairy tale books under the pen name T Kingfisher, though this one is not inspired by a specific fairy tale, and is more a novel told in a fairy-tale-ish mode.
And it's very good at being a dark fairy tale, with the sense of the power of magic underlying everything, and the deadly sort of fairness/unfairness of the world. I loved it.
Vernon's prototypical protagonist type is a person who meets a horrible situation and responds with: "well, there's a thing that needs doing and I don't want to do it, but nobody else is going to, so I guess I'm going to figure it out." And this protagonist type is extremely soothing to me. I will read these characters of Vernon's endlessly.
I will say that I don't think that the merging of the two timelines of the story is done as smoothly as I'd like. The book opens in medias res in a dramatic episode, and then we go back in time to where the story starts, jumping back and forth between the two timelines until the backstory catches up with where the story began. The jumping back and forth part worked fine, and the linear narrative afterward worked fine, but the joining between the two was honestly pretty confusingly handled to me and I had to work at it to follow what had just happened with the timeline!
But that is absolutely my only complaint about the book and everything else is just SO great. It's the story of a princess named Marra who's pleased to be relegated to live in a nunnery because she's just not good at the whole politics thing and finds fibre arts much more interesting, but when the knowledge of something truly horrible occurring is thrust upon her, she goes on a quest to get the thing dealt with. On the way she collects various allies and travelling partners, every single one of whom I adore as well.
But my very favourite of the questing party is Agnes, who is committed to being the kind of person she wants to be, fate and disposition bedamned. And I love the ending she gets in the book. (actually I love everyone's endings!)
The romance is very nicely done too. Often I find that Vernon has a bit of a heavy hand for my taste with the way she portrays attraction between romantic interests, but this one is kept fairly low key, while still leaving me fully believing in their interest in each other and why they would have that interest.
I also love the sister relationship between Kania and Marra, which was extremely bad when they were younger, and never exactly becomes good, but they know each other and learn to trust each other anyway when they need to. A person can be important in your life without the two of you actually being the sort of people who easily get along with each other.
Kania is a very different person than Marra, insightful and political and quick yet patient, and she is managing to balance on the knife-edge of keeping control of the situation in her newly destabilized country at the end of the book, and I was so pleased to see her finally able to act, and making the absolute most of it!
And Marra's other sister, Damia – I was honestly still so sad about her death at the end of the book. It happened so early on to a character we barely saw, but the ongoing ways she was invoked through the book were very affecting.
*happy sigh*
I just love Ursula Vernon's writing!
And it's very good at being a dark fairy tale, with the sense of the power of magic underlying everything, and the deadly sort of fairness/unfairness of the world. I loved it.
Vernon's prototypical protagonist type is a person who meets a horrible situation and responds with: "well, there's a thing that needs doing and I don't want to do it, but nobody else is going to, so I guess I'm going to figure it out." And this protagonist type is extremely soothing to me. I will read these characters of Vernon's endlessly.
I will say that I don't think that the merging of the two timelines of the story is done as smoothly as I'd like. The book opens in medias res in a dramatic episode, and then we go back in time to where the story starts, jumping back and forth between the two timelines until the backstory catches up with where the story began. The jumping back and forth part worked fine, and the linear narrative afterward worked fine, but the joining between the two was honestly pretty confusingly handled to me and I had to work at it to follow what had just happened with the timeline!
But that is absolutely my only complaint about the book and everything else is just SO great. It's the story of a princess named Marra who's pleased to be relegated to live in a nunnery because she's just not good at the whole politics thing and finds fibre arts much more interesting, but when the knowledge of something truly horrible occurring is thrust upon her, she goes on a quest to get the thing dealt with. On the way she collects various allies and travelling partners, every single one of whom I adore as well.
But my very favourite of the questing party is Agnes, who is committed to being the kind of person she wants to be, fate and disposition bedamned. And I love the ending she gets in the book. (actually I love everyone's endings!)
The romance is very nicely done too. Often I find that Vernon has a bit of a heavy hand for my taste with the way she portrays attraction between romantic interests, but this one is kept fairly low key, while still leaving me fully believing in their interest in each other and why they would have that interest.
I also love the sister relationship between Kania and Marra, which was extremely bad when they were younger, and never exactly becomes good, but they know each other and learn to trust each other anyway when they need to. A person can be important in your life without the two of you actually being the sort of people who easily get along with each other.
Kania is a very different person than Marra, insightful and political and quick yet patient, and she is managing to balance on the knife-edge of keeping control of the situation in her newly destabilized country at the end of the book, and I was so pleased to see her finally able to act, and making the absolute most of it!
And Marra's other sister, Damia – I was honestly still so sad about her death at the end of the book. It happened so early on to a character we barely saw, but the ongoing ways she was invoked through the book were very affecting.
*happy sigh*
I just love Ursula Vernon's writing!
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I won't lie: I think the reason that I liked this book fine but didn't love it was that I wanted the whole book to be about living in a nunnery and doing fibre arts and forming community there instead of the quest thing. Fantasy could do with a lot fewer quests, imo!
I also love the sister relationship between Kania and Marra, which was extremely bad when they were younger, and never exactly becomes good, but they know each other and learn to trust each other anyway when they need to. A person can be important in your life without the two of you actually being the sort of people who easily get along with each other.
Agreed!
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