yet another review

[rushthatspeaks]

This time of Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver. Short version: Yay, someone has written Jewish high fantasy!

Comments

[sonia]

Placed on hold at the library on the strength of your review, thanks! "Holds: 94 on 21 copies" so it will be a delightful surprise when it finally shows up. Looking forward to reading fantasy with Jewish underpinnings.

[nineweaving]

This book is an act of reclamation on a very deep level.

And this:

And her world is focused on women, in a society which is not kind to them, on the ways that women can defend themselves, become themselves, and interact with the various forms of magic. Some of the magic in this book is magic, and some is good bookkeeping, which is also magic, and that’s wonderful, that appreciation of the magic of letters and numbers, the magic of negotiation, the magic of noticing. There’s the magic that makes a hundred years of winter in one summer’s day, and the magic that re-engineers a knitting pattern, and Novik does not prioritize the power or the beauty of one over the other.

Excellent!

Nine

[shewhomust]

*makes note*

[mrissa]

You have hit basically all the reasons I liked this book when I read it yesterday.

I found the romantic plot endings completely unconvincing and frankly reinforcing of some really upsetting social norms, but that couldn't ruin the knitting and planning around Shabbat.

[landofnowhere]

I found the romantic plot endings completely unconvincing and frankly reinforcing of some really upsetting social norms

Similar. The book made me wonder: where are the stories where the protagonist is forced into a marriage with someone who turns out to be not a monster, perfectly nice, but not the right person for her to marry, and they end up separating and going their own ways?

(The Darkangel could maybe kinda sorta be this, only it isn't.)

[ethelmay]

where are the stories where the protagonist is forced into a marriage with someone who turns out to be not a monster, perfectly nice, but not the right person for her to marry

Well, there's Lenina and Clennen the Singer in Diana Wynne Jones's Cart and Cwidder.