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The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden | Book Review



“The Girl in the Tower” is the second novel in Kathrine Arden’s Winternight trilogy. Ms. Arden was able to continue to create a magical world where magic is weaved delicately to every nook and cranny.

In book two, Vasya sets off to become her own person — an adventurer if you will. However, her dream of exploring the wide land of Russ comes to a halt when she decides to play hero by rescuing some recently kidnapped girls — while dressed as a boy — and gets tangled up with a much darker magic brewing.

Just like in “The Bear and the Nightingale” Ms. Arden starts her prose with a story within a story, a retelling of a fairytale with a story of a Russian fairytale, probably hinting the general basis of the story. Vasya’s older siblings Olga and Sasha, who we met briefly in the previously novel, take center stage in this story and become essential to understanding Vasya’s story arc.

In this novel is a love story, but not your traditional girl meets boy and fall in love story. The love is instead between siblings and explores how far these siblings go for each other.

Ms. Arden displays beautifully the strange bond siblings have — even when several years have passed since the last face to face contact. The bond Olga, Sasha, and Vasya have is realistic and natural. When Vasya decides to pretend to be a boy in a time where women were seen as third-class citizens, Olga and Sasha take the responsibility of keeping Vasya’s secret (begrudgingly) knowing that such a thing could not only hurt Vasya, but their own reputations as a wife of a prince and a high priest. The love, the pain, the betrayal and the forgiveness were all pure and real, reminding me of my own relationship with my sibling. Their pain and happiness became my own.

Much like her previous novel, “The Girl in the Tower” has a unique prose that is like no other. The attention to detail visually and emotionally allows the words to flow elegantly like poetry. 

Ms. Arden’s newest book could be considered a work of magic and adventure, but much like her previous novel, it is a elegant work of art that will grip you and introduce you to a world you never knew you wanted to be a part of.


Personal Rating: 5/5
The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden
Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
Page Count: 362
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 978-1-101-88596-3
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The Bear and The Nightingale by Katherine Arden | Book Review



“We who live forever can know no courage, nor do we love enough to give our lives.”


At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa’s stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

—

“Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.”


This book is magical. Fall into the lands of Russ and experience the stories told between its inhabitants. The Bear and the Nightingale is a Russian folklore re-telling, but to me is was just a whole new adventure I never thought I would embark on.

In this story we follow the story of Vasya, a spirited young girl who lives in a village where they honor the spirits with offerings for protections. Vasya is special because she can see and speak to these spirits. Unfortunately, these spirits begin to suffer along with the villagers when a priests comes to spread the new religion of the new God. A new evil is rising, ready to consume everything in its path…and only Vasya can save them all..

I personally don’t know a single russian folklore, so this retelling filled me with curiosity and want for more. Especially with Katherine Arden’s story telling style. She doesn’t just tell you a story but she poetically paints you a picture.

If that isn’t beautiful then I don’t know what is. Her gorgeous writing weaves the plot and the world building together so flawlessly that you do not realize the difference between plot and world building. The subtleness Arden creates in her writing is award worthy. Although there are moments that it feels like the story is dragging on because it may be confused with her world building.

“In the space between one breath and the next, the wind told him a tale: of life and death together, of a child born with the failing year. After and fainter, like an echo, the stranger heard a roar and crash, as of wave on rock. For the barest instant in the reeking hall, he smelled sun and salt and wet stone.”

I want to gush about all the amazing parts of this book, but I do not want to spoil the experience of reading this book…to anyone.

It is fresh. It is new. It is magical.


My Rating: 5/5
GR Rating: 4.18/5
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“You will walk a long road,” said Morozko. “If you have not the courage to meet it, better—far better—for you to die quiet in the snow. Perhaps I meant you a kindness.”
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