Note: I know the author socially.
This is the second related but not directly connected book of this kind by this author, a story based on fairy or folk tales that goes in a different direction than the original. As may be obvious from the title, the foundational myth for this book is Rumpelstiltskin, but it goes far beyond that.
The story revolves around the choices of three women whose lives become interwoven. Miryem is the daughter of the town moneylender in a village that ranges from suspicious of her Jewish family to outright violent toward them. Wanda is the daughter of a drunk man who can't pay off his debts to Miryem's father and so Wanda (and eventually her two brothers) come to work for and with Miryem. And Irina is the plain daughter of a duke who wants his child to marry as well as she can for his own benefit with no regard to her wishes, and eventually succeeds in marrying her to the tsar. Each of them is framed by their world in the context of the men in their lives, their fathers and brothers and prospective husbands. Each of them rejects this narrow view of them, although it's not possible for them to truly transcend their surroundings.
Miryem first spins silver by being able and willing to collect on the debts that her father could not, solidifying the family's welfare in an incredibly hostile world. When that no longer suffices, she discovers she can spin that silver into gold and satisfy the greater threat to all members of the village, the Staryk monsters who raid for gold.
I don't want to discuss much more of the actual plot, both because I don't want to spoil any of it but also because this book is as much about how it made me feel as it is about what actually happens. I read it in the fall before the weather had actually turned, but the entire story felt like winter, that cold crisp clear silence in the clearing of a forest after a snowfall. The pacing of the story meant that with only fifty and then twenty and then ten pages left I had no idea how everything would be resolved, and it turned out that the answer was with a dagger to my heart in the final two pages. I could have read many pages more of the story, but I didn't need them, because the emotions landed so strongly for me. I want to reread this and her earlier book Uprooted next year, to see how they feel when I know what happens (but may not remember precisely how). I loved this book and I love all three of these women and I have many, many feels about the world created and how fantastical it is while also being deeply, sometimes distressingly real.
Grade: A
This is the second related but not directly connected book of this kind by this author, a story based on fairy or folk tales that goes in a different direction than the original. As may be obvious from the title, the foundational myth for this book is Rumpelstiltskin, but it goes far beyond that.
The story revolves around the choices of three women whose lives become interwoven. Miryem is the daughter of the town moneylender in a village that ranges from suspicious of her Jewish family to outright violent toward them. Wanda is the daughter of a drunk man who can't pay off his debts to Miryem's father and so Wanda (and eventually her two brothers) come to work for and with Miryem. And Irina is the plain daughter of a duke who wants his child to marry as well as she can for his own benefit with no regard to her wishes, and eventually succeeds in marrying her to the tsar. Each of them is framed by their world in the context of the men in their lives, their fathers and brothers and prospective husbands. Each of them rejects this narrow view of them, although it's not possible for them to truly transcend their surroundings.
Miryem first spins silver by being able and willing to collect on the debts that her father could not, solidifying the family's welfare in an incredibly hostile world. When that no longer suffices, she discovers she can spin that silver into gold and satisfy the greater threat to all members of the village, the Staryk monsters who raid for gold.
I don't want to discuss much more of the actual plot, both because I don't want to spoil any of it but also because this book is as much about how it made me feel as it is about what actually happens. I read it in the fall before the weather had actually turned, but the entire story felt like winter, that cold crisp clear silence in the clearing of a forest after a snowfall. The pacing of the story meant that with only fifty and then twenty and then ten pages left I had no idea how everything would be resolved, and it turned out that the answer was with a dagger to my heart in the final two pages. I could have read many pages more of the story, but I didn't need them, because the emotions landed so strongly for me. I want to reread this and her earlier book Uprooted next year, to see how they feel when I know what happens (but may not remember precisely how). I loved this book and I love all three of these women and I have many, many feels about the world created and how fantastical it is while also being deeply, sometimes distressingly real.
Grade: A
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