Uprooted by Naomi Novik

So I'm actually going to start this review with the description that made me buy the book. I was listening to my favorite podcast, WRITING EXCUSES (It's really good! Brian Sanderson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Howard Tayler and Dan Wells talk about craft once a week!) and every episode they recommend a book.

Brian Sanderson picked Uprooted & here's what he had to say: "It's a dark fairytale retelling of a fairytale I've never heard before. Naomi may have made it up. I intend to ask her. It's Polish. The whole thing is themed very Poland. You never feel like... It never says we're in Poland, but the names, the setting, and everything, you're like, "Wow. I'm in Eastern Europe." It's really cool. It feels very authentic. What they're eating, what they're talking about. It's the story... It starts off with a woman talking about the wizard... Or the Dragon. I'm sorry. Who is actually a wizard. Dragon is his title. She's like, "Our Dragon doesn't eat people, but he does require a sacrifice now and then." Something like that. This young woman ends up being the sacrifice that's sent to his tower. Apparently the reason for that sacrifice is so he'll have someone to clean for him. So I'm sure she started with a story about a dragon eating people as a sacrifice and she turned it into Dragon as a title of a wizard. Every wizard has a ranking, this wizard requires the young woman as a sacrifice but instead she goes there and starts doing all this stuff. He has mysterious reasons for wanting her, but it turns out she starts learning magic from him unexpectedly both to him and to her. She has a very different style of magic than his own. The story is fantastic. It is... It doesn't go where I was expecting it from that opening. I had a blast reading it."

(quote taken from the 10:24 transcript here: http://wetranscripts.livejournal.com/103477.html)

So I went out and bought UPROOTED immediately, of course. Everything about that description is catnip to me. Wizard needs a sacrifice? The sacrifice is forced into drudgery and servitude but turns out to be a wizard herself? It's exactly the kind of shifting power relationship I like.

Also, the wizard is a TYPE I very much like: grumpy and irascible and solitary and fussy, an intellectual with poor social skills and a very scary side.

UPROOTED reminded me very much of a Robin McKinley book, both in the tone (really rich descriptions, maintains a high degree of emotional intensity throughout) and in some of its themes; i.e., a dark fairytale about a young woman who gains confidence and self-knowledge while battling monsters and maybe falling in love.

I don't want to say too much else--the initial premise really only lasts through the first few chapters, things go on from there, and it's nice to be surprised--but I devoured the book in a single sitting.

Recommended!

Flirting with Disaster by Victoria Dahl

I started this book on a layover on my way home from RWA. My flight from New York to DC went really smoothly; then I had about three hours stuck in the world's smallest terminal & the first one I've seen in a LONG time without a coffee shop.

So I was in a pretty bad mood. I wanted to Be Somewhere Else. Within about five minutes of starting FLIRTING WITH DISASTER, I forgot about the layover.

My plane finally boarded. Boarded... and then sat around for about three hours with the pilot popping onto the intercom now and again to explain the delays. This was a flight that actually only took an hour. So three hours on the tarmac really seemed excessive.

I finished FLIRTING WITH DISASTER right after we finally took off. And I tell you this story because it's one thing to say, "I gobbled up this book" or "It was a fun and engaging read" and another to say, "I had a caffeine headache and a half-tank of rage and for about five hours, it all just melted away."

The heroine is Isabelle, a reclusive artist who's assumed a false identity for her own protection. She lives in an out of the way mountain town, she does all of her work remotely, she keeps her head down and tries to stay out of trouble. She's prickly but exuberant, speaks her mind, not shy at all.

A US Marshall, Tom, ends up working a case that involves Isabelle's next door neighbor. He canvases the area as a matter of due diligence, meeting all the scattered inhabitants and warning them about heightened danger.

He knows that Isabelle isn't connected to the case he's working... but she sets his spidey senses to tingling. Plus, he's attracted to her. He struggles against a conflict of interest. She struggles against her attraction to a man who will surely blow her cover, if he learns much about her.

All their struggles are in vain, disaster ensues, but there's a happy ending. There's some angst, here, a few impulsive decisions, but mostly FLIRTING WITH DISASTER is a book about adults who act like adults. Sometimes, for Isabelle, that means letting loose with her friends & getting drunk. Sometimes, for Tom, that means lying to himself about his motivations and putting his job in danger.

But these are people who know who they are and what they want and roll with the punches. Pretty likable characters, and also pretty steamy.

Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness by Alexandra Fuller

Another book that I listened to on audio. I love travel narratives, I love adventurous women, and I really, really love Beryl Markham's WEST WITH THE NIGHT (it's hard to say which is more astonishing: the true-life events or the prose) as well as Isak Dinesen/Karin Blixen's OUT OF AFRICA. (I had a one day layover in Nairobi a while back & I used it to visit the Blixen plantation.)

I thought it could be really great to read a contemporary take on the colonial (actually post-colonial) scenario. Probably not more pleasant--systemic oppression and economic exploitation are much less fun to read about than flying single-engine planes or falling in love with a sexy, aristocratic pilot--but worthwhile.

Alexandra Fuller was not the woman to deliver a clear-eyed contemporary take on... in this case, Rhodesia. She mostly writes about her family, and mostly about her mother. Fuller mocks her mother for aping Markham and Blixen, using their lives as templates for her own and imitating their exploits.

Fuller is right when she insists that this is a doomed and rather pathetic endeavor. That era is over and a modern Markham/Blixen would move on to new adventures, not get stuck in the past.

But as much as she mocks her mother, she has no other subject. She doesn't look past the confines of her own family for inspiration, she takes no wider view. The book is mean-spirited, not wry or arch or any other word that might screen her nastiness.

I ended up really disliking this book. Do not recommend.

PALADIN OF SOULS by Lois McMaster Bujold

I listened to PALADIN OF SOULS on audio and I'm not sure if that affected my perception of Bujold's prose. She's the sort of writer who can say really interesting things without being show-offy about it. Smart, thoughtful, unexpected... but all knit into the fabric of the book without any lumps or snags.

I admire this so much.

But I think the audio format left me more aware of her verbal tics and less able to pause and soak up the brilliance. She wrote "[person] was [verbing]" sentences so often I started to flinch.

Still, the book is marvelous. It's a sequel to THE CURSE OF CHALION and so much of PALADIN's complicated backstory is explained in THE CURSE OF CHALION that I can't recommend reading it as a standalone. Luckily, THE CURSE OF CHALION is also a great read.

The protagonist of PALADIN OF SOULS is Ista, the Dowager Royina of Chalion. Her daughter is Royina (Queen) now & the country is in good hands, but for most of her adult life, Ista was so crippled by trauma, grief, and a close encounter with a goddess (always a mixed blessing on Chalion) that she was assumed to be mad. Even by her own family, who caged and coddled her rather than trying to understand or help.

In PALADIN OF SOULS, Ista has had enough. She wants to escape her minders; they have the best of intentions, but they treat her like a child, and she is sick of it. But for a woman like her, noble and wealthy and well into middle-age, there are few routes to adventure.

She decides to go on pilgrimage. This seems unobjectionable, though her minders certainly try. But she goes over their heads, gets permission, and as soon as she has a route planned she starts testing the limits on her behavior, doing reconnaissance: what can she get away with, how can she assert her independence? She's patient and strategic and soon enough, she's traveling along with an entourage that follows her lead, takes her orders.

Of course things soon go awry. Ista's party is run down by raiders, they are scattered and captured, and things go from there. There are handsome men, long-buried secrets, tortured family dynamics, meddling gods, female friendships, demons and possession, dangerous magic.

And all the while Ista is coming into her own. She is increasingly confident, increasingly formidable, able to shape events to suit her, without ever becoming a different KIND of woman. She's not going to strap on armor and ride out to do battle. She's not that kind of heroine. But she does save the day.

This review turned out to be longer than I'd thought it would be. Oh well. Conclusion: Bujold is worth reading. Start with CURSE OF CHALION. Recommended!

AMERICANAH by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

I absolutely loved Americanah. There's a strong romance thread in this book, but it's NOT a romance so head's up to romance readers: (a) The main couple is separated for a good chunk of the book, and we see the heroine in other relationships, and (b) When the main couple meet up again, the hero is MARRIED.

I know that's a dealbreaker for a lot of readers who find their happy place in romance, but if you're willing to give it a try this book is whip smart and really fun.

Also tackles a lot of sensitive issues from an unusual perspective. The main character, Ifemelu, grows up in Nigeria and moves to the United States to attend college. So she experiences racism in America from an outsider's perspective and a good portion of the book is about describing what she observes.

As AMERICANAH starts, Ifemelu is getting ready to return to Nigeria. She's achieved success as an immigrant, but Nigeria is home. Chapters jump back and forth between Ifemelu's youth in Nigeria; the very different immigrant experience of her one-true-love Obinze in London; and the arc of her years in America.

There's a lightness and informality to the writing even though the subject matter can be pretty grim. The tone makes the book feel fresh, and allows for the inclusion of posts from "Raceteenth," Ifemelu's blog.

AMERICANAH hit a lot of my sweet spots. I, personally, found the romance intense and emotionally satisfying. I liked and rooted for Ifemelu, who's a prickly and occasionally self-destructive heroine (i.e., my very favorite kind). And I liked how the blog posts allowed Adichie to TELL as well as SHOW. The reader doesn't get to decide what all this means, doesn't get to weasel away from ugly truths. Ifemelu articulates her own conclusions, and while the posts are frequently funny, the humor sharpens rather than softens her arguments.

Do recommend.