Best fairy tale retelling since Shannon Hale's "Goose Girl"
Honestly, this was GOOD. It's been a while since I read a truly excellent YA, and while I was reading it so many things kept surfacing in my mind that I wanted to praise in the review. I did not keep notes, however, and I've certainly forgotten most of them by now. Just know that, for everything I mention here, there were probably two other things that stood out as enjoyable that I'm not mentioning.
Anyway, this is partially a goose girl retelling, and partially something new and/or a different fairy tale that I'm not familiar with. It reminds me of the one where the girl has precious stones drop from her mouth whenever she speaks, but that was a good thing whereas Vanja is cursed.
Regardless, it's got its own very strong character, and the retelling elements show up as familiar echoes and faint references rather than defining the details of the entire story. Which is how I like it.
The beginning was a little slow. Vanja comes off as smug about pulling off her heists, and there are a lot of details and no one in particular to like. After the 20% mark, though, things started to pick up. There's LOTS of stuff to have fun with here.
• RELATIONSHIPS. This is a huge one because there are so many and they all have a particular poignancy. Vanja and Gisele's fraught, soured friendship. Their breach is entirely understandable from every direction, and I wanted them to make amends SO badly.
Vanja's relationships with Death and Fortune. Nice! Nice! Nice!!!! I love this.
Ragne was a great character, just quirky enough to be entertaining but real enough to like and not dismiss as a gimmick.
Even the relationships between enemies had an excellent weight. Adalbrecht was a truly compelling villain, and Gisele's parents were the kind of selfish, ordinary evil that rings as true in real life as it does in a story like this. Both confrontations and victories were VERY satisfying.
There is a romance, and guys. I liked it. It was complex, and tied inextricably into both characters' growth as people. It was gradual enough to not be instalove -- didn't even really appear until about halfway through the book. It was cute. It was difficult, but understandably so. It was present enough to allow you to enter into the emotions, but never seemed to unrealistically overshadow the actual life-and-death threats and adventures facing them at the time. There's really nothing here I can complain about and that is truly the highest praise for a romance in a YA book.
• Character development!!! This is HUGE. A lot of minor characters show some admirable growth, but really this is about Vanja. I have a massive amount of respect for the writing that went into Vanja's character. She's the evil handmaiden in the goose girl story, so.
Vanja is a twisted-up ball of abandonment issues, trauma, bitterness, fear, and desperate survival mechanisms. She's annoying, selfish, smug, and teeters on the edge of self-destructive. Like I said, I didn't like her very much in the beginning and you can see why she gets cursed. At the same time, she becomes so incredibly sympathetic.
As more of her story and inner life is revealed, I came to have so much more interest in her as a person. There is some true authorly finesse here in walking the line between acknowledging Vanja's hurt and trauma, and ALSO acknowledging the hurt and trauma she herself has visited on others. It's done really, really well and I wound up liking and sympathizing with almost everyone involved (except for the obvious villains). There are relationships healed and difficult, hard-won apologies. Vanja is an extremely strong character, but she's also allowed to break down.
Really, the whole thing is an incredible work of balance and nuance. I enjoyed it so much.
• A bunch of other random details, like the humor. Ragne is a big part of it, but Vanja also does a great job at being wry, funny, and genre-self-aware without being glib and tacky about it.
The magic was cool, and the way all the fairy tale elements blended in a non-traditional but still recognizable way.
Classic Ocean's Eleven audience-misdirection moment. This had me truly worried for a second, and I was so relieved when it turned out to be all under control. Also I love how after all this magic and tightly-coordinated switching of roles, Vanja defeats Adelbrecht's final trap in such a low-tech, almost anticlimactic way. It made me laugh.
I know there's a lot of stuff I missed, but all in all? DEEPLY enjoyable read. I would give it 4.5 stars, and the only reason it's not 5 is because of the work it took to get into the first fourth of the book. Honestly, this was a big surprise. At first I wasn't even looking particularly forward to reading "Little Thieves," but it truly knocked my socks off by the end.
Anyway, this is partially a goose girl retelling, and partially something new and/or a different fairy tale that I'm not familiar with. It reminds me of the one where the girl has precious stones drop from her mouth whenever she speaks, but that was a good thing whereas Vanja is cursed.
Regardless, it's got its own very strong character, and the retelling elements show up as familiar echoes and faint references rather than defining the details of the entire story. Which is how I like it.
The beginning was a little slow. Vanja comes off as smug about pulling off her heists, and there are a lot of details and no one in particular to like. After the 20% mark, though, things started to pick up. There's LOTS of stuff to have fun with here.
• RELATIONSHIPS. This is a huge one because there are so many and they all have a particular poignancy. Vanja and Gisele's fraught, soured friendship. Their breach is entirely understandable from every direction, and I wanted them to make amends SO badly.
Vanja's relationships with Death and Fortune. Nice! Nice! Nice!!!! I love this.
Ragne was a great character, just quirky enough to be entertaining but real enough to like and not dismiss as a gimmick.
Even the relationships between enemies had an excellent weight. Adalbrecht was a truly compelling villain, and Gisele's parents were the kind of selfish, ordinary evil that rings as true in real life as it does in a story like this. Both confrontations and victories were VERY satisfying.
There is a romance, and guys. I liked it. It was complex, and tied inextricably into both characters' growth as people. It was gradual enough to not be instalove -- didn't even really appear until about halfway through the book. It was cute. It was difficult, but understandably so. It was present enough to allow you to enter into the emotions, but never seemed to unrealistically overshadow the actual life-and-death threats and adventures facing them at the time. There's really nothing here I can complain about and that is truly the highest praise for a romance in a YA book.
• Character development!!! This is HUGE. A lot of minor characters show some admirable growth, but really this is about Vanja. I have a massive amount of respect for the writing that went into Vanja's character. She's the evil handmaiden in the goose girl story, so.
Vanja is a twisted-up ball of abandonment issues, trauma, bitterness, fear, and desperate survival mechanisms. She's annoying, selfish, smug, and teeters on the edge of self-destructive. Like I said, I didn't like her very much in the beginning and you can see why she gets cursed. At the same time, she becomes so incredibly sympathetic.
As more of her story and inner life is revealed, I came to have so much more interest in her as a person. There is some true authorly finesse here in walking the line between acknowledging Vanja's hurt and trauma, and ALSO acknowledging the hurt and trauma she herself has visited on others. It's done really, really well and I wound up liking and sympathizing with almost everyone involved (except for the obvious villains). There are relationships healed and difficult, hard-won apologies. Vanja is an extremely strong character, but she's also allowed to break down.
Really, the whole thing is an incredible work of balance and nuance. I enjoyed it so much.
• A bunch of other random details, like the humor. Ragne is a big part of it, but Vanja also does a great job at being wry, funny, and genre-self-aware without being glib and tacky about it.
The magic was cool, and the way all the fairy tale elements blended in a non-traditional but still recognizable way.
Classic Ocean's Eleven audience-misdirection moment. This had me truly worried for a second, and I was so relieved when it turned out to be all under control. Also I love how after all this magic and tightly-coordinated switching of roles, Vanja defeats Adelbrecht's final trap in such a low-tech, almost anticlimactic way. It made me laugh.
I know there's a lot of stuff I missed, but all in all? DEEPLY enjoyable read. I would give it 4.5 stars, and the only reason it's not 5 is because of the work it took to get into the first fourth of the book. Honestly, this was a big surprise. At first I wasn't even looking particularly forward to reading "Little Thieves," but it truly knocked my socks off by the end.