I love the way Katherine Arden writes! I have so many thoughts and emotions and just... I love this book!
I have been wanting to read The Girl in the Tower since I finished The Bear and the Nightingale in 2017. This year, I finally accomplished the goal of reading this second book in a series that I love. I have to say, I loved this book so very much.
This series by Katherine Arden is a Russian folklore retelling set in the fourteenth century in the area we now call Russia. The Girl in the Tower resumes directly where The Bear and the Nightingale finished. We are left in the aftermath of the previous novel with lots of questions still unanswered.
The first section of the book takes the point of view of Vasya’s brother Sasha in Moscow while the second section is Vasya’s point of view which is happening simultaneously. After these first two sections, the rest of the novel continues in the same timeline. This is the first thing that needs to be stated because it really makes a difference.
The book opens with Sasha and the Grand Prince of Moscow, Dimitri, on the hunt for bandits that are terrorizing the villages of Rus. They seem to run into dead end after dead end until Vasya arrives with three girls she rescued from the bandits.
Then we jump back to how Vasya got to this point from the end of The Bear and the Nightingale. We see Vasya’s interactions with Morozoko, the frost demon and god of death. We do not fully understand Morozoko, even at this point, as we are seeing him through Vasya’s eyes and there is so much she does not know.
Now Vasya is with her brother Sasha and their cousin, Dimitri. Vasya is pretending to be a boy since she was riding the countryside by herself and fighting bandits and everything.
When they arrive back in Moscow, we realize that there is a lot more to the story that we aren’t aware of… but Vasya and Sasha don’t know everything either. So we are left with a lot of questions as the plot continues to unfold: Who is the ghost of the girl in her sister Olga’s tower? What does Kasyan really want in Moscow? Is Chelubey who he says he is?
The biggest question, however, is can Vasya save everyone? And then we are also left with wondering who exactly Morozoko is to Vasya.
If you enjoy fantastical stories that are set in medieval times, you will likely love this book as much as I did.
I have been wanting to read The Girl in the Tower since I finished The Bear and the Nightingale in 2017. This year, I finally accomplished the goal of reading this second book in a series that I love. I have to say, I loved this book so very much.
This series by Katherine Arden is a Russian folklore retelling set in the fourteenth century in the area we now call Russia. The Girl in the Tower resumes directly where The Bear and the Nightingale finished. We are left in the aftermath of the previous novel with lots of questions still unanswered.
The first section of the book takes the point of view of Vasya’s brother Sasha in Moscow while the second section is Vasya’s point of view which is happening simultaneously. After these first two sections, the rest of the novel continues in the same timeline. This is the first thing that needs to be stated because it really makes a difference.
The book opens with Sasha and the Grand Prince of Moscow, Dimitri, on the hunt for bandits that are terrorizing the villages of Rus. They seem to run into dead end after dead end until Vasya arrives with three girls she rescued from the bandits.
Then we jump back to how Vasya got to this point from the end of The Bear and the Nightingale. We see Vasya’s interactions with Morozoko, the frost demon and god of death. We do not fully understand Morozoko, even at this point, as we are seeing him through Vasya’s eyes and there is so much she does not know.
Now Vasya is with her brother Sasha and their cousin, Dimitri. Vasya is pretending to be a boy since she was riding the countryside by herself and fighting bandits and everything.
When they arrive back in Moscow, we realize that there is a lot more to the story that we aren’t aware of… but Vasya and Sasha don’t know everything either. So we are left with a lot of questions as the plot continues to unfold: Who is the ghost of the girl in her sister Olga’s tower? What does Kasyan really want in Moscow? Is Chelubey who he says he is?
The biggest question, however, is can Vasya save everyone? And then we are also left with wondering who exactly Morozoko is to Vasya.
If you enjoy fantastical stories that are set in medieval times, you will likely love this book as much as I did.