Book Review: Briar's Book by Tamora Pierce

Title: Briar's Book (Circle of Magic Book 4)
Author: Tamora Pierce
Published: New York: Scholastic, 1999
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 260
Total Page Count: 175,365
Text Number: 513
Read Because: continuing the series, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Briar and his mentor Rosethorn are caught at the epicenter of a plague outbreak in the Capital. As with Daja's Book, this is another character-focused story. The dynamic between the four students falls to the background, a dependable foundation; the relationship between Briar and Rosethorn takes precedence, and the fact that these characters are prickly means that their dynamic can be poignant without being saccharine. The plot is obvious, as per series's standard, which strips away tension but doesn't little emotional harm.

Briar's Book isn't really an end, both because there's another quartet and because there's little overarching plot. But it gives this quartet satisfying emotional closure. I would have loved these as a younger reader; I find them a bit simplistic now, in plot and pacing and occasionally characterization (though this last improves significantly in the series's second half), but they remain superbly satisfying, id-fulfilling comfort reads, domestic, intimate, heartfelt. What a treasure.

Book Review: A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar

Title: A Stranger in Olondria
Author: Sofia Samatar
Published: Easthampton: Small Beer Press, 2013 (2012)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 320
Total Page Count: 175,685
Text Number: 514
Read Because: multiple recommendations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Jevick, a pepper-merchant's son with an unusual education, comes to the grand city of Olondria to find his life irrevocably changed by the ghost of a girl. This is a book about books and a fantasy travelogue, given to nested narration; it's dense, with disparate visual imagery and a strong sense of place. I wanted to love these aspects but often found them elusive—largely, I suspect, because so much is visual and I'm not a visual reader, hamstringing Samatar's otherwise powerful prose. Due to the format, there's not much in the way of plot and characters and interpersonal dynamics are slow to form; but when they do, the relationships, intimate and resonant and profoundly flawed, are strong enough to carry what's come before. It's a long warm-up but a beautiful book—especially in retrospect.

Book Review: The Brides of Rollrock Island by Margo Lanagan

Title: The Brides of Rollrock Island (Sea Hearts)
Author: Margo Lanagan
Published: New York: Knopf, 2012 (2009)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 300
Total Page Count: 175,985
Text Number: 515
Read Because: mentioned in Five Books Containing Traces of Witches, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: The women of Rollrock island are strange: the witch Misskaella brings them up from the sea. This is the story not of characters, but of a place, a phenomenon, selkies. They function as an extended metaphor of female roles in society, within limitations but also with sympathetic variety. Those limitations—the universal heterosexuality, competitive female relationships, and the way that men (but not women) are victims of their sexual desire—are damning, particularly from an author that intends to write a diverse, feminist fairytale retelling. But where the book succeeds, it explores the selkie myth and then some: the creation of an archetypal evil witch, turning women's power against a society that harms women; the male desire for female subordination and perfection, their idealization and selfishness; that women remain human, even when not human, even when dehumanized, with a full complement of emotion and ability. Lanagan's voice has a dreamy, disjointed poetry, flowing between these subjects, exploring sea-rough Rollrock. This is a beautiful, melancholy book—but it could have been better.