DearWilderness's Books

Wednesday 7 December 2016

The Bear and the Nightingale Book Review

Title: The Bear and the Nightingale
Authors: Katherine Arden
Published: 2016
Language: English
Rating: 4 foxes out of 5

This book was generously provided as an ARC by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review '

I think my love for winter came from both being born in midwinter, and from spending my childhood in one of the coldest countries of the world. Very few novels are able to depict both winter’s magic (crackling fires, warm mittens, cinnamon spiced drinks) and its cruelty (hunger, frost-bitten fingers, wild winds). The Bear and the Nightingale was able to portray both, seamlessly.

A blend of Russian fairy-tales, with reminiscence of Uprooted and Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, this book is evocative and haunting. Books like these, that effortlessly captures your hearts and lures you in, only come in a reader’s hands rarely.

In the space between one breath and the next, the wind told him a tale: of life and death together, of a child born with the failing year.

Vasya was born different. She is more wild than tamed, a dangerous thing to be in medieval Russia, when strange females were seen as witches. As cruel forces threaten her village, Vasya must use her courage to defeat the evil that threatens all she knows.

Blood is one thing. The sight is another. But courage—that is rarest of all, Vasilisa Petrovna.

Vasya was quite a character. One who refused to be imprisoned by society’s expectations of women, who refused to be caged, who found beauty in the wilderness of the forest, of winter, and of the cruel Winter-King.

The book also speaks about fear, and how easily we relinquish our freedom when we are afraid. This message gives the book a wonderfully darker tone, that kept me entranced the entire way though.

Each character had depth, from the fearful priest, to the mad stepmother. Even the spirits that roam the land are different, from the household spirits that help with chores (I would like three, please!) to the lake spirits that drown wayward travelers. Written compellingly, I will not soon forget that snowy Russian village near the forest, the Winter Demon, nor Vasya, the bravest of them all.

Let's hope there will be sequel, shall we?