Hello its Rhiannon again, back to talk to you about another book that I have been
really enjoying lately. The book I'm going to talk about today is Spinning Silver by
Naomi Novik. It's her new book, it came out about two months ago and it is
incredible. I was lucky enough to be sent a proof copy of this book by Macmillan in
exchange for my honest opinion but then I immediately went and bought the
hardback as soon as I could so I think that just shows you how much
I loved it. If you've never heard of Naomi Novick before
she has a very popular series called Temeraire about dragons but her best book, in
my opinion, is Uprooted which is sort of like a dark fairytale twist and
Spinning Silver is like in the vein of Uprooted and so I had such
high hopes for Spinning Silver and she did not let me down. She is an incredibly
talented writer who just uses the most beautiful language. Like, very simple but
just like devastating. So the book is set in a fantasy world but one that is kind
of similar to our own. It's very heavily inspired by Russian folklore and
mythology. So in this fantasy world there are these people called the Staryk who
live in a kingdom that runs sort of like parallel to the main kingdom, the human
kingdom. And the Staryk land is one of everlasting winter and you know they're
like made of ice and they can create a road that will just like appear in your
village, they'll come through, they'll steal everything from your house and
take your wives and then they'll disappear again. They're sort of like the
fairy tale monsters of the story and there's always a threat that they'll
come to your village unless you provide them with tithes and things like that.
So the novel centers around three women: Miryem who is the daughter of the town
moneylender, Wanda who lives in the same town as Miryem but comes from a very
horrible household and she's employed by Miryem as like a handyman around the
house; and then Irina who is the daughter of a very powerful Duke who gets thrown
into this arranged marriage. So these three stories sort of interweave and
connect. Miryem's story is that she is tasked with turning silver into gold for
the Staryk, sort of like a Rumpelstiltskin type thing but the way
she does it is by trading it, not with magic. And then
Wanda is sort of wrapped up in it because she lives in Miryem's house.
Irina, her storyline deals with her marriage to the future Tsar but there's
something very strange about him. I don't really want to explain anything more
than that because one of the beautiful things about Naomi Novak's novels is
that you just have literally no idea what's gonna happen next and everything
you think is gonna happen happens within the first hundred pages and then you've
still got like 400 pages left of the book.
So it's very nice going into it and just having very little idea about
what's going to happen. What I can talk about is the characters because Naomi Novik
writes characters so beautifully and especially female characters which
obviously is something I adore reading because I love complicated women.
Although Novik switches between these three women's point of view
throughout the book they never sound similar, like she doesn't even signpost
you know some authors do like the character name when it's a new chapter.
She doesn't do that, she switches in between chapters and at first I thought
it was going to be very, like, confusing because you're suddenly just like wait,
where am I? But it's not at all, it's just, she immediately captures the essence of
that character's voice. So, Miryem and Wanda are from the same village so like I
thought there was a risk of that they would sound the same but they definitely
don't. Miryem is very like sharp and intelligent and it just comes across
immediately in the way Novik portrays her. And then Irina, you can tell from the
writer that she's been educated that she is much more delicate but she's a lot
more naive than the other two women and it's really interesting to watch
her like come to grips with her life and with this world that she's been
forced into. And then you have Wanda who was just, I love her so much, I think she
might be my favorite character. She's just so like resolute and headstrong and
she has this gorgeous relationship with her siblings. She has two brothers and
they're just written in a really lovely way, it's not often that you see
brother-sister relationships in my opinion in fantasy written sort of like
this. Either the brothers are like killed off or they're just not very nice
people. But this it's like, they're like a little unit and they just stick together
and it's very, very sweet to read. If you like fantasy or retold fairy tales I
would highly recommend this book. I'd recommend all of Naomi Novik's books but
this one in particular is just, it's so beautifully done. It's so well written,
you can really tell that she's just spent so much time crafting this world
that she allows you to visit. And my only criticism is that I want more! Like, I
want seven books set in this world. I just I want it, I never want to
leave it. That's the trouble with Naomi Novik is she just writes this incredible
one book and you're sort of like no! Give me more please! So that's literally the
only problem I had with it was that I felt like she cut me off when I
wanted to stay. But it's really incredible.
If you like diverse female characters then this is definitely the
book for you and who doesn't like reading about different kinds of women
allowing themselves to make mistakes and have plans that don't go well and then
outsmarting silly men in their lives. It's just, honestly, I'm going to be
talking about this book forever because I love it so much and I hope you do too.
Thank you for watching, I hope you have a lovely day.