Spinning Silver
By Naomi Novik
Genre: Fantasy
Recommended For: Ages 16+ and fans of Russian folklore retellings

Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders… but her father isn’t a very good one. Free to lend and reluctant to collect, he has loaned out most of his wife’s dowry and left the family on the edge of poverty–until Miryem steps in. Hardening her heart against her fellow villagers’ pleas, she sets out to collect what is owed–and finds herself more than up to the task. When her grandfather loans her a pouch of silver pennies, she brings it back full of gold.

But having the reputation of being able to change silver to gold can be more trouble than it’s worth–especially when her fate becomes tangled with the cold creatures that haunt the wood, and whose king has learned of her reputation and wants to exploit it for reasons Miryem cannot understand.

The Gist:
Another stunning story by Naomi Novik. Spinning Silver follows the lives of three young women who decide to be more than their circumstances.  Miryen is the daughter of a lazy money lender, Wanda, the daughter of a drunk father who beats her, and Irinia, the daughter of a nobleman trying to marrying her off. Novik shows extreme talent at writing by weaving Russian folklore into a beautiful and inspiring story through lyrical prose and poignant themes. The story has many nuances in character development and creates a truly ingenious twist on common stories. It is a gorgeous fairy tale with slow burn romances and characters that reach out of the page and grab you. Novik’s writing always has so many layers, and Spinning Silver is no different. It’s the kind of book that left me wanting more after it ended.

What I Liked:
There are so many things Naomi Novik excels at, it’s hard to fit them all in one book review. For one, her ability to create a world that is drenched in imagination and rich with emotion in intrigue astounds me. All her setting feel real and so well developed I am pretty sure I could buy a plane ticket to visit them.

Second, the character Novik creates to live in the world of Spinning Silver have so many layers and dimensions. Not only that, we see three distinct personalities in the three main point of view characters, and each one has an incredible character arc where we get to see them grow and learn who they are. It takes a certain kind of grace and ability to effectively connect the lives of three different women in a way the is realistic and interesting, and Novik pulls it off as if it’s natural (which it probably is for her). She creates three different women, with different emotions, opinions, and reactions to things, yet they all seem to find a common thread in possessing an ability to use their intellect and cunning cleverness to be more than their situations. They each show a stunning brilliance in finding a way to escape their trials.

Third, the development in this book is excellent. Both in the plot, with the stakes raising higher throughout, and in the perceptions of the main characters and side characters. The growth in everything is paced well for the most part so we feel like we’re growing with the characters. From the beginning, I was rooting for the three main women, and only grew to love them more as the story went on and I saw them as multi-dimensional characters who were confident yet with a great capacity for compassion.

Fourth, no one does a retelling like Naomi Novik. Seriously. I have never read another fairytale or folklore retelling where the author so brilliantly uses yet disguises common fairy tale tropes and twists the super familiar parts of the story into something new and exciting. I swear my mouth hung open in the entire first half, in awe of how Novik ingeniously re-created the story of Rumpelstilkskin. It was so different, yet I saw the same feel at the story I knew. And it felt so original at the same time.

And a hundred other things I don’t have time to get into and you probably don’t have time to read.

What I Didn’t Like:
Once I started really getting into the thick of it, the point of view would jump frequently between the three women and there were points I had to stop and trying to figure out who was talking. All that did was slightly slow the pace for me because I had to pause to figure out what was going on, but it didn’t ruin the overall story for me.

Parts of the end felt rushed. I won’t say what parts because I don’t want to give away spoilers, but for part of the end I remember thinking “Oh, well that was sudden,” and then two minutes later thinking “Wait, it’s over already?”

But that’s it. I loved this book so much. These barely count as negatives against it.

LunasLuckyRating: 4.5/5 Lunas