Title: Spinning Silver
Author: Naomi Novik
Genre: Fantasy
Plot: Maryim’s father and grandfather are moneylenders. But her father’s inability to collect money in return has left them destitute and mother close to death. Maryim takes matters into her own hands and starts collecting money herself. She’s so successful that people claim she can turn silver to gold. That draws the attention of the Staryk king. The Staryk people control ice and snow and all things winter. He steals Maryim away and demands she turn anything he asks into gold. If she doesn’t, he’ll kill her. But when the winter in Maryim’s town won’t end, she must find a way to save her people. Can she do it? Or will the winter never end?
Rating: 3.5 – a intricate retelling of Rumpelstiltskin
Opinion: This was an interesting take on Rumpelsiltskin. It started out well and was interesting. Then it got confusing for me for a fair amount of the book. The ending cleaned it up a fair bit and tied everything with a neat bow. I kept losing the story with all of the changing character points of view. The jumps between the characters made it harder for me to follow the story, too. The book also drops a certain character’s point of view for a long time, then go back to them. It also seems like there’s slightly different time jumps in the story. Sometimes when it changes between characters, it goes back in time slightly then catches up to another character’s timeline. All of this made it hard for me to relate to the characters. It was hard for me to be invested in this story, too. I did really enjoy the idea of this story, but all the characters and changing points of view made it hard to follow. This is a great story for people who don’t mind a bunch of characters and lots of points of view changes.
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