loppear reviewed Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher
Cozy fantasy quest
4 stars
Women-led, funny and enjoyable, a familiar-feeling quest to right wrongs and make friends and save the day.
eBook, 262 pages
English language
Published by Tor Books.
After years of seeing her sisters suffer at the hands of an abusive prince, Marra—the shy, convent-raised, third-born daughter—has finally realized that no one is coming to their rescue. No one, except for Marra herself.
Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.
On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.
Women-led, funny and enjoyable, a familiar-feeling quest to right wrongs and make friends and save the day.
It's not my favorite T. Kingfisher book, but it one that I'm very fond of. And I love the curse child - that one I use in my TTRPG games.
It's a fantastic depiction (as far as a man can tell) of the hardships women face. It's not a new topic, but it's so well done here that it still feels fresh and makes the whole book. We see a lot of woman characters, and each of them is a whole story. They end up very different (and all extremely likable) as they handle their challenges differently.
Or maybe I'm wrong about this? We don't learn anything about the past of the dust-wife or Agnes. We only see Marra's mother and Kania from a distance. I still feel like I know their story. This is the magic of brilliant characterization.
The writing is beautifully crafted. The dialogs are all amazing. Every line feels completely unpredictable and yet spot-on for the character. The pacing is great. Every little bit of detail is used in some way to say something interesting. For …
It's a fantastic depiction (as far as a man can tell) of the hardships women face. It's not a new topic, but it's so well done here that it still feels fresh and makes the whole book. We see a lot of woman characters, and each of them is a whole story. They end up very different (and all extremely likable) as they handle their challenges differently.
Or maybe I'm wrong about this? We don't learn anything about the past of the dust-wife or Agnes. We only see Marra's mother and Kania from a distance. I still feel like I know their story. This is the magic of brilliant characterization.
The writing is beautifully crafted. The dialogs are all amazing. Every line feels completely unpredictable and yet spot-on for the character. The pacing is great. Every little bit of detail is used in some way to say something interesting. For example, Marra's faith has little bearing on the story, but we learn this:
"We're a mystery religion," said the abbess, when she'd had a bit more wine than usual, "for people who have too much work to do to bother with mysteries. So we simply get along as best we can. Occasionally someone has a vision, but [Our Lady of Grackles] doesn't seem to want anything much, and so we try to return the favor."
"It's all right," he said. "I've done many things that were terribly important, lives hanging in the balance and so on and so forth. There is something pleasant about chopping wood. If I miss a stroke, nothing awful happens. If a piece of wood is not quite right, it will still burn. If I stack it and it isn't perfect, clans will not fall."
I hope you like dancing teeth though
Ce roman vient de gagner une place dans mon panthéon personnel dès la première lecture. Il est noir, mais aussi plein d'espoir, le personnage principal est fouillé, complexe et crédible, l'intrigue est parfaite.
The narrators in the audiobook just made the book. The dry, perma-unimpressed Dust Wife added a lot to the book
Content warning vague spoilers
Reasonably entertaining, though felt a bit too YA for my liking. The romance felt particularly unnecessary.
That's it, that's the whole review.
If you like T. Kingfisher, you will like this book. It starts off a bit grim, but by the end it felt like a cozy tale of cold blooded vengeance.
I really enjoyed this fantasy slash fairy tale quest story about a youngest daughter working to try to free her elder sister from abuse. It has fresh worldbuilding, many characters with depth, multiple older women characters, and ultimately a story about working together to free people from powerful and abusive men.
I think the weakest part of the book was the romance angle for me. It was cute, but I felt like I was missing some extra characterization about "why these two" other than just romance-through-proximity. This was all a bit of a surprise for me, as I quite enjoyed the various T. Kingfisher sad paladin romances. (One could make a good argument that Fenris may as well also be yet another sad paladin, which doesn't help here either.)
That said, I feel like the romance was an exceptionally small part of the book (arguably much smaller than other books …
I really enjoyed this fantasy slash fairy tale quest story about a youngest daughter working to try to free her elder sister from abuse. It has fresh worldbuilding, many characters with depth, multiple older women characters, and ultimately a story about working together to free people from powerful and abusive men.
I think the weakest part of the book was the romance angle for me. It was cute, but I felt like I was missing some extra characterization about "why these two" other than just romance-through-proximity. This was all a bit of a surprise for me, as I quite enjoyed the various T. Kingfisher sad paladin romances. (One could make a good argument that Fenris may as well also be yet another sad paladin, which doesn't help here either.)
That said, I feel like the romance was an exceptionally small part of the book (arguably much smaller than other books in the same genre of story) and so don't let that put you off. I just feel like the story would have been more powerful had there not been as much understated flirting there and they had just been buddies working together to right wrongs (or even some explicit aro or ace angle, which is how I had been reading Marra the rest of the book).
I wouldn't describe this as a comedy book, but there were so many funny moments to the book that I had to hold myself back from posting a dozen quotes. I laughed so hard at the dust-wife's exasperation leading into her third impossible task (and it was such good characterization too). Overall, this was a lot of fun but I also found it to have quite a bit more depth than I was expecting.
At this point I know what I'm getting into every time I open up a T. Kingfisher book, whether it's horror, fantasy or romance - and most of her books have all three, mixed at different distillations. The writing will be breezy, the plot will both be interesting and turn in directions that you wouldn't expect, the characterizations will be unique and not standard cardboard cutouts (well, her male love interests tend to be big noble depressed guys, but they're all well written). "Nettle & Bone" hits all of these - a fun read that conceals depth and absolutely wrenching moments. My only complaint is that I wish it didn't move so fast - that there was a bit more room to breathe. But across the board I'm always so excited to read new stuff from her. Every book so far has been great, and I feel like she's closing …
At this point I know what I'm getting into every time I open up a T. Kingfisher book, whether it's horror, fantasy or romance - and most of her books have all three, mixed at different distillations. The writing will be breezy, the plot will both be interesting and turn in directions that you wouldn't expect, the characterizations will be unique and not standard cardboard cutouts (well, her male love interests tend to be big noble depressed guys, but they're all well written). "Nettle & Bone" hits all of these - a fun read that conceals depth and absolutely wrenching moments. My only complaint is that I wish it didn't move so fast - that there was a bit more room to breathe. But across the board I'm always so excited to read new stuff from her. Every book so far has been great, and I feel like she's closing in on masterpieces.
Wieder ein hervorragendes Begleit-Tier, nämlich ein Hund, der im ersten Kapitel aus Draht, abgenagten Knochen und Magie zusammengebaut wird. Der Rest war auch gut, winzige Schwächen im letzten Drittel (mein pet peeve Handlungs-Nacherzählung, aber hier wirklich auf wenige Absätze beschränkt), angenehm unglamouröse Heldinnen (zwei sind alt und die dritte ist meistens ratlos) und viel unterhaltsame Nebenhandlung.
I had no idea what to expect when I started this one, and I enjoyed the mystery. Nettle & Bone is a very well-done fairtytale-style fantasy with some gritty, creepy aspects. Compared to many weighty fantasy tomes, this is rather short, and rather than explaining its fantasy world in detail, it leaves a lot of mystery, focuses on character interaction and driving the plot - I really liked that approach.
In short, highly recommended! I'm keen on reading more by T. Kingfisher.
3.5 stars