primeideal

This is my first time reading a Novik book, and coincidentally, someone else on Reddit recently posted their thoughts about not really enjoying the main characters' relationship. Which led me to some negative reviews. And, like...some of them are valid, and some of them are really not.

This book is a combination of different genres. It starts in a kind of fairy-tale style "girl is semi-kidnapped by the powerful and cruel wizard who everyone in the valley grudgingly tolerates because he protects them from the even more evil forest." Then--surprise, it turns out she has magical powers too! So there's a "learning magic from a curmudgeon" aspect. (Think of the way Snape tosses around fancy words for comedic effect but also to berate people like Neville.) There's creepy depictions of body horror in the "fighting against the horrific evil that lives in the woods" part. Our narrator, Agnieszka, goes to the royal court, and there's "innocent rural girl can't understand that everyone's making fun of her behind her back" dynamics (like Galinda and Elphaba in "Wicked," the musical version at least). And then there's also brutal warfare, some of it internal and some of it off-screen--the spellings are changed, but this is definitely late-1500s / early-1600s Polnya (Poland) and Rosya (Russia).

In the beginning, Agnieszka explains that everyone expected her friend Kasia to be carried off by the "Dragon" (the wizard's nickname) in the once-a-decade selection process--the Dragon always chooses girls who are especially smart, or brave, or pretty, and Kasia is just the best at everything. But, to everyone's surprise, when Agnieszka reacts to his ball of magical fire, he chooses her instead! Not until later does Agnieszka (and the reader) learn that she has latent magical powers, and he's required to teach any potential magician he can; he doesn't go about this in the nicest or most transparent way, but he does. This is not a case of "the protagonist is a Mary Sue;" this is the case of "turns out the narrator of a story about magic actually happens to be magical herself." There's some heavy selection bias in terms of "who would be telling this story," in much the same way that the kids at Hogwarts are not really representative of the UK at large, because they're all magical!

There is a character who has Mary Sue archetype energy, and...it's Kasia, who is explicitly lampshaded as being the smartest and the bravest and the prettiest, and then has to deal with the aftermath of not being the chosen one, after everyone around her, for better or for worse, has been expecting that for her for basically her entire life. This is an interesting and (to me) relatively original take on the trope! Kasia and Agnieszka's relationship, especially after the choosing, is a big part of the plot.

Another thing that this book is not is "hard fantasy" in the Sandersonian sense. And again, that's totally fine! Sanderson's law says that "the ability for your character to solve problems with magic is proportional to how well the reader understands the magic." He gives the example of "Lord of the Rings is told from the hobbits' POV, and magic is this weird, strange, not very understood thing." If the Dragon, who likes memorizing enchantments and precise language, were narrating this story, it would be a lot "harder." Agnieszka's understanding of magic is more intuitive; she describes it as like picking her way through a forest and making a path as she goes. So a lot of the visualizations of her doing magic are metaphorical, like building a sand castle or singing a song in harmony with the Dragon.

This is also not "romance as a genre." Some of the posts I've seen recently have been defending books like Novik's against criticism from readers who are like "eh, it's too romantic for me, I don't like romance," but wouldn't necessarily say the same things about (eg) Sanderson, even when his books contain romantic subplots. So the pushback is saying "you're allowed to dislike it, but don't dismiss it as 'girlie' or 'less-than'; it's not primarily a romance, it isn't required to fulfill the tropes that romance fans would recognize as defining their genre, etc."

Unfortunately (for me), a large aspect of the plot is indeed the relationship between Agnieszka and the Dragon, and it's...not very compelling, IMO. He's a century-old wizard who enjoys being cutting and sardonic all the time; she's a homesick eighteen-year-old who's always making messes. It's not impossible, it's just difficult, and the buildup feels forced.

Here's page 39, as a sign of how far they have to go for her to not completely hate him: "I went into my room and shut the door and tore off my silken finery, put back on my homespun, and sank down on the bed, hugging myself with relief like a child who’d escaped a whipping." When he's testing to see if she's "clean" or "corrupted" by the Wood, there's some awkward and uncomfortable nudity. But then it's like, they touch and their magic is so powerful together they can't help kissing! It's awkward so they try to ignore it! And then there's the "I can't sleep because we could all die tomorrow, let's have sex!" moment. "I shuddered all over, hugely, and I closed my thighs tight around his hand, instinctive." Hugely! Blech.

Contrast this to the Agnieszka/Kasia subtext; "I crept away into a corner with Kasia and drank too many cups of beer, washing misery and smoke and the taste of the purging-elixir out of my mouth, until finally we leaned against each other and wept softly; I had to hold on to her, because she didn’t dare grip me tight." "“Nieshka, if you think I can help you,” she said softly, but I shook my head. I kissed her; she put her arms around me carefully and tightened her embrace little by little, until she was hugging me. I closed my eyes and held her close, and for a moment we were children again, girls again, under a distant shadow but happy anyway." Kasia keeps vigil over her bed when she passes out from exhaustion! And that's not even getting into all the emotional drama of "Kasia was supposed to be picked, the Dragon took Agnieszka instead, they're both bitter about it;" when Kasia is threatened by the Wood and Agnieszka takes crazy risks to rescue here, there's a lot of "establishing a psychic link and having to share each other's painful emotions to pull through." I know Novik has a fandom background, so like, I'm sure some of this is purposeful.

I have not read "Scholomance," but I know there are some aspects about magic as economics/utilitarianism, and you can see some of that here; the experienced wizards are all "think of the greater good and how much it will cost to replace those potions," while Agnieszka wants to plunge into action--she doesn't even value a prolonged lifespan if it means outliving everyone she cares about.

There are a couple scenes where Agnieszka is thinking something in the narrative, then the Dragon replies to it by speaking aloud--are we just supposed to assume he's mind-reading all the time? It's possible with magic, sure, but I would expect that to get touched on directly at some point.

There are times when the pace is slow, and in general (especially early on), Agnieszka is mostly reactive; "things continued for several days until a messenger arrived from outside with news." Overall, I wasn't a big fan of the Agnieszka/Dragon relationship, but that's not because it's impossibly #problematic or Mary Sueish or the magic system is bad; it's just not going to be to everyone's tastes.

Bingo: picked it up for Druids (nature magic), was also a book club/readalong pick in the past.