The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy #1) by Katherine Arden

 

Do you ever read a book and wonder what the fuss is? I felt this way when I read Circe, a book beloved by so many people, but that just left me cold? And I found myself wondering a lot about why The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden is as beloved as it is. This trilogy is listed as #11 on a list of /r/fantasy's Top Female Authors from last year.  Now you know how I choose what fantasy books to read. I'm just working my way down that list, slowly but surely. I'm excited for the updated list to come out soon.

Anyway.

This book. A young girl is raised in the Russian forest, torn between the new gods and the old. She sees the household spirits, but her new stepmother forbids their worship and soon the crops begin to fail and misfortune plagues the village. This is the tale of Vasilisa and Frost, the winter god.

I had a brief, but intense flirtation with retold fairy tales, mostly in the form of Gregory Maguire novels. Son of a Witch and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister were all I talked about for a brief period of time in my life. But this one? Eh, I just didn't care much. 

Here's the thing. Vasilisa is just not a good character. She's too perfect for me. She never makes mistakes. She knows how to work with the household spirits. She talks to horses. She gets in trouble at home, but accepts her whippings stoically without defending herself. She never does anything wrong and, at the end of the day, that's just not a believable person to me. And since she's not believable, I end up just not caring about her. Since I don't care about her, I just ended up not really getting into the spirit of this book.

I would not recommend this book, but Goodreads and Reddit readers disagree with me, so do with that information what you will.