That Rare Time, a Book Review: Shadow Scale

I am so tired today. Even though this wasn't a terrible headache, it was bad enough* to give me that hit-by-a-truck feeling yesterday, and although today was much better, I was majorly fading by mid-afternoon. And I did go to bed early last night! Lights out before 9. Though I guess in the spring-forward week, that isn't as great as it would otherwise be... Naturally, tonight's Bruins game starts at 7:30, not 7; I think this will be a third-period-in-bed night. At least, I hope it will be worth watching/listening to the whole game; they did decently well this weekend, I hope they can keep that up.
*And it's been long enough since I had one even this bad, which is kind of wonderful

However, fatigue to the contrary notwithstanding, there is something I want to write about tonight, since today is the release day for a really good book, and I want to tell you about it. I didn't blog one night a few weeks back because I'd been reading that night instead; the book was Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman. This is a follow-up to her book Seraphina, which came out a few years ago to much acclaim. I recently saw a "click here to get a free advance copy of Shadow Scale" somewhere, clicked, and promptly forgot all about it, so the package's arrival a few weeks ago was a very pleasant surprise. (So, disclaimer: free book, but all opinions are my honest own, blah blah blah.) I showed it to you mid-February, and read it a few weeks later.

Back in 2012, I only mentioned Seraphina on the blog in passing, as "very good ... really well done," which it is, but that isn't much of a book review, is it?* Now that the sequel is out, I feel the need to go back, because while you could read Shadow Scale without having read Seraphina (I think), it makes so much more sense when you've read the first one. And since Shadow Scale is not only enjoyable and well-written, but has enough mind-bending moments that my brain nearly shut down afterward to process it (that's praise, by the way), I want to tell you to read both.
*For a blog with "read" in the name, I don't actually review many books. I find recommending books rather fraught, since what one likes is such a personal thing. And since it makes me uncomfortable when someone recommends something to me and I don't like it, I tend to extrapolate that to others.

So, Seraphina. It's technically young adult fantasy, specifically dragons, but done in a way unlike any others I've read. The world-building is complex and layered, and the characters are true and real, detailed and flawed and interesting. Music plays a major role, but so do concepts of belonging and relationships and connections. The title character is young, trying to find her own place in the world, with a huge secret to hide, and talents that her father has also tried to get her to hide, but that are coming out in unplanned ways. Her fate gets wrapped up in the crises of the kingdom, and secrets beyond her own are unveiled.

Good book, in other words.

Seraphina stands alone, it isn't one of those annoying books that finishes and leaves you hanging until the next one, but Shadow Scale follows up on something mentioned at the end of Seraphina, without feeling at all manufactured or like the act of an author desperate for ideas. Getting to see other kingdoms and how they differ from Goredd is interesting for the reader as well as for Seraphina, who finds herself comparing her home and seeing ways in which it is better, and worse, than its neighbors. There are a few heartrending moments (as well as one "did she just imply what I think she did?" moment that I was not at all expecting [again, that should be considered praise]), and there are new developments in ideas that I had accepted in Seraphina without questioning, only to look back upon and wonder about. It was a complex and thrilling read, which left me rather startled to find myself back in the real world when I finished reading. I'm a big re-reader, of course, and I'm looking forward to reading it again, to pick up details I may have missed as I was rushing to Find Out What Happened.

Another good book, in other words. So now you know what I think.

PS If you're just feeling "over" dragons, but are open to reading about elves and goblins in a new way, pick up The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison asap. It seems I haven't written about that one either, and it's a wonderful book! The way the author provides information without spelling it out in explicit and boring exposition, it's just amazing. It's another example of excellent world-building, with its own language and speech conventions that are conveyed without confusion (or without much, anyway). The audio is also fabulous on that one: I bought it, and listen to it over and over.