General information

Several good women face several bad men. The women struggle, fight, develop and grow, each through their own story that involves either their talents, or their marriages, or their families. The story is set on a magical land so some of the characters are magical too.

Fun fact #1

I bought the book in summer and planned to read it in winter somewhere in the northern mountains so that I would have snow and a fireplace. The Universe heard my wishes so it brought the snow to my doorstep and a blackout for a day. I improvised “a fireplace” from a few candles and started reading the book.

Fun fact #2

So how was the book?

I was repeatedly warned that Spinning Silver is not as good as Uprooted, an earlier novel by the same author. Taking into account my bad reaction to Uprooted, I wasn’t expecting much. I braced myself for something even worse and probably that’s why I actually liked Spinning Silver more. Although, there are more reasons.

What are the reasons?

No magic spells!

That felt SO good to just be watching the magic without having to go through all the mumble-jumble! There’s still a lot of magic, and the magic is still too often the answer to a problem, but it feels more natural in this book.

Character development

All female characters started as feeble and insecure and grew into something more. Even though I find it horribly predictable, I think it was executed quite well.

The writing

The writing is decent and pleasant. I think it’s better than in Uprooted because it reflects the drama of dynamic moments (unlike the writing in Uprooted).

Some storylines

Some of them are quite interesting.

What I disliked about the book

The attempt to sell the same product twice

Spinning Silver is a spiritual twin of Uprooted. But now, we get a new deal! Get one villain and a good girl, and receive two more of each for free!

Also the voice of Miryem from Spinning Silver is so similar to the voice of Agnieszka from Uprooted that Spinning Silver could be easily sold as a sequel.

All women are good, most men are bad

I’m SO tired of this concept! I understand it’s unfair to blame only Novik for it because it’s a prevailing tendency in all female-authored literature. But it has become too predictable, overused and over-marketed. I understand where it’s coming from, but stories should be more diverse than that, because people are.

The Russian words

I found the whole idea of using Russian words to make the setting feel exotic quite silly, not only because the words don’t sound exotic to me. They were often applied wrongly, so there were dumb combinations like “Staryk children” which, if translated, would be something like “old babies”.

Chapters

Chapters don’t have titles, but each one is written in first person, so it takes a couple of paragraphs to understand what’s going on and whose eyes we’re looking from now. There are quite a lot of characters, so it gets pretty confusing and exhausting.

The plot

The plot got drunk.

For the biggest part of the book the story develops logically. There’s a start, a climax, and then you expect the finale, but it doesn’t happen. Instead the story explodes and goes all possible directions. It’s not a twist, it’s a furball in the wind! Characters start being irrational, hysterical and there are a lot of unnecessary drama-queen monologues going on.

The ending

The ending doesn’t match the overall idea that seems to be promoted in the book.

Final thoughts

I can’t recommend this book because I didn’t enjoy it that much myself, even though it is not a bad book. I’m not sure that the chaos that happens with the plot can be forgiven even by a fantasy lover. I’m definitely not reading any more of Novik’s stories. She’s just not the right author for me.

About the book

There’s no book. Woman Last Seen in Her Thirties is a sort of container which keeps Maggie in. She’s like a jinn in an oil lamp. You touch the container, you let Maggie out, and she starts complaining about her life.

I’ve never felt like a therapist to a fictional character before, but Maggie made this experience possible. She entered my reading life, made herself comfortable and for the next several hours relayed each and every thought and trouble of her first year as a divorcee.

About Maggie

Her husband is divorcing her. She’s devastated. For years her life orbited around her family only, but now her husband is swooshed away by a midlife crisis, and her adult kids have their own lives. She’s lost, confused and grieving. She doesn’t feel noticed or needed. The last time she did feel noticed was when she was thirty (hence the title).

Maggie is mainly fixating on

• why her husband left her. Was it her body? Was it his work? Was it the way she kissed? Was it the was she didn’t kiss?
• what others think about her. Do they notice her? Who noticed her? Why did they notice her?
• what she did to others. How could she? Could she? Was it ok then? Is it ok now?

Maggie is full of doubts, whether she’s in Rome, or in a new house, or at work. Her mind is full of “maybes”. Here’s what it looks like:

…maybe he, like I, was bereft over our children leaving home.

Maybe he really had changed… Maybe we both had.

Maybe it was not the autumn of my romantic life. Maybe there was some spring left in me after all.

But maybe, I thought – just maybe – …

So you did, Maggie. There are 112 “maybes” (on 254 pages).  And I haven’t even calculated all instances of “probably” and “perhaps”. Maggie is full of uncertainties and she knows it.

I know I’m overanalyzing it, but that’s kind of what I do.

The only breathers happen when Maggie is having conversations with somebody other than herself. But even then, for god knows what reason, Maggie interrupts the dialogues in order to inform us what a cup looks like, or how many dandelions she has picked already.

Anything about the book?

No, there’s NO book! There’s no plot! It’s a year in a woman’s life during which she takes a trip, talks to her kids, meets friends, makes some changes. Sometimes she goes shopping, sometimes she tries new make-up. She changes her hair colour (oh no, is this a spoiler?  ) She cuts tomatoes. In fact, when I was 94 percent into the book and Maggie was still just cutting tomatoes, I braced myself for the book to end on her picking up a cucumber to cut next. Thankfully, it ended on a nice closure of one major question. I’m glad that was the moment I last saw Maggie, and that I didn’t have to say goodbye to her when she was just making a salad.

Final thoughts about Maggie

Maggie is the only reason I’m giving this text two stars. I like her, even though she often sounds like a friend who gets drunk and then goes on and on about her ex. Maggie is still fun. She can joke. She would make a good book reviewer!

Jean [Maggie’s friend] has shelves full of apocalyptic-type novels. Some of them are strangely good, though the main takeaway is that if you manage to survive the beginning of the end of time, your reward is prolonged misery, and maybe the occasional roll in the hay with some survivor who’s even more screwed up than you are.

Would I recommend meeting Maggie?

If you are looking for an imaginary friend, but the one who wouldn’t really be there for you and instead would need you to be there for her, then you will love meeting Maggie.