If you’re into a fairy retelling and you’re familiar with the story of Rumpelstiltskin then you might want to read Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. After reading a few not so good reviews about this book, I thought that maybe Uprooted was the author’s best book to read. But Uprooted and Spinning Silver ended up as both good for me.
Since both books are based on fairy tales then I could no longer argue that the romantic parts are not really the focus of the two books. Both are stand-alone by the way. You can read either or both in any order. Just a random thought though, if Uprooted offers warm forest vibes, Spinning Silver offers the cold forest setting.
It cannot be help that the two books are being compared. But, like I’ve said, I love both books and I love the fact that Spinning Silver offers new point of views. It made the story more interesting by making “everything falls into place” as you read towards the end. I think some readers might prefer to limit the point of view in this book because they seem unnecessary. But it’s something that makes sense to me because it’s the author’s way to hide certain things that I guess she intends to reveal on certain chapters.
Spinning Silver started with the story of Miryem. Her father is a moneylender but who is somehow not intimidating enough to get back the money that he lend to other people. When they started living poorly and Miryem’s mother became sick, Miryem grab the book where her father records all the loans he had made and went on every household to get the money that is rightfully theirs. She was still young then but she learned through observation that they’ll starve and die if she didn’t do anything.
Miryem learned how to be cold in order to survive. And though her parents were concerned about it there was nothing they can do to make Miryem stop what she had started doing. The next characters that are presented are also interesting in their own way. There is Wanda, the daughter of their neighbor who also owed a debt from Miryem’s father. Wanda became Miryem’s helper in order to pay their debt, her siblings will also be introduced in the next few chapters. Then, there’s the unloved princess named Irina who eventually became tsarina because she was married to the tsar whom she despised because of how she met him when they were younger.
The highlight of the plot is still Miryem and how she manage to change silver coins into gold. It was because of her talent that Miryem was visited by the Staryk king, or simply described as an ice fairy. He brought her six silver coins at first. And Miryem must return it to him as gold. After three attempts, the Staryk king promised to wed Miryem and declare her as his queen. It was something that was settled even though Miryem did not ask for that price.
Eventually, all of the characters had debts to pay or scores to settle. Which is for me, a great hook of the story. It shows what type of person they are. That they won’t simply get something without giving something in return. And they all learn somehow that sometimes what they have asked was too high as a price from something they had hope would be remove from their hands.
While reading I also had a joke in my head that if someone asked what this book is all about, I’d say it’s about how to kill your husband days after your wedding. Seriously, the women here are savages but badass. And that is hard to do. Not everyone can write a main character with angst and make it seemed valid.
Overall, Spinning Silver made me hope for the better, prepare for the worst and ends up being surprise with the twist and turns it had stored for me. I am rating this with 5 stars not because it was so perfect that there’s nothing bad I could say to it. The language is a bit vague sometimes for me but not to the point that I felt like I am reading a very old English texts. It simply lacks discussions somewhere between the dialogues of the main characters. Magic are also not explained here. But then, I never expected a fairy tale to make perfect sense. I can only hope for it to have the perfect ending which Naomi Novik did in her writing.
Quoted from the Book:
A robber who steals a knife and cuts himself cannot cry out against the woman who kept it sharp.
So the fairy silver brought you a monster of fire for a husband, and me a monster of ice. We should put them in a room together and let them make us both widows.
“My mother had enough magic to give me three blessings before she died,” I said, and he instinctively bent in to hear it. “The first was wit; the second beauty, and the third—that fools should recognize neither.”
I am not your subject or your servant, and if you want a cowering mouse for a wife, go find someone else who can turn silver to gold for you.
The Thought Balloons 