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shallowness) wrote2024-04-20 04:58 pm
shallowness) wrote2024-04-20 04:58 pm
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Seasparrow - book review
Oops, it's been well over a week since I last posted. A lazy holiday (when I read this) and getting over a touch of something are to blame. It's also been ages since I posted anything like a book review, I think.
'Seasparrow' by Kristin Cashore is the fifth in the Graceling Realm series, set after ‘Winterkeep’, which I reviewed here. It’s much better than the latter, being focused on only one character, Hava, who, in the midst of a survival story, is also slowly trying to recover from a traumatic childhood and the events of ‘Winterkeep’ and find herself and who she wants to be. The latter is complicated because of her Grace – magical ability, essentially – and said childhood, among other things.
The first two parts are set in a more contained world than any of the other books. At the beginning, Hava is part of the royal party on the Monsea, the ship that’s returning Queen Bitterblue, Hava's secret half-sister to the Royal Continent, after her ordeal at Winterkeep. While Bitterblue is suffering from seasickness, Hava has taken to ship life, full of questions. Having been the queen's spy for the last few years, she knows that Bitterblue and Giddon are secret lovers and is narked that they haven’t said as much to her. On the ship too are advisers and guards, and sailors from different countries on the Royal Continent and some from the country they’ve just left, Winterkeep. There’s Linny, who she can’t read, captain Annet, who Hava admires until she learns that she’s been suppressing the fact that they’re further north than intended. Oh, and the telepathic blue fox, Adventure, who was introduced in ‘Winterkeep’. And then Hava she makes a discovery in the ship’s hold, because she’s curious, which changes everything.
But as the weather worsens, the crew must rely upon each other on a desperate, harrowing journey in order to survive. Hava has to follow orders (something she’s not great at), bite back her frustrations and learn that all is not as it seems. Can she trust even after someone does something hurtful? She who has lied, stolen and killed?
As in all the Graceling Realm books, the warped figure of Leck, who ruined so many lives in so many ways is still casting a shadow. We discover further details of what Hava’s life was like before Po found her in ‘Bitterblue’. Cashore had clearly thought all this through, how it damaged Hava in ways she is only starting to understand, ways that influence her relationship with Bitterblue, which is complex and changes over the book. Having figures to protect, to save, links Hava to the mother she has complicated feelings about too. The book is also about ramifications of ‘Winterkeep’, which come together in the third part of ‘Seasparrow’, where the survivors of the harrowing journey have been changed and must now adjust to new challenges.
Cashore is brilliant at using metaphors – Bellamew’s sculptures and figurines of people transforming populate the book, literally and in Hava’s memory, and work with her Grace (which may not be what she thought) as a metaphor for the question of who she is and who she wants to be. Onboard, she acquires the nickname ‘hapva’, the seasparrow of the title, a word from another language that sounds like her name. It transpires that the ship is the first home she knows.
There’s a very slowburn romance. Its beats are around trust and it fits into wider themes of forgiveness, separating justice from revenge, and by doing so, finding a place for yourself. Hava dislikes people noticing her good qualities as well as the bad ones, but then she was mostly unseen for most of her childhood. Hava reminded me a bit of Katsa, especially when she’s in fierce protector mode! Although she’s actually 21, she comes off as younger, always the younger sister to Bitterblue, and figuratively to Giddon.
As well as the strong character work around Hava, our POV character, there are also realistic reactions from others to when Hava lashes out. And the foxes! I loved how differentiated they were, and how the damaged mother-figure and her kits echo Hava and Bitterblue’s damaged mothers and their relationships with their daughters.
I figured out who LV was before it was revealed, and a couple of other smaller plot points. Overall, I was moved and gripped. Although it probably sounds harrowing (it’s less graphic than it would be if it were for adults, but it’s no less intense), being about physical survival and emotional recovery, it’s interspersed with moments of beauty and kindness, of bravery and amusement.
'Seasparrow' by Kristin Cashore is the fifth in the Graceling Realm series, set after ‘Winterkeep’, which I reviewed here. It’s much better than the latter, being focused on only one character, Hava, who, in the midst of a survival story, is also slowly trying to recover from a traumatic childhood and the events of ‘Winterkeep’ and find herself and who she wants to be. The latter is complicated because of her Grace – magical ability, essentially – and said childhood, among other things.
The first two parts are set in a more contained world than any of the other books. At the beginning, Hava is part of the royal party on the Monsea, the ship that’s returning Queen Bitterblue, Hava's secret half-sister to the Royal Continent, after her ordeal at Winterkeep. While Bitterblue is suffering from seasickness, Hava has taken to ship life, full of questions. Having been the queen's spy for the last few years, she knows that Bitterblue and Giddon are secret lovers and is narked that they haven’t said as much to her. On the ship too are advisers and guards, and sailors from different countries on the Royal Continent and some from the country they’ve just left, Winterkeep. There’s Linny, who she can’t read, captain Annet, who Hava admires until she learns that she’s been suppressing the fact that they’re further north than intended. Oh, and the telepathic blue fox, Adventure, who was introduced in ‘Winterkeep’. And then Hava she makes a discovery in the ship’s hold, because she’s curious, which changes everything.
But as the weather worsens, the crew must rely upon each other on a desperate, harrowing journey in order to survive. Hava has to follow orders (something she’s not great at), bite back her frustrations and learn that all is not as it seems. Can she trust even after someone does something hurtful? She who has lied, stolen and killed?
As in all the Graceling Realm books, the warped figure of Leck, who ruined so many lives in so many ways is still casting a shadow. We discover further details of what Hava’s life was like before Po found her in ‘Bitterblue’. Cashore had clearly thought all this through, how it damaged Hava in ways she is only starting to understand, ways that influence her relationship with Bitterblue, which is complex and changes over the book. Having figures to protect, to save, links Hava to the mother she has complicated feelings about too. The book is also about ramifications of ‘Winterkeep’, which come together in the third part of ‘Seasparrow’, where the survivors of the harrowing journey have been changed and must now adjust to new challenges.
Cashore is brilliant at using metaphors – Bellamew’s sculptures and figurines of people transforming populate the book, literally and in Hava’s memory, and work with her Grace (which may not be what she thought) as a metaphor for the question of who she is and who she wants to be. Onboard, she acquires the nickname ‘hapva’, the seasparrow of the title, a word from another language that sounds like her name. It transpires that the ship is the first home she knows.
There’s a very slowburn romance. Its beats are around trust and it fits into wider themes of forgiveness, separating justice from revenge, and by doing so, finding a place for yourself. Hava dislikes people noticing her good qualities as well as the bad ones, but then she was mostly unseen for most of her childhood. Hava reminded me a bit of Katsa, especially when she’s in fierce protector mode! Although she’s actually 21, she comes off as younger, always the younger sister to Bitterblue, and figuratively to Giddon.
As well as the strong character work around Hava, our POV character, there are also realistic reactions from others to when Hava lashes out. And the foxes! I loved how differentiated they were, and how the damaged mother-figure and her kits echo Hava and Bitterblue’s damaged mothers and their relationships with their daughters.
I figured out who LV was before it was revealed, and a couple of other smaller plot points. Overall, I was moved and gripped. Although it probably sounds harrowing (it’s less graphic than it would be if it were for adults, but it’s no less intense), being about physical survival and emotional recovery, it’s interspersed with moments of beauty and kindness, of bravery and amusement.