The blurb for this book (“American Gods vs. Baba Yaga in this Russian-inspired contemporary fantasy”) immediately caught my attention. I’m a sucker for Slavic folklore in my fantasy, or at least so I thought. It would be more accurate, I’ve learned, to say that I’m a sucker for Katherine Arden and Naomi Novik. This book was fine and enjoyable, if a little forgettable.
The book opens with the protagonist, Nat, on the way to a meeting on a gross New York winter day. Her Russian-immigrant mother is dying, and has sent Nat to talk to someone who might help. That “someone” is very clearly Baba Yaga, here presented as a moderately sinister figure (I couldn’t help but picture Glenn Close in The Devil Wears Prada). Baba Yaga’s deal: return what your mother/my ingrate daughter stole from me, and I’ll help her.
So Nat is drawn into a world she never suspected existed, following the trail her goddess-of-Spring mother gives her (if her mom’s a goddess, what does that make Nat?) accompanied by a Russian mobster who happens to also be a god of thieves.
The blurb specifically compares this book to American Gods, and that comparison is perhaps a little too apt. I loved American Gods, but that book is 22 years old at this point. If you’re going to write something specifically described as “inspired by American Gods,” I feel it should do something interesting with that general idea. Bring something new to the table. This doesn’t. It felt like something consciously written in the universe Neil Gaiman created; Wednesday and Mr. Nancy could have had cameos and I wouldn’t have batted an eye.
That criticism aside, I enjoyed reading this. I liked Nat as a character, and I’m very interested in how her relationship with her mother develops. That being said, I was leaning towards not reading book 2. Not that I have anything against this series, but more just because it didn’t hook me enough for me to feel like book 2 would ever actually rise to the top of the pile.
The ending changed that, and I’m annoyed about it. There’s no conclusion to this book; the story just stops. It’s one of those deals where this isn’t a “duology” so much as it is “one book published in two volumes.” So be forewarned, dear reader, there’s no satisfying ending to be had here. So I’ll read book 2, and we’ll see what we’ll see.
Comes out May 2.
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