“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me. Please. Please let me help you.”

The Bear and the Nightingale.

Basically, what happens if you take a Russian fairy tale and expand it to the full length of a novel while still managing to keep both the whimsical magical aspects… and all the dark bits as well.

We go through years, watching as our main character Vasya is born (and her mother dies), up through when she’s a teenager on the cusp of being married off–or sent to a monastery. She never quite fits in and makes for a wonderful point of view into this wordl.

In the meantime, we see Russia ‘growing up’ as well, abandoning the old gods and spirits of the forest in favor of the Church. It’s not the only conflict of the story (or, I’d argue, even the main one), but it does underlie the whole thing.

“Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.”

This was a delightful, haunting sort of story.

Side note: I did not realize this was a trilogy until writing this review! More to read!