#1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us deeper into the Cosmere universe with a rollicking, riveting tale that will appeal to fans of The Princess Bride.
The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?
Fantasy and YA are not my genres of choice. I so often struggle with understanding world building in unknown fantasy novels and I don't often relate to YA characters.
But, The Boy loves Brandon Sanderson and suggested I read this book. So because he asked, I did.
And it was delightful. I read it in a day.
Tress is a teenage girl living on a rock in the middle of the Emerald Sea. Life is difficult, but she has a good family and a best friend in Charlie, the Duke's son. People are not allowed to leave the island, but the Duke takes Charlie away, hoping to find him a bride. When the Duke returns without Charlie, having given him up to the Sorceress in the Midnight Sea, Tress decides to find him herself.
What follows is a charming and whimsical story about adventure.
It was as much a story about found family and personal growth. Tress goes through some challenges in her quest to find Charlie. She finds herself in the company of pirates who at first would love to kill her, but soon come to appreciate her. She learns and grows and gains confidence as she figures out not only how to find Charlie, but her own path along the way.
“If you ask these heroes why they risked their lives, don't do it on a stand in front of a crowd while you give them their medal. Because the truth is, they likely didn't do it for their country, or even for the ideals. Consistently, across cultures, eras, and ideologies, war heroes report the same simple motivation. They did it for their friends.”
The world building was vivid and descriptive. The richly colored oceans: Emerald, Sapphire, Crimson, Midnight. The oddly charming pirates: among them, Fort, Salay and Ulaam.
Tress was so clever and resourceful. The language was lyrical and Hoid, the narrator, snarky enough to make me laugh out loud at times:
“Men often described the girl as having hair the color of wheat. Others called it the color of caramel, or occasionally the color of honey. The girl wondered why men so often used food to describe women’s features. There was a hunger to such men that was best avoided.”
I borrowed The Boy's copy, but I want to get my own so I can mark it. There was so much wisdom and many passages that were thought-provoking.
One of my favorite passages is about memory:
“I love memories. They are our ballads, our personal foundation myths. But I must acknowledge that memory can be cruel if left unchallenged. Memory is often our only connection to who we used to be. Memories are fossils, the bones left by dead versions of ourselves. More potently, our minds are a hungry audience, craving only the peaks and valleys of experience. The bland erodes, leaving behind the distinctive bits to be remembered again and again. Painful or passionate, surreal or sublime, we cherish those little rocks of peak experience, polishing them with the ever-smoothing touch of recycled proxy living. In so doing— like pagans praying to a sculpted mud figure— we make of our memories the gods which judge our current lives. I love this. Memory may not be the heart of what makes us human, but it’s at least a vital organ. Nevertheless, we must take care not to let the bliss of the present fade when compared to supposedly better days. We’re happy, sure, but were we more happy then? If we let it, memory can make shadows of the now, as nothing can match the buttressed legends of our past… Do not let memory chase you. Take the advice of one who has dissected the beast, then rebuilt it with a more fearsome face— which I then used to charm a few extra coins out of an inebriated audience. Enjoy memories, yes, but don’t be a slave to who you wish you once had been. Those memories aren’t alive. You are.”
Apparently while it can stand alone, there are many easter eggs that tie into other Sanderson novels. I didn't get any of those and didn't need to. The story is amazing on its own.
Read 1/24
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5/5 Stars
Not a genre I follow but thanks for the review
ReplyDeleteIt's not one I would choose to read on my own, but it's fun to read books and talk about them with my son!
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