Wren
“Are you happy, Sophia?”
I went into this little book knowing almost nothing about it, except that I’ve seen a couple of my favorite authors praise it and that I tend to like Valente’s brand of surreal weirdness. The blurb made me think that this was essentially a mix of Bluebeard’s Bride and The Stepford Wives, and that’s quite true indeed, except there’s a third, even more important source/influence I’ve only guessed an embarrassingly small number of pages before the explicit reveal. There were so many clues, I should have known sooner! 😅 Though in my defense, the story does a really good job toying with the reader and hiding clues in plain sight. You kind of recognize what a detail’s alluding to, but you think it’s just an extra layer, not the whole point of the allegory, and then oops, you’re fooled.
In all honesty, I’m not sure I would have picked this book up if I knew where it led, so it’s a good thing I didn’t. I can’t say I 100% enjoyed the way the core themes are handled here, but it was interesting to study the way the story’s constructed, and the ending absolutely has a fantastic wham factor.
“Are you happy, Sophia?”
I went into this little book knowing almost nothing about it, except that I’ve seen a couple of my favorite authors praise it and that I tend to like Valente’s brand of surreal weirdness. The blurb made me think that this was essentially a mix of Bluebeard’s Bride and The Stepford Wives, and that’s quite true indeed, except there’s a third, even more important source/influence I’ve only guessed an embarrassingly small number of pages before the explicit reveal. There were so many clues, I should have known sooner! 😅 Though in my defense, the story does a really good job toying with the reader and hiding clues in plain sight. You kind of recognize what a detail’s alluding to, but you think it’s just an extra layer, not the whole point of the allegory, and then oops, you’re fooled.
In all honesty, I’m not sure I would have picked this book up if I knew where it led, so it’s a good thing I didn’t. I can’t say I 100% enjoyed the way the core themes are handled here, but it was interesting to study the way the story’s constructed, and the ending absolutely has a fantastic wham factor.