The Autobiography of a Traitor and a Half-Savage

Oona is a traitor. Born to a westerner woman and an easterner man, she already lived upon the dividing line of two worlds and considered a half-breed child, not enough of either land to be claimed by it. Now she is a mapmaker, and in her native language, a mapmaker means a traitor.

Imagine two worlds, on one side, The East, where the land is claimed and calm. Mountains stay where they are supposed to, rivers do not wind, and bend to patterns of their devising. The West is wild and free. Dangerous and magical. Of course, the people of the East want to claim and conquer the land of the West.

Oona and her brother Ira, son of another lover of her mothers, are trying to make it on their own. Ira is struck down with tuberculosis. Oona must care for him. So Oona becomes a mapmaker. She helps define a path for an Eastern-based company, Great Eastern River Company, that wants to explore and conquer the land. Oona, as a mapmaker, can calm the wildness of the land. The company knows this, so they yoke her to their cause by the love she has for her brother. How will Oona survive the two worlds that are slowly tearing her apart?

Harrow writes with beauty and a keen understanding of the power of words and language. Her narrative is melodic and almost lyrical. She writes as if she is describing the warring of the lands and the wildness of the WestWest in poetry. It is magical. I love that she took the idea of Western expansion and manifest destiny and turned it on its ear.

You can try and manifest your destiny, but what if the land fights back and does not want to be tamed?