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rainwatersparkYes. Another deconstruction. Because misery loves company, and I don't know why everyone is praising this book to the high heavens.
Pre-Story Stuff
I can’t deny that the map in the first few pages is very pretty. Then again, it was drawn by Keith Thompson, better known for his fantastic illustrations for Scott Westerfeld’s excellent Leviathan trilogy. (It took me a while to figure this out, and then I was like, “Aha! No wonder the art style looked so familiar.)
So based on the names of the three featured countries, Ravka is pseudo-Russia, Fjerda looks like pseudo-Sweden, and Shu Han is obviously pseudo-China. I’m not a cartography expert, though I will say that Ravka seems rather lacking in major cities. I’m a bit intrigued by the “permafrost” region between Ravka and Fjerda (and by “intrigued,” I mean “Can someone explain to me what the heck this is?”).
Also, let’s take a minute to realize that the capital, Os Alta, is far inland, and if we’re going by “size on the map roughly equals actual size,” Os Kervo, the only major port city, is quite a bit smaller than Os Alta.
A lot of capitals in real life for non-landlocked countries are on or near the coast, rather than being inland. Those that are inland are almost without exception situated on major rivers. You could argue that not all of the rivers in Ravka were drawn on the map, but there’s clearly one big one that spans Ravka—and that Os Alta is rather far from.
You know why capitals are often port cities? Because port cities see an enormous amount of trade and often accumulate wealth and industry. So unless Os Kervo doesn’t see a lot of sea trade, it probably should be second in size only to Os Alta, if not equal to or bigger than.
I admit that I kind of like the Unsea/Fold idea, because it’s a sort of fantasy equivalent of real-life Russia’s historical situation. Throughout history, Russia’s been cut off from warm water ports, and that’s what they’ve always sought, so it was interesting that Ravka is also cut off from a (presumably) warm water port. However, this idea isn’t without problems. Later on, characters talk about how the Unsea/Fold is choking off Ravka’s trade/wealth/etc. by cutting off the capital from the coast…then why hasn’t the capital moved yet to Os Kervo? I mean, you can’t really sustain a city with no industry/economic capital, so unless Os Alta is a center of industry (and it doesn’t look like it is) or a center of land trade (highly doubtful, based on the map), it should be stagnating by now. I can buy that the royal family is so terrified of dying in the Fold that now that they’re stuck, they won’t move to the coast, but that won’t change the fact that the city should be stagnating.
Moreover, if the Fold’s been around for a long time, West Ravka and East Ravka probably should have become different countries. If the Fold has completely isolated the two parts of the country, West Ravka should have developed its own administrative system, and even if someone were to declare themselves the ruler of West Ravka, there’s no way for the Ravkan royal family to assert their power, because just getting the army across the Fold apparently involves massive death.
And now we come to a list of subsets of the Grisha, the book’s term for mages. I’ll return to the name “Grisha” in a bit, but the first thing I wondered when looking at the list was—if the author is bothering to use Russian words copiously for the story, why are the names of the Grisha not Russian? Some of the bases for the names (“corporal” in “Corporalki,” “ethereal” in “Etherealki”) are actually Latin/Greek. (For the curious: Google Translate tells me that the Russian word for “corporal” is телесный (telesnyy), and “ethereal” translates to эфирный (efirnyy)). So why not use actual Russian as the basis for the name of the mages? The only reason I can think of not to is that the author wanted these names’ meanings to be instantly transparent to an English-speaking audience. But you can’t have it both ways. Either commit fully to a Russian setting with Russian words and names and trust that readers will eventually memorize your terms, or don’t and make the setting much less obviously influenced by a particular culture/language.
Finally, on to the actual story.
Prologue
THE SERVANTS CALLED them malenchki, little ghosts
Here we go!
There have been other reviews that have covered the issue of the author’s use of the Russian language in greater detail than I, a non-Russian-speaker, ever could. I will say this much: generally, it’s better to stick to English unless the word doesn’t exist in English. While here, the word “malenchki” is defined, the author doesn’t always define the words used, which can be very confusing for readers. Plus, you’ve got the problem that if you use the word incorrectly, you may annoy people who actually know the language.
(Apparently, “malenchki” isn’t even an actual Russian word.)
“She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned.”
“And so skinny!” the cook replied. “Never finishes her supper.”
Cheap emotional tactic number one: have other characters bash the protagonist to create Instant Sympathy. Also, interesting (and by that, I mean “potentially problematic”) that they’re focusing on her appearance. Wonder if they would’ve talked about the boy in the same way?
Their benefactor, Duke Keramsov, was a celebrated war hero and a friend to the people. When he had returned from the front lines, he converted his estate into an orphanage and a home front lines, he converted his estate into an orphanage and a home for war widows. They were told to keep him nightly in their prayers.
#1. If this isn’t just an orphanage, but also a home for “war widows,” where are the war widows? I haven’t seen them.
#2. There should be more detail about Keramsov—heck, he should physically be present. Not everyone converts their family’s estate into an orphanage, and I want to know why he did. Just saying he was a “friend to the people” isn’t enough.
“Alina Starkov! Malyen Oretsev! Come down here at once!”
…
Some really fast notes on Russian names:
1. Russian surnames change depending on the gender of the person. So Alina really should be Alina Starkova. I read somewhere on the Internet (have to find the source) that Alina’s name was intentional, but it’s not like giving your American girl a masculine-sounding name just to give her a different flavor. This is culturally rooted. And if the author didn’t want this to come up, well, there are Slavic cultures that don’t differentiate surnames by gender (some Ukrainian surnames, and Serbian surnames), but later on there’s a character with a female surname ending (-ova), and too big of a deal has been made about this book being explicitly based on Russia, so this fails consistency all around.
2. Russian names have a patronymic, or name derived from the father, between the first and surname. Even if the person is an orphan, a patronymic would be given to that person anyway. (Again, there are Slavic cultures, such as Poland/Czech Republic/Slovakia, that don’t have these conventions, but for all intents and purposes Ravka seems to be Russia.)
3. Diminutives are a big thing for Russian first names, and they seem to be entirely ignored in the book. No one seems to have a nickname except for Mal, and “Mal” isn’t a Russian-sounding diminutive. (Something like “Malya” or “Malysha,” maybe?)
We get some infodumping about the Grisha, which are apparently the name for Ravka’s mages…except Grisha is the Russian diminutive for Grigorii and is literally the equivalent of “Greg.” Imagine going around and calling your mages “Gregs” or “Bobs” or “Mikes”…yeah, the author could’ve gone with a name that made more sense. (I’ll be calling Grisha “Gregs” from now on to try to approximate what it feels like for a Russian speaker to be reading this.)
The boy and the girl glanced at each other and, because the adults were not paying close attention, they did not see the girl reach out to clasp the boy’s hand or the look that passed between them. The Duke would have recognized that look. He had spent long years on the ravaged northern borders, where the villages were constantly under siege and the peasants fought their battles with little aid from the King or anyone else. He had seen a woman, barefoot and unflinching in her doorway, face down a row of bayonets. He knew the look of a man defending his home with nothing but a rock in his hand.
Awkward narrative device. Also, I don’t get the last sentence: Alina and Mal holding hands is like them being brave in the middle of war?
All in all, the prologue was pretty pointless and should’ve been cut from the final draft. We’ve also seen quite a bit of culture fail already. I’m neither Russian nor a Russian-speaker nor even a Russophile; I know a lot of this through Google/Wikipedia and reading Crime and Punishment in high school.
The thing is, the author didn’t have to stick to all the conventions if she didn’t make the setting so blatantly inspired by Russia. [Somehow, though, people generally equate Slavic culture with Russia. Yes, Russia is the biggest Slavic country, but wouldn’t it be more interesting to have a fantasy-inspired Poland or Czech Republic or Bulgaria? This is just me ranting again…]
Chapter One
“Hey!” shouted the soldier. “Watch yourself!”
“Why don’t you watch your fat feet?” I snapped, and took some satisfaction from the surprise that came over his broad face. People, particularly big men carrying big rifles, don’t expect lip from a scrawny thing like me. They always look a bit dazed when they get it.
Oh, great. First-person narrative again. At least it’s not in present tense.
So our first impression of our heroine is…she’s supposed to be sassy. Except it comes off as a bit passive-aggressive because she was almost knocked to the ground. Both times we’ve been introduced to Alina, we’ve seen her victimized/treated unfairly in some way. This does not bode well for a “strong female protagonist.”
So we get some infodumping about a weird geographic anomaly called the Fold/the Unsea, which I guess works because we know nothing about the world at the moment.
People have been crossing the Fold for years...usually with massive casualties, but all the same.
Then why have they been continuing to cross? If 90% of the people who cross die, then it only makes sense for the really, really desperate people to be crossing the Fold. There’s been no indication that the people living in East Ravka are miserably poor or starving, so while West Ravka may be richer (I’m just extrapolating here, the book itself isn’t giving me much to go off of), there’s no impression that people in East Ravka have much of a necessity to cross.
Why exactly is this regiment crossing the dangerous Fold? My impression is that Ravka is currently at peace, which is why the army isn’t needed in any specific place, but even in peacetime an army is not something you want to risk losing 90% of.
And now we’re introduced to an older Mal, and Alina finally perks up a bit to reply snarkily to his remarks.
“Hey, Ruby,” he called. “See you later?”
Ruby giggled and scampered off into the crowd. Mal grinned broadly until he caught my eye roll.
YA cliché number one: Jerk Love Interest, check. So Mal isn’t exactly mean, but he’s flirty and totally oblivious about how he’s breaking Alina’s heart. He hasn’t been a very likeable character so far.
Also, “Ruby”? A book full of Russian/fake Russian names, and we have “Ruby”?
But lots of girls had been excited to befriend me, and Ruby had been among the most eager. Those friendships lasted as long as it took me to figure out that their only interest in me lay in my proximity to Mal.
Oh hey look, more Shallow Flirty Girls that seem to crop up all over the place in YA fiction, who are interested in nothing except hotdouchebags guys. And girls can’t get along with each other because they’re only interested in hot douchebags guys. Feminism!
Alina’s still grumpy/depressed, and Mal is trying to cheer her up. So far, that seems to be the extent of her personality: scrawny, doesn’t sleep well, snarky when people are mean to her, and has an unrequited crush on Mal. Oookay.
We have our rifles,” he said, patting the one on his back. “We’ll be fine.”
“A rifle won’t make much difference if there’s a bad attack.”
So if Alina is right (and if the level of technology here is something like pre-1900s Russia, she’s probably right), why are they going into the Fold relying on their rifles?? I mean, once they run out of bullets, they’ll probably be sitting ducks while they reload.
Mal saves Alina from getting run over by a coach, and I’m starting to wonder if Alina is deaf. It’s a horse-drawn coach. You should be able to hear it coming from a distance away, and you should be able to tell if it’s getting closer to you. (Also, I was under the impression that they were walking along with a bunch of other people—did those people get run over, or why didn’t they notice that everyone was scrambling out of the way?)
A Greg lady ogles Mal.
You were just mooning over him, I chided myself. Why shouldn’t some gorgeous Grisha do the same?
This won’t be the first time I mention this, but I’m leery of the association with magical power = beauty in this book. Also, hey look, cheap romantic angst! Because clearly the love of your life is going to fall in love with someone who’s prettier than you. I really don’t understand what she sees in him.
I rubbed my arm where Mikhael had punched me. Sticks. I hated that name. You didn’t call me Sticks when you were drunk on kvas and trying to paw me at the spring bonfire, you miserable oaf, I thought spitefully.
And Alina’s victimization continues. She’s not pretty and managed to get molested by a lech. Uh, what exactly does it add to the narrative to portray her as such a helpless victim?
As an aside, kvas is an actual drink in Russia, but it has close to zero alcohol content and is not something you can actually get drunk on. Heck, it would’ve been better if the author just defaulted to vodka here.
Also, I just noticed that Mal is present in the conversation, but he doesn’t jump to Alina’s defense. What a great friend.
Alina makes it to the Documents Tent, and we learn that she’s a cartographer in training. Apparently not a very good one, because her fellow cartographer Alexei has to bail her out by giving her one of his not-as-good sketches. You know, Alina’s complete incompetency is starting to get just a tad annoying. Is she bad at everything?
Eva, another assistant; she had pretty green eyes that did little to distract from her piglike nose.
Another female character introduced by her looks. The fact that we’re supposed to dislike her because she has a “piglike” nose is doing nothing to make me like the book. There might be a general preoccupation with the appearance of female characters over that of male characters, but this book seems positively obsessed with beauty and ugliness, what with the “gorgeous” Greg and ugly Alina and Eva.
I stayed quiet. I was more a peasant than Eva, despite her superstitions. It was only by the Duke’s charity that I could read and write, but by unspoken agreement, Mal and I avoided mentioning Keramzin.
…Soo, a couple of questions.
#1. This is the army. Presumably, people have been drafted into this army. You know who usually gets drafted into armies? The poor. So if everyone came from poor backgrounds, why do Alina and Mal think their past at Keramzin is so low class?
#2. Where is Alexei from, that he thinks in an “enlightened” manner and calls people “peasants” derogatorily?
#3. Exactly how is Alina “more a peasant” than Eva?
Now that we’re on the subject, this army is clearly recruiting women, so how come we haven’t seen many female soldiers aside from Alina and Eva (who is only a little better than a nonentity)?
Alina reminisces about the past and angsts some more about how she and Mal have drifted apart. Have I mentioned that I really, really dislike heroines whose entire lives revolve around their boyfriends?
As I opened the door I heard a giggle, and a female voice called from somewhere in the dark room, “If it’s that tracker, tell him to come inside and keep me warm.”
“If he wants to catch tsifil, I’m sure you’ll be his first stop,” I said sweetly, and slipped out into the night.
Oh hey look, Alina’s being snarky and mean to someone again—the only time she ever shows a hint of a backbone. Incidentally, the word “tsifil” really caught me off guard because it isn’t explained at all—is it the equivalent of syphilis? Or what? [Some internet research tells me the word doesn’t even exist in Russian, which is a double facepalm.]
“Wrong. I was planning how to sneak into the Grisha pavilion and snag myself a cute Corporalnik.”
I get that Alina’s supposed to come off as Snarky and Sassy here, but instead she again comes off as passive-aggressive, especially considering her unrequited crush on Mal (whom she’s speaking to at this moment). Also, considering how insecure and mopey she is, this seems a bit out of character.
So basically, nothing much happens in this chapter except to set up the next event. Alina is an insecure protagonist who lacks a spine except when she’s randomly snarking people, Mal is a pretty shallow and inconsiderate flirty guy who I’d rather bash over the head than date, and no one else is important.
Pre-Story Stuff
I can’t deny that the map in the first few pages is very pretty. Then again, it was drawn by Keith Thompson, better known for his fantastic illustrations for Scott Westerfeld’s excellent Leviathan trilogy. (It took me a while to figure this out, and then I was like, “Aha! No wonder the art style looked so familiar.)
So based on the names of the three featured countries, Ravka is pseudo-Russia, Fjerda looks like pseudo-Sweden, and Shu Han is obviously pseudo-China. I’m not a cartography expert, though I will say that Ravka seems rather lacking in major cities. I’m a bit intrigued by the “permafrost” region between Ravka and Fjerda (and by “intrigued,” I mean “Can someone explain to me what the heck this is?”).
Also, let’s take a minute to realize that the capital, Os Alta, is far inland, and if we’re going by “size on the map roughly equals actual size,” Os Kervo, the only major port city, is quite a bit smaller than Os Alta.
A lot of capitals in real life for non-landlocked countries are on or near the coast, rather than being inland. Those that are inland are almost without exception situated on major rivers. You could argue that not all of the rivers in Ravka were drawn on the map, but there’s clearly one big one that spans Ravka—and that Os Alta is rather far from.
You know why capitals are often port cities? Because port cities see an enormous amount of trade and often accumulate wealth and industry. So unless Os Kervo doesn’t see a lot of sea trade, it probably should be second in size only to Os Alta, if not equal to or bigger than.
I admit that I kind of like the Unsea/Fold idea, because it’s a sort of fantasy equivalent of real-life Russia’s historical situation. Throughout history, Russia’s been cut off from warm water ports, and that’s what they’ve always sought, so it was interesting that Ravka is also cut off from a (presumably) warm water port. However, this idea isn’t without problems. Later on, characters talk about how the Unsea/Fold is choking off Ravka’s trade/wealth/etc. by cutting off the capital from the coast…then why hasn’t the capital moved yet to Os Kervo? I mean, you can’t really sustain a city with no industry/economic capital, so unless Os Alta is a center of industry (and it doesn’t look like it is) or a center of land trade (highly doubtful, based on the map), it should be stagnating by now. I can buy that the royal family is so terrified of dying in the Fold that now that they’re stuck, they won’t move to the coast, but that won’t change the fact that the city should be stagnating.
Moreover, if the Fold’s been around for a long time, West Ravka and East Ravka probably should have become different countries. If the Fold has completely isolated the two parts of the country, West Ravka should have developed its own administrative system, and even if someone were to declare themselves the ruler of West Ravka, there’s no way for the Ravkan royal family to assert their power, because just getting the army across the Fold apparently involves massive death.
And now we come to a list of subsets of the Grisha, the book’s term for mages. I’ll return to the name “Grisha” in a bit, but the first thing I wondered when looking at the list was—if the author is bothering to use Russian words copiously for the story, why are the names of the Grisha not Russian? Some of the bases for the names (“corporal” in “Corporalki,” “ethereal” in “Etherealki”) are actually Latin/Greek. (For the curious: Google Translate tells me that the Russian word for “corporal” is телесный (telesnyy), and “ethereal” translates to эфирный (efirnyy)). So why not use actual Russian as the basis for the name of the mages? The only reason I can think of not to is that the author wanted these names’ meanings to be instantly transparent to an English-speaking audience. But you can’t have it both ways. Either commit fully to a Russian setting with Russian words and names and trust that readers will eventually memorize your terms, or don’t and make the setting much less obviously influenced by a particular culture/language.
Finally, on to the actual story.
Prologue
THE SERVANTS CALLED them malenchki, little ghosts
Here we go!
There have been other reviews that have covered the issue of the author’s use of the Russian language in greater detail than I, a non-Russian-speaker, ever could. I will say this much: generally, it’s better to stick to English unless the word doesn’t exist in English. While here, the word “malenchki” is defined, the author doesn’t always define the words used, which can be very confusing for readers. Plus, you’ve got the problem that if you use the word incorrectly, you may annoy people who actually know the language.
(Apparently, “malenchki” isn’t even an actual Russian word.)
“She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned.”
“And so skinny!” the cook replied. “Never finishes her supper.”
Cheap emotional tactic number one: have other characters bash the protagonist to create Instant Sympathy. Also, interesting (and by that, I mean “potentially problematic”) that they’re focusing on her appearance. Wonder if they would’ve talked about the boy in the same way?
Their benefactor, Duke Keramsov, was a celebrated war hero and a friend to the people. When he had returned from the front lines, he converted his estate into an orphanage and a home front lines, he converted his estate into an orphanage and a home for war widows. They were told to keep him nightly in their prayers.
#1. If this isn’t just an orphanage, but also a home for “war widows,” where are the war widows? I haven’t seen them.
#2. There should be more detail about Keramsov—heck, he should physically be present. Not everyone converts their family’s estate into an orphanage, and I want to know why he did. Just saying he was a “friend to the people” isn’t enough.
“Alina Starkov! Malyen Oretsev! Come down here at once!”
…
Some really fast notes on Russian names:
1. Russian surnames change depending on the gender of the person. So Alina really should be Alina Starkova. I read somewhere on the Internet (have to find the source) that Alina’s name was intentional, but it’s not like giving your American girl a masculine-sounding name just to give her a different flavor. This is culturally rooted. And if the author didn’t want this to come up, well, there are Slavic cultures that don’t differentiate surnames by gender (some Ukrainian surnames, and Serbian surnames), but later on there’s a character with a female surname ending (-ova), and too big of a deal has been made about this book being explicitly based on Russia, so this fails consistency all around.
2. Russian names have a patronymic, or name derived from the father, between the first and surname. Even if the person is an orphan, a patronymic would be given to that person anyway. (Again, there are Slavic cultures, such as Poland/Czech Republic/Slovakia, that don’t have these conventions, but for all intents and purposes Ravka seems to be Russia.)
3. Diminutives are a big thing for Russian first names, and they seem to be entirely ignored in the book. No one seems to have a nickname except for Mal, and “Mal” isn’t a Russian-sounding diminutive. (Something like “Malya” or “Malysha,” maybe?)
We get some infodumping about the Grisha, which are apparently the name for Ravka’s mages…except Grisha is the Russian diminutive for Grigorii and is literally the equivalent of “Greg.” Imagine going around and calling your mages “Gregs” or “Bobs” or “Mikes”…yeah, the author could’ve gone with a name that made more sense. (I’ll be calling Grisha “Gregs” from now on to try to approximate what it feels like for a Russian speaker to be reading this.)
The boy and the girl glanced at each other and, because the adults were not paying close attention, they did not see the girl reach out to clasp the boy’s hand or the look that passed between them. The Duke would have recognized that look. He had spent long years on the ravaged northern borders, where the villages were constantly under siege and the peasants fought their battles with little aid from the King or anyone else. He had seen a woman, barefoot and unflinching in her doorway, face down a row of bayonets. He knew the look of a man defending his home with nothing but a rock in his hand.
Awkward narrative device. Also, I don’t get the last sentence: Alina and Mal holding hands is like them being brave in the middle of war?
All in all, the prologue was pretty pointless and should’ve been cut from the final draft. We’ve also seen quite a bit of culture fail already. I’m neither Russian nor a Russian-speaker nor even a Russophile; I know a lot of this through Google/Wikipedia and reading Crime and Punishment in high school.
The thing is, the author didn’t have to stick to all the conventions if she didn’t make the setting so blatantly inspired by Russia. [Somehow, though, people generally equate Slavic culture with Russia. Yes, Russia is the biggest Slavic country, but wouldn’t it be more interesting to have a fantasy-inspired Poland or Czech Republic or Bulgaria? This is just me ranting again…]
Chapter One
“Hey!” shouted the soldier. “Watch yourself!”
“Why don’t you watch your fat feet?” I snapped, and took some satisfaction from the surprise that came over his broad face. People, particularly big men carrying big rifles, don’t expect lip from a scrawny thing like me. They always look a bit dazed when they get it.
Oh, great. First-person narrative again. At least it’s not in present tense.
So our first impression of our heroine is…she’s supposed to be sassy. Except it comes off as a bit passive-aggressive because she was almost knocked to the ground. Both times we’ve been introduced to Alina, we’ve seen her victimized/treated unfairly in some way. This does not bode well for a “strong female protagonist.”
So we get some infodumping about a weird geographic anomaly called the Fold/the Unsea, which I guess works because we know nothing about the world at the moment.
People have been crossing the Fold for years...usually with massive casualties, but all the same.
Then why have they been continuing to cross? If 90% of the people who cross die, then it only makes sense for the really, really desperate people to be crossing the Fold. There’s been no indication that the people living in East Ravka are miserably poor or starving, so while West Ravka may be richer (I’m just extrapolating here, the book itself isn’t giving me much to go off of), there’s no impression that people in East Ravka have much of a necessity to cross.
Why exactly is this regiment crossing the dangerous Fold? My impression is that Ravka is currently at peace, which is why the army isn’t needed in any specific place, but even in peacetime an army is not something you want to risk losing 90% of.
And now we’re introduced to an older Mal, and Alina finally perks up a bit to reply snarkily to his remarks.
“Hey, Ruby,” he called. “See you later?”
Ruby giggled and scampered off into the crowd. Mal grinned broadly until he caught my eye roll.
YA cliché number one: Jerk Love Interest, check. So Mal isn’t exactly mean, but he’s flirty and totally oblivious about how he’s breaking Alina’s heart. He hasn’t been a very likeable character so far.
Also, “Ruby”? A book full of Russian/fake Russian names, and we have “Ruby”?
But lots of girls had been excited to befriend me, and Ruby had been among the most eager. Those friendships lasted as long as it took me to figure out that their only interest in me lay in my proximity to Mal.
Oh hey look, more Shallow Flirty Girls that seem to crop up all over the place in YA fiction, who are interested in nothing except hot
Alina’s still grumpy/depressed, and Mal is trying to cheer her up. So far, that seems to be the extent of her personality: scrawny, doesn’t sleep well, snarky when people are mean to her, and has an unrequited crush on Mal. Oookay.
We have our rifles,” he said, patting the one on his back. “We’ll be fine.”
“A rifle won’t make much difference if there’s a bad attack.”
So if Alina is right (and if the level of technology here is something like pre-1900s Russia, she’s probably right), why are they going into the Fold relying on their rifles?? I mean, once they run out of bullets, they’ll probably be sitting ducks while they reload.
Mal saves Alina from getting run over by a coach, and I’m starting to wonder if Alina is deaf. It’s a horse-drawn coach. You should be able to hear it coming from a distance away, and you should be able to tell if it’s getting closer to you. (Also, I was under the impression that they were walking along with a bunch of other people—did those people get run over, or why didn’t they notice that everyone was scrambling out of the way?)
A Greg lady ogles Mal.
You were just mooning over him, I chided myself. Why shouldn’t some gorgeous Grisha do the same?
This won’t be the first time I mention this, but I’m leery of the association with magical power = beauty in this book. Also, hey look, cheap romantic angst! Because clearly the love of your life is going to fall in love with someone who’s prettier than you. I really don’t understand what she sees in him.
I rubbed my arm where Mikhael had punched me. Sticks. I hated that name. You didn’t call me Sticks when you were drunk on kvas and trying to paw me at the spring bonfire, you miserable oaf, I thought spitefully.
And Alina’s victimization continues. She’s not pretty and managed to get molested by a lech. Uh, what exactly does it add to the narrative to portray her as such a helpless victim?
As an aside, kvas is an actual drink in Russia, but it has close to zero alcohol content and is not something you can actually get drunk on. Heck, it would’ve been better if the author just defaulted to vodka here.
Also, I just noticed that Mal is present in the conversation, but he doesn’t jump to Alina’s defense. What a great friend.
Alina makes it to the Documents Tent, and we learn that she’s a cartographer in training. Apparently not a very good one, because her fellow cartographer Alexei has to bail her out by giving her one of his not-as-good sketches. You know, Alina’s complete incompetency is starting to get just a tad annoying. Is she bad at everything?
Eva, another assistant; she had pretty green eyes that did little to distract from her piglike nose.
Another female character introduced by her looks. The fact that we’re supposed to dislike her because she has a “piglike” nose is doing nothing to make me like the book. There might be a general preoccupation with the appearance of female characters over that of male characters, but this book seems positively obsessed with beauty and ugliness, what with the “gorgeous” Greg and ugly Alina and Eva.
I stayed quiet. I was more a peasant than Eva, despite her superstitions. It was only by the Duke’s charity that I could read and write, but by unspoken agreement, Mal and I avoided mentioning Keramzin.
…Soo, a couple of questions.
#1. This is the army. Presumably, people have been drafted into this army. You know who usually gets drafted into armies? The poor. So if everyone came from poor backgrounds, why do Alina and Mal think their past at Keramzin is so low class?
#2. Where is Alexei from, that he thinks in an “enlightened” manner and calls people “peasants” derogatorily?
#3. Exactly how is Alina “more a peasant” than Eva?
Now that we’re on the subject, this army is clearly recruiting women, so how come we haven’t seen many female soldiers aside from Alina and Eva (who is only a little better than a nonentity)?
Alina reminisces about the past and angsts some more about how she and Mal have drifted apart. Have I mentioned that I really, really dislike heroines whose entire lives revolve around their boyfriends?
As I opened the door I heard a giggle, and a female voice called from somewhere in the dark room, “If it’s that tracker, tell him to come inside and keep me warm.”
“If he wants to catch tsifil, I’m sure you’ll be his first stop,” I said sweetly, and slipped out into the night.
Oh hey look, Alina’s being snarky and mean to someone again—the only time she ever shows a hint of a backbone. Incidentally, the word “tsifil” really caught me off guard because it isn’t explained at all—is it the equivalent of syphilis? Or what? [Some internet research tells me the word doesn’t even exist in Russian, which is a double facepalm.]
“Wrong. I was planning how to sneak into the Grisha pavilion and snag myself a cute Corporalnik.”
I get that Alina’s supposed to come off as Snarky and Sassy here, but instead she again comes off as passive-aggressive, especially considering her unrequited crush on Mal (whom she’s speaking to at this moment). Also, considering how insecure and mopey she is, this seems a bit out of character.
So basically, nothing much happens in this chapter except to set up the next event. Alina is an insecure protagonist who lacks a spine except when she’s randomly snarking people, Mal is a pretty shallow and inconsiderate flirty guy who I’d rather bash over the head than date, and no one else is important.
