Alphabet of Thorn

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Soon after I began reading, I felt a fondness for the author. Her language is beautiful, but I found the strange word order and her use of pronouns confusing. As this is the first book of McKillip’s I’ve read, I’m not sure if she wrote this way on purpose or not. The story does, after all, center on a brambly language.

I like McKillip’s patterns of thought, and the timing of her plot elements. Plenty of well-paced hints lit the way to the outcome. There are gems among her phrases, and interesting metaphors such as the enormity of night with its eye at the window, spying on comfort and fragile peace.

My favorite line is, “. . .even in the long, tumultuous history of Raine, the rulers had never had to go to war with their librarians.”

The final chapter or two make me feel that the author was already busy in her mind with her next book. The structure is there, but primary characters have oddly melted away and the writing has lost its flow. There is a beautiful resolution, but it was a tricky one that needed a little more care to make someone’s transition believable.

I've blogged about my process in creating this review.    https://habyrd.com/  Baby Sees Its Shadow For The First Time, Again.