“First off, as always, Hale has that indescribably smooth, accessible writing style that is such a pleasure to read. Secondly, in this novel she made a very likeable main character: Dashti, the lady's maid. Even before Dashti did anything amazing (which, just you wait, she does!), I kept thinking, wow, what an honest and loyal and straightforward girl she is. And, of course, she's talented without knowing how talented she is; she can heal by singing songs that are popular in her culture, but doesn't seem to realize this isn't a talent that can be wielded by anyone who bothers to learn the songs. I of course saw both the romance and the revelation about the villain coming about six and a half miles away, but that didn't make it less enjoyable; it just seemed like Dashti was sitting there with her head in the sand not realizing the obvious sometimes, and the author wasn't taking great pains to hide these things from the reader. (I always hate that, when authors try to red herring their way to a climax. Even if you have figured out what's going to happen, Shannon Hale can make you enjoy watching the characters figure it out!) One thing I also really loved about this was the beginning premise: A teenage noble girl, Saren, is shut in a tower because she refuses to wed the bad guy, and her maid, Dashti, goes with her into the prison. In situations like this, there is ample opportunity to launch a character study, because there just isn't much else going on. I love a self-contained world with little complication and an open opportunity to let human nature have the stage. Of course, the post-tower half of the book completely opened that world up, but we'd gotten to really know Dashti through her words and sketches, and we can admire her purity of heart as well as her loyalty and sort of sweet naïveté. Oh and . . . finally, I just want to add that I love when Shannon Hale does dialogue. She's so very good at it. I stayed up past 3 AM two nights in a row to read this.”
swankivy wrote this review Thursday, October 22 2009.
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