It seems like every year there’s a book that I want to beg people to read because I struggle to describe it, and it’s nothing like what they’d expect. This year, it’s this book.
It’s beautiful. It’s delightful and unusual and quietly profound. It’s a master class in plot. Or rather, how to make plot not seem like plot. It’s the progression we get in real life: day to day events that aren’t much in themselves but accrue, layer upon layer, into unforeseen outcomes.
And then, it’s a master class in how to twist that plot every which way, over and over. Brilliant.
Much like God Knows by Joseph Heller, where that David is now the canonical David for me, this feels like the canonical Savonarola. Mostly because—and this is the irony, given the book—he’s so completely and thoroughly human, more human than our versions of history let him be. Every character in the book springs off the page in bright flesh and blood and I love them for it.
I want to marvel again at how Jo Walton crafts this story, but that would take pages of spoilery details. Just— I highly recommended whether this book seems like your thing or not. I struggle to describe it. It’s that great.