In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield

[lightreads]

In Great Waters by Kit Whitfield


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Okay, that is a book. It was described to me as “young adult mermaid romance,” and after having read it I am here to tell you only one of those things is true, and that’s the mermaids.

This is alternate history England, where half-bred landsmen/deepsmen are the royal houses of Europe for geopolitical reasons. The book tracks the young lives of the spare English princess and a half-breed child tossed up onto the beach.

I’m not doing this well, I’m making it sound all . . . ordinary. This book isn’t – this book is – okay. This book is uncomfortable. It runs with chilly currents, and it stressed me out. It is strong and controlled and balanced, and it does not flinch – that was my job. I have a purely idiosyncratic dislike for ‘foundling from the wild’ stories, and this book starts out that way, much to my grumbling. But within five pages I had stopped and breathed in and said wow at least twice. I realized, 90% of the way through, that I had no idea how things were going to come out, down to whether we’d have a celebratory feast or all of the main cast would be summarily executed. This almost never happens to me – figuring books out is pretty much what I do, even when I don’t want to. And when I can’t it’s usually because they’re inept or unfair or sloppy. With this book it’s because it’s just that good, that tensely gripped to the outer political narrative and the inner psychological one.

Seven ways of saying it was really good, because I’m actually having a hard time talking about it. Thematically difficult, because nearly everything in this book is a weight-bearing element, and the exact opposite of cuddly, and just. Wow.

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Comments

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

This is going straight onto the To Be Read List. I've been meaning to try one of Whitfield's books for a while-- her comments at Slacktivist are always erudite and interesting.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

I've heard really good things about this book. Also also it is apparently supposed to be even better if you know the history of Henry VIII in great detail (which I don't, although I know the broad historical details). I think this sounds very much like something I need to read, as soon as I get a chance (and have another spate of wanting to read something like that, which, right now I'm more doing cuddly, so that may take a while).