books | First post here!

Hi, everyone. I thought I'd share a review I did at my Blogger, The Bookish Reader. :)

TITLE: Book of a Thousand Days
AUTHOR: Shannon Hale
RATING: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
REVIEW: Book of a Thousand Days has got to be one of my favorite books, hands down. The book is set in a fictional Mongolia. When Dashti comes to the city to be Lady Saren's maid, she finds chaos. Everyone's screaming and basically freaking out. It turns out Lady Saren is to be put in a tower for seven years for not marrying the man her father wants her to. And being sworn to Lady Saren's service, Dashti goes along. Without giving details, yes, they escape, and there's love and adventure as well! :D

This book is told in first person, journal-like style by Dashti. I'm very fond of journal-like books, but to others, it may be a bit tiring to see only one point of view. Even though I gave this book five hearts, there were points in the book where it dragged a bit, so sometimes I'd skim and go to the good parts. XD And there is a good bit of Dashti writing in little songs she uses to try heal people. It got a bit old to read the songs every other page; Lady Saren goes a bit batty in the book. O_o

All and all, I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it to anyone who have read any of Shannon Hale's previous works.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

*waves* Hello! ^-^ Nice to meet you and welcome.

This is Hale's retelling of... Lady Maleen, I take? I might have the fairytale's title slightly wrong, though. *goes look it up* Oh, yes. And it's supposed to be Maid Maleen. I knew something was wonky about the title. That's always been a curious tale to my ears.

And thank you for including some information on the structure. ^-^ I'm not a big fan of first person, but it sounds like it's handled right in this and I do need to read some more of Hale's works. ^-^

You're right about the retelling's origins. :)

And thank you for including some information on the structure. ^-^

You're welcome. I thought that some people might not like it if they went out and bought the book and then would throw it down because of it being in first person. :)

Hale is awesome in my eyes. Have you ever read her blog, Squeetus? She's very genuine and smart.

It's not that I'm deadset against first person narration, mind, but I find it harder to connect to the characters rather than easier. It's made me hesitant to buy a book I know is in first person if I don't have good reason to believe I might like it (despite that).

This sounds like a first person narrative that might work a lot better for me than most do, though. Or, if nothing else, it might provide some more insight into when first person does and doesn't work for me. ^-^

I skimmed it a bit when I was looking up the fairytale basis for this story and got distracted. She sounds like a wonderfully sweet person. ^-^

(Oh, and I'm randomly reminded of something I forgot to put in my first comment: I like your icons. ^-^ Especially your default one with the girl holding the kitty. It's lovely. ^-^)

This sounds like a first person narrative that might work a lot better for me than most do, though. Or, if nothing else, it might provide some more insight into when first person does and doesn't work for me. ^-^

I just might! I've always enjoyed the diary-format of some books, some others, I thought the author was making the diarist into a snob or something. :P

(Oh, and I'm randomly reminded of something I forgot to put in my first comment: I like your icons. ^-^ Especially your default one with the girl holding the kitty. It's lovely. ^-^)

I love your icons too! The Last Unicorn is the best! And I love the one of the woman reading.

Mind if I ask you a question? I saw that you didn't have a FO post, so I thought I'd ask here: may I friend you? You seem pretty awesome!

*chuckles* I hope they were supposed to be snobs! ^-~ Epistolary format will probably go down better for me since it addresses some of the issues that I have with first person. It gives me a reason to believe the narrator is writing the story and I need that to get close to the characters. (I promise, it makes more sense in my head where explanation isn't so hard. I hope I'm making some sense anyway!)

I love your icons too! The Last Unicorn is the best! And I love the one of the woman reading.

It's one of my favourite movies and books ever! ^-^ My very, very favourite movie is Labyrinth, conversationally, but I don't have an absolute favourite book ever.

I think the woman reading comes from a Pride and Prejudice adaptation, but it could also be Sense and Sensibility. I've forgotten. *sad noise* My memory is a sieve.

*blush* Of course you may! ^-^ I'll go grant you access after this has posted. ^-^ I thought I had a general policy saying "Add away" on my profile, but... Apparently I don't. o_O I need to fix that. I must've planned to and then forgot about it... (See? Sieve-for-brain.) *makes note to fix it later in the day* I'm not a terribly interesting poster, though, I'm afraid. You're warned. ^-^

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, although I felt the Mongolian flavor was overlaid on a fundamentally very European story in terms of values, and I found that both jarring and somewhat disappointing (I liked the song aspect a lot, as that was one of the crucially fantasy aspects of the story, not directly taken from either European or Mongolian mythology). Still, I hope it will inspire more Mongolian-based fantasy novels!

I enjoyed this book quite a bit, although I felt the Mongolian flavor was overlaid on a fundamentally very European story in terms of values

I never thought of that before! You're very right, now that I think about it.

Still, I hope it will inspire more Mongolian-based fantasy novels!

Oh, wouldn't that be neat!

I am pretty nerdy about Mongolian history, especially the period she based the setting on, and it was just...weirdly mismatched at times, like the city folk being above the herders in the social hierarchy--much more of a European approach to social status. I think it would have been less jarring if either the setting or plot had been tweaked a bit more into something more fantasy.

Still, it was a fun book, and I liked the characters a lot. The illustrations were charming--I wish more novels had illustrations like that.

I am pretty nerdy about Mongolian history

I don't know much about it to be nerdy. :( I'm more a European history buff. I can see where it was laid out with a European structure. I remember reading it and thinking something about serfs.

The only character I didn't like was Lady Saren. She got annoying.I wanted to slap her mid-way through the book.

-I wish more novels had illustrations like that.

I know what you mean! I love illustrations in books. I don't know if that makes me childish, but it adds something to the book.

I actually wondered, especially at the end, if Lady Saren was a little bit developmentally disabled; she read that way to me (and it would have made some aspects of her characterization make sense), and consequently I was kind of uncomfortable with how the narrative handled her, since we only saw her through Dashti's (often frustrated) eyes.

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