Between the cantrips and the spells, I’d rather have the cantrips

It’s good. A good solid story with a linear plot with a few side plotletts along the way. I read it straight through with just a pause for dinner, and maybe a pee break. In reading it so quickly, I most likely missed out on some of the tiny details. And I could barely pronounce any of the names, even in my head.

Agnieszka (see?) begins our story as a 17-year-old girl who always seems to be a mess. She and her best friend Kasia are waiting to see who will be chosen out of their group of 11 candidates to be given in tribute to the Dragon. The Dragon is not a real dragon, silly, only a 100+ year-old sorcerer who protects the valley they live in as well as the kingdom from the Wood. (Never fear, he doesn’t look old. He’s kind of attractive, supposedly.) (Also, the Wood is a forest where Bad Things happen.) Every 10 years, a 17 year-old girl is chosen from the valley to be his servant for the next decade, and then she is released and he chooses another. (And in those 10 years, there are apparently no shenanigans of any kind.) So of course he is going to choose Kasia, who is pretty and brave and perfect and all the things Agnieszka is not. And… of course he doesn’t, because then we would have a main character with a pronounceable name, and we can’t have that now, can we?

So, our girl goes to the Dragon’s tower, and things are bad at first, and she is all “woe is me.” And then things aren’t as bad. And she eventually learns why she was chosen – she has magic! So she learns some magic, and there is some plot, and there is more magic, and more plot, and politics, and violence. And we go Into the Wood(s), and out of the Wood(s). (Sorry, not sorry!) It is once we are out of the Wood that things get more complicated.

The first half of the book is fairly linear, like a man-made path in the woods, and then in the second half the path is more of a game trail, full of twists and turns, but still ultimately leading us to where we need to go. We only follow Agnieszka, and we do not constantly leap to different places or time periods. Although, sometimes the point of view from other characters may have been welcome. I sometimes wanted to know more about the Dragon, and some of the other characters are total badasses. Agnieszka’s pace of learning seems a bit uneven to me, but perhaps she learns more than we realize after a while. The cantrips she learns (or doesn’t) seem wicked useful to me, though.  A word to make clothes appear on your back, to cook delicious food, to clean and repair things?  Yes, please!  There is also a tale we are told within the story that has a different feel to it, and it is completely lovely. You’ll know when you get to it.  I’m not really doing it much justice in this review, but it is a solidly written fantasy novel, and I recommend it!