I Suddenly Remembered My Charlemagne

emmaorgana: do not read this post. Go to Borders and buy the book yourself. But DO NOT READ THE POST!

Girl power, magic, vaguely set on Earth, historical, kind of sad but awesome, wandering, Canadian author, etc. Oh, and also cats.

EMMA, WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE?

I have just finished reading "Plain Kate". As with all the books that length I love, it took me about two and a half hours. I have been looking forward to the book since I found out it existed a few months ago...mostly because I love reading books with my name. It wasn't the first book I bought after I found out I had a full time job, but it is the book I bought after I got my first full pay cheque.



I very nearly stopped reading about half-way through. It drives me crazy when good people are the victim of injustice. I get enough of that in the real world, so I don't really like it in fiction. But then I noticed that it had stopped always being Plain Kate. At first I thought it was a mistake of some kind, something that had just slipped past the editors, but then I saw the pattern and thought to myself "Awesome. I can totally finish this book." (Not entirely true: first I had to flip to the end and give a very, very brief glance to ensure that Taggle lived, which of course only came back to bite me in the rear, but I'm getting ahead of myself!)

When Taggle died, I was so busy processing everything else that I didn't really get sad about it. There was so much going on, and I was barreling through it because I needed to know how it all turned out, how all these wonderful pieces fit together. The scene was so massive and terrifying and weirdly personal that I could very nearly smell it. (This was also true of the scene where Behjet tried to burn her in the cage. That scene might give me nightmares.)

And then I was just starting to think about grieving for the cat when he came back. And then he gave up his words for Kate's shadow, and I completely lost it. Their final conversation just destroyed me.

This book was very odd, and I mean that it the best possible way. It's difficult for me to describe it, because it's so wonderfully different from anything else I've ever read. I loved the Russian/Roma flavour (also, I imagined Lov as Constantinople, but that might just be because they walked for a long time to get there). Taggle made me laugh at inappropriate moments the whole way through. I loved that it felt both like I was reading a book that took place in a superstitious place on Earth and in a totally different world that just looks a bit like ours does. I loved the style and the pacing, and the way all the characters fit in around one another.

As for Kate herself, I really liked her! I love it when The Evil Witch pretty much makes the person who ends up stopping his or her plan. I found that Kate reminded me a lot of Sophie, from Howl's Moving Castle, in that she grew into her powers (as they were), and eventually she (with help) determined a way to "win" (even though that's not exactly the best word). I thought she grew very well through the story, and I loved how regular and determined she was.

Oh, and I also really, really loved the part where Kate said there might be a baker or a basket weaver somewhere in Lov, and that was why they had to save the city.

And the author is Canadian! AND FROM KITCHENER! Maybe someday I will meet her and fangirl her in person!

I give it an 9/10 on my increasingly arbitrary scale of book rankings. It loses .5 for not having a map and the other .5 for not begin Poison Study. ;)