REVIEW: AN ENCHANTMENT OF RAVENS, Margaret Rogerson

                  

 

AUTHOR  Margaret Rogerson

RATING 5/5

This may look like another book about faes, but what I loved most about it was how much it was not. It was the end of July and I have this thing; I need to start my TBR at the beginning of the month. New month, new book. So I was looking for some stand alone book that I could read in a couple of days before the start of August. And I came up with this one.

This is a book to read between lines.

ABOUT The Fair Folk can't perform any craft without turning to dust, so they rely on humans to collect the thing they desire the most: the thing they can't have. Isobel paints portraits for them. One day, she'll paint one for Rook, the Autumn prince, and she'll make a terrible mistake. She'll paint him with human sorrow in his eyes and she'll be summoned to his court to answer for her crime, because how dare she to give weakness to a perfect being?

REVIEW First of all, this is a solid stand alone. It's so difficult to find a stand alone in fantasy genre since it's hard to craft a solid world and plot in just one book. Probably this is not the perfect worldbuilding and some things about the plot felt a little rushed, but the blurry atmosphere it presented was fine.

It was like this ethereal fairytale world, giving you the few details you need to comprehend what was happening right there at the moment. n/a at the end the thing I consider I din't need was the background but rather the thing that was right in front of my eyes. Don't get me wrong, the world had some very original and good aspects and it was well crafted but as it is only one book maybe you don't get to see the depth of other worlds that have more than one book to explain the black holes.

My favorite thing here, was the constant opposition between the fair folk and humans to explore the concepts of humanity, emotions and feelings and how we always desire the things we don't have.

I loved how faes here were these beautiful but, if you looked closer, flawed, unloved and terrible creatures. How much you didn't want to be like them and how much they ended up envying humans for their ability to feel and their short time on earth that make them seize their one life. The same things that sometimes we find as our own weaknesses.

And Isobel and Rook relationship showed in a very naive and honest way, the feeling of being in love. At first I was a little annoyed with the feeling of the insta love, since I like so much more see the relationship grow. Being present in that process and the insta love relationship for me feel a little unreal. 

But then at the end of the book, I took it as it was. The first love. The kind of love that is insta love in real life too. Isobel is a teenager and Rook is her first love interest. And in that moment, I could not not love their relationship. One detail in particular I LOVED once I decided that the development of their relationship was fine, was the issue with Isobel's real name.

Humans in this story don't use their real name, because if the Fair Folk know your real name they can ensorcell you since your name is somehow attached to your soul and who you are. At one point of the story, Isobel decides to trust Rook to get them out of trouble by giving him her true name.

And we never get to know what that name is. Only Rook. And it seemed pretty accurate and nice, since there's always a part of ourselves that we only show to the people we fell in love through life. A side of ourselves, our true self, that we only show them. So, I really loved that.

If you let it, this will make you think, and it will make you be glad you're alive...and human.

QUOTES I LOVED  

¨Why do we desire above all other things, that which has the greatest power to destroy us?"

¨The ability to feel is a strength, not a weakness."

"You are like a living rose among wax flowers. We may last forever, but you bloom brighter and smell sweeter and draw blood with your thorns."

"Go on, then. I know how much you love showing off." His expression sobered."Impossibly, it seems I love you quite a bit more."

"Didn't they realize that lives were worth more than the dubious affection of one silly young man? That there were things to do in a world that didn't revolve solely around their heartbreak? Then it happens to you and you understand you aren't any different from those girls after all."

"It was simple, really. He didn't want me to forget him once he'd gone."

"Seeing a confession of love in his eyes was nothing like hearing it declared aloud. This was a look that would make time stop if it could."

"It was the best thing I had ever felt. And it was the worst thing I had ever done."

Lu.