Hmmm. Just finished it this morning.
(MASSIVE spoiler alerts, do not read if you're going to read the book)
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If you're still with me, I assume you're not going to read it or you've finished it already. This is not a review, this is reading-as-a-writer for things I felt were handled well and techniques or skills I could use this book to learn.
Things done well AND things I could learn: Swift evocation of setting and scene and import -- felt like it only took a few paragraphs in each of the narrative sections to know what era, level of technology and slip-stream of time (or hint of it) that we were in. I wanted more, but the story didn't require more -- just a few intense details here and there, about things that mattered to the storyline.
Actually, the novella was a craft lesson in choosing telling, story-specific details. The china cup and its colors, the spiders (thematic; they were both trapped in a web). The lumber scene from axe to letter to wood slivers. The horrific seal puns.
Things done well than I don't necessarily want to learn: the casual violence and unending death, writ from two perspectives that oft viewed them carelessly as character traits. Necessary when crafting assassins, but difficult to put out there as a writer, for me. I get it was for a larger message of opting out of the struggle entirely, but still. The lesson, then, is making repugnant character actions real while still creating something of a sympathetic character.
Other things done well: Obsessive love, dear god, the unhealthy obsessive dynamic that yet evokes new and unexpected love for the reader. And that obsession blossoms (ha ha) and creates something hopeful? The unexpected Sleeping Beauty twist at the end. Roses. Thorns. The blood-tainted kiss. Ha. Thematics woven throughout, so tightly braided. Felt like it moved too fast and yet not a single word misplaced. So concise. DEFINITELY could use some conciseness in my own work.
Time travel: I've had trouble with time travel books before, but the time travel in this -- as a WAR concept -- felt so epic and the pace so lively that I didn't have time to object about the mechanics.
I was certain from the second reference that "the seeker" was one of the two of them, and my only annoyance in the book was that Red didn't consider that. I was unclear about which one it was. So Red's quest made total sense to me AND I was so snookered by the time travel premise that I didn't see it as a quest until she saw the "princess" on the hill and I went D'OH. Nicely snookered, hats off to the authors.
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