Tuesday, November 17, 2020

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Song of Wraiths and Ruin by Roseanne A. Brown

 




A Song of Wraiths and Ruin is a book that I had on hold in various forms for a while - it was one of a trio of books decently hyped up books by women of color that came out around the same date in June, and was the only one of the trio that I couldn't quickly get my hands on.  It's author Roseanne A. Brown's debut novel, and a young adult fantasy tale inspire by West-African folktales, which naturally piqued my interest.  So I had this on hold from my physical library via inter-library loan and via audiobook vis the NYPL, and naturally it came in through both of those ways simultaneously.  

And I really enjoyed A Song of Wraiths and Ruin and definitely look forward to its sequel (this is apparently the first half of a duology).  The story features what is a pretty typical young adult framework: two protagonists, one from a place of privilege and one not, of opposite genders, meet each other, fall in love and have their views changed as things go to hell.  And yet, the book never takes the easy way out with that framework, and builds its characters in interestingly different directions all the way to a point which provides both a satisfying ending and a tantalizing cliffhanger at the same time.  

Note:  I read this as an audiobook, and this is yet another book that decides to use two audio-narrators: a male reader for the male protag and a female reader for the female protag.  Both readers are very solid, but their voices for their characters don't really come close to one another, which is a bit annoying.

-----------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------------
Malik and his two sisters - his older sister Laila and his younger sister Nadia - are fleeing their wartorn land.  Unfortunately, as members of the Eshran people, conquered and hated by their Ziran rulers, finding a place to live and survive outside of rough refugee camps is near impossible.  But the time of Solstasia, a celebration in the City of Ziran that comes about only once every 50 years, presents a possibility for Malik and his sisters - using forged papers that identify them as non-Eshran, they can enter the City and find work to support themselves and their family outside the City.  Except the plan goes wrong almost immediately, and Malik - who has always hallucinated dark spirits and faces frequent panic attacks - finds himself confronted with his worst nightmare: a malevolent spirit who steals Nadia and will not give her back unless Malik can somehow get close to and kill the Zirani princess Karina.

Karina may be the Zirani princess, but it's a position she has little interest in - and one for which she is known to be particularly ill-suited.  Since her father and older sister, the former heir to the Sultana, died in a tragic fire, Karina has always mourned their loss, and her mother's refusal to give her any care hasn't helped.  But when Karina's mother reveals a family secret - that magic is both real and something their family has firm ties to - Karina finds her world upended....and an assassination attempt on her mother only throws her further into disarray.  Soon she finds herself forced to run the Solstasia celebrations on her own, facing a city that distrusts her, with conspirators hidden in the shadows seeking her ruin.  

Karina and Malik couldn't come from more different places, but it will be the collision between the two that will shape and change Ziran forever...and after a thousand years of supposed peace, war and chaos may be just on the horizon.....
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A Song of Wraiths and Ruin fits what is a pretty classic story framework.  You have two point of view characters who alternate in Malik and Karina, who are clearly destined to meet and possibly fall in love, despite them coming from different social and racial classes.  Malik comes from a hated minority, with nothing to his name and a need to hide who he is, while Karina comes from privilege - not without her own problems mind you, but without a true understanding of how hard it is for those without such resources.  The classic story archetype like this would have them run into each other early - and they do - have/find reasons to be together despite their own conflicts, and fall in love as things change around them.  

That doesn't actually happen here as you'd expect.  Our protagonists may be on an obvious collision course from the start (especially as Malik is given the task to kill Karina) but they don't actually really meet each other till halfway through the story.  Their circumstances make it so that each has a very big reason not to form bonds with the other, and give them both very strong other concerns in the meantime.  The romance is there, don't get me wrong, and it's done particularly well, but this book has other concerns - the plight of the people in this system, the horrors of what people in power do for safety and how even good intentions can lead to discrimination and evils later down the line, the power of proving to oneself who one actually is...etc  - and they are done really well, leading to a plot that kept me enraptured from near the beginning until the end.  

The best part of that is carried by Malik, who is a really strong and interesting character.  In addition to the above, and the fact that he comes from an oppressed minority, Malik also suffers from panic attacks - possibly stemming from the abuse he's suffered from family members punishing him for seeing supernatural creatures all around him that they think are mere hallucinations.  A lot of this book is about Malik having to find a way to overcome these panic attacks - which are not just psychological, but physiological, and Malik's journey and how the book truly uses that, is really really well done (I don't want to spoil that).  Malik has to find out who he is and learn to assert himself, despite his own body struggling against that - to say nothing of a bossy sister (to be fair she has reason for her bossiness) who doesn't quite understand how Malik's physical condition affects him.  And his magic as it comes out - the power to create illusions - works really well with it all.  I really loved every bit of his chapters and was rooting for him from the very beginning.  

Karina....doesn't quite work as well?  For a good portion of the early part of the book, I was kind of rooting for Malik to succeed in killing her, because while her irresponsibility is understandable, her repeated moments of despair kind of got a bit annoying (and got a bit ridiculous when at one, a character prompts her to move forward by saying that's what she always does, when well that's pretty much the opposite of what we see from her).  It doesn't help that her quest is so selfish that it just feels silly compared to what Malik is fighting for.  But she grows into a stronger character as she learns more about the world and forces herself to take charge as everything goes to hell, in ways that are really strong and emerges through it all into what is really a brand new character, one who I am very interested to see develop from here.

There are several other highlight minor characters, and again the plot works really well, keeping the reader heavily invested from beginning to end to see how the main characters' conflicts - which seemingly can't be resolved both at once in a happy ending - will turn out.  And the book never feels like it cheats in how it resolves everything, with everything working as it comes together - even if I didn't particularly love one of the ending twists, because it felt kind of cliche.  I really look forward to the sequel, which will wrap things up, as the book ends in a satisfying way but in such a way as to create an incredibly different status quo, which only made me want more.  

Recommended.
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