In a time that's among the freest and safest for women there's ever been, women still don't have true equality with men and are frequently at risk for violence. So it's no wonder that Vasya, heroine of Katherine Arden's The Girl in the Tower, finds herself forced into disguise as a man in order to move through her medieval Russian world. The book picks up more or less right where The Bear and the Nightingale left off...Vasya has fled the rural village she grew up in after her father was killed and she herself was labeled a witch. Knowing full well what that means for her life expectancy, she sets out to explore the world, ignoring the advice of frost demon Morozko who warns her that the world is not kind to young women alone. She discovers very quickly that he is correct, and presents herself thereafter as a boy...it helps that her nickname, Vasya, like many Russian nicknames, is gender neutral and could therefore stand for Vasily as well as Vasilisa.

In pursuit of a mysterious group of bandits that has been stealing children, Vasya finds herself unexpectedly reunited with her brother Sasha and the Crown Prince of Moscow to whom he is sworn in service, Dmitrii. When she gets back to Moscow with them, she's also reconnected with her older sister Olga, now the wife of an important nobleman, and meets Olga's daughter, Marya, who seems to share Vasya's unusual ability of seeing things beyond the ordinary. Vasya's trying to keep her masculine identity intact until she can get on her way while also enjoying the ability to express her naturally bold personality...and then, of course, disaster strikes and the family finds themselves fighting supernatural forces to stay alive.

The Bear and the Nightingale was one of my favorite reads of 2017, and this sequel (the second in a trilogy) did not disappoint. I will say that I'd recommend reading it shortly after the first book, or while it's still relatively fresh in your mind...there's very little of the kind of "catching the reader up" exposition that many sequels have, and I wish I'd known that going in because I'd read the first nearly a year prior so the details were a little fuzzy. But the magic is still there! Arden's prose and storytelling remain deft, she expands further into the realm of Slavic folklore, and I love how she grows the seeds of romance she planted in The Bear and The Nightingale between Vasya and Morozko. I found myself rooting for them even though Arden never lets you forget the inherent power imbalance between an immortal creature and a teenage girl. It's refreshing to see a romantic plotline with a young woman who won't apologize for her desire to finish becoming herself.

While there are many books I read that I enjoy, it's pretty rare that something really grabs me and keeps me up late at night and makes me want to buy extra copies to give to people and force them to read it (honestly, I have a really hard time recommending books to people in real life because so much about whether a person will enjoy a book depends on taste). This series makes it into that group, for me. They're just flat-out great storytelling. I'd highly recommend this and the other Winternight books to all readers! ( )

fiaba russa ( )

Almost, but not quite, as good as its most excellent predecessor, The Bear and the Nightingale. A wonderful fairytale set in medieval Russia, filled with cultural tidbits so foreign to us in the West. I also recommend reading both books in the cold months, since Winter himself is a character in them.
[Audiobook note: The enjoyable reader, Kathleen Gati, may be especially appreciated by those with no background in pronouncing the Russian words which are sprinkled liberally throughout the book.] ( )

In The Girl in the Tower, Vasilisa faces an impossible choice. Driven from her home by frightened villagers, she has only two options left: marriage or the convent. She cannot bring herself to accept either fate and instead chooses adventure, dressing herself as a boy and setting off astride her magnificent stallion Solovey.

But after she prevails in a skirmish with bandits, everything changes. The Grand Prince of Moscow anoints her a hero for her exploits, and she is reunited with her beloved sister and brother, who are now part of the Grand Prince’s inner circle. She dares not reveal to the court that she is a girl, for if her deception were discovered it would have terrible consequences for herself and her family. Before she can untangle herself from Moscow’s intrigues—and as Frost provides counsel that may or may not be trustworthy—she will also confront an even graver threat lying in wait for all of Moscow itself.

This book picks up right where The Bear and the Nightingale left off. Vasya is leaving her hometown to explore the world and find adventure, much to the chagrin of Morozko, the Winter King. The opening beautifully illustrates what made the first book so unique as Arden effortlessly blends the real world with the fae one. However, after Vasya leaves the safety of the forest, the book takes on a very different tone. Vasya travels through cities and towns and becomes more acquainted with mankind. This knowledge challenges everything she thought she knew, and it makes for an intriguing read.

While in the first book, we focused more on Pyotr and Aloysha, here we reunite Vasya's sister Olga and warrior-monk brother Sasha, and Vasya must reconcile the new reality with what she remembered of her siblings. Sasha is a very bad monk in that he's never in the monastery but always at their cousin Dmitri's side, providing counsel and traveling over the whole country while avoiding home. Meanwhile, Olga's world is confined to her tower and the towers of the other married women in Moscow. With Olga and her daughter Marya - who also sees the chyerti like Vasya - readers see how limiting it is to be a woman. The options are so few, the paths so narrow. Both Vasya and Marya struggle with the restraints, and they form a kinship. Having grown up in the country, Vasya makes mistake after mistake as she fails to realize that there are consequences for women who step out of line. She makes several enemies in the term - the women's rooms - because she doesn't stop to think how her actions affect them.

It's refreshing to see a protagonist make mistakes. I wouldn't say she exactly learns from them so much as she gets better at not getting caught circumventing the rules. For the majority of the book, she disguises herself as a boy so that she can rescue kidnapped girls, hunt down Tatars, and race Solovey around Moscow. While Vasya realizes just how much more freeing it is to be a boy, she fails to grasp that being a boy also comes with obligations. She makes promises to Dmitri - the Grand Prince of Moscow - without realizing their import. She is naive to the extreme, and sees the world in black and white. It's aggravating to her poor siblings who are continually cleaning up after her messes while not understanding their younger sister. Readers can see that Sasha and Olga are trying to help their family, so you sympathize with them. The tension between their rigid world and Vasya's fluid one is palpable throughout the story, made even more intense when Father Konstantin returns.

Because Vasya spends more time in cities this book, the story is more grounded in reality. The conflicts are more earthly: the patriarchy, the demands of state, and balancing power among the boyars. There's not as much about the chyerti until the climax. The climax and ending are more in the vein of the first book, and it is the most gripping part of the novel. It's perfectly horrifying and dark, and I loved it.

Admittedly, I found all of the horse races to be a bit tedious, and I found the whole "oh, what will we do with Vasya? She must be a proper girl" to be a bit overdone, seeing as that was the whole theme of the first book. On the whole, this sequel is still amazing, and everything is set up beautifully. Just like the previous book, The Girl in the Tower is a complete story but with the promise of a bigger reveal to come, which will have me racing to finish the third book. ( )