My book club chose this for our December read.

Inspired by Russian fairy tales, this novel follows Vasilisa, a girl with magical gifts that she learns more about as she gets older. Her widowed father brings home a bride after a visit to Moscow, but Vasilisa’s new stepmother is a devout Christian and forbids the family from acknowledging the old spirits that protect their home. Just as Vasilisa feared, ill fortune starts to plague the home and their village and she must have the courage to face the dangers that she thought only lived in fairy tales in order to save her family and the villagers.

I struggled with this book for two reasons. It felt too long and dragged a bit in the middle for me. And the writing style was not my taste. It is told in a fairy tale style, which I understand why the author chose, but it’s hard to connect with any of the characters. The reader doesn’t get much internal dialogue or insight into the feelings of the main character at all. So the story felt surface-level and like I was being told the story, instead of experiencing it with the character.