Welcome to Read This Book, a newsletter where I recommend one book that I think you absolutely must read. The books will vary across genre and age category to include new releases, backlist titles, and classics. If you’re ready to explode your TBR, buckle up!
Today’s pick is a great book if you’re looking for something a little outside of the box and if you want to read some translated YA literature—there isn’t a ton on the YA market here in the U.S., which is unfortunate because there’s some great YA being published in the rest of the world. One of my goals this year is to try and read a little more translated lit, so I picked up the Mirror Quartet series, and I can safely say there is nothing else like it in YA!
A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos
Ophelia is quiet, small, and peculiar. She can “read” any object she touches with her hands and know its extensive history, and she has the ability to pass through mirrors. She spends most of her days in her family’s museum of artifacts from before the world fractured, but when she learns that the matriarchs of her ark have agreed to arrange her marriage to a foreigner from another ark, her life is turned upside down. Sent away to the Pole, a frigid ark whose politics are deceptive and deadly, Ophelia isn’t thought much of by her icy new fiancé, Thorn. But he underestimates her…for Ophelia may look timid, but she’s not to be shoved into a corner.
The world-building in this book is truly remarkable, and the author throws the reader into it with little explanation or backstory, so one must read carefully to fully envision this strange world. If that’s not your preferred reading experience, I totally get it, but I do enjoy a good immersive fantasy experience, and the details were just interesting enough to pique my interest. I also liked that Ophelia is not your typical YA fantasy protagonist. She’s not outgoing, she’s not beautiful or even pretty, and she doesn’t have much in the way of physical strength. She also has zero interest in her new fiancé, but she does have a passion for her own unique abilities, and she has curiosity. This curiosity gets her in trouble…but it also saves her, too. The court intrigue that she is subjected to is dark, sometimes violent, and always very perilous as alliances are forged and broken, and you never quite know who to trust.
This is the first in a series, and I found myself absorbed by this strange world, the various odd characters within, and Ophelia’s quiet resilience. While the true motives and intentions of various characters take some time to emerge, by the end of the book, I promise you’ll be clamoring for the next volume. I’m not kidding when I say I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like it in YA, and that alone makes it worth picking up if you enjoy fantasy!
Fun fact: This book was published in the U.S. by Europa Editions (you might know them as the U.S. publisher of Elena Ferrante), and it’s the first YA book they’ve brought to the U.S.!
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Happy reading!
Tirzah