About the Book
-
Author:
- T. Kingfisher
- Genre:
- Fantasy
- Voices:
- Cis Girl
Cover Story: Looks Can Be Deceiving
BFF Charm: Platinum
Talky Talk: Squee
Bonus Factors: Tasty Business, Loyal Familiars, Magic, Real-World Commentary
Anti-Bonus Factor: War
Relationship Status: Meet Me At The Alter
Cover Story: Looks Can Be Deceiving
The gingerbread man is very relevant to the story. This is a YA book that is geared towards slightly younger vs older teens, so my prejudice towards the general cartoonish-ness of this cover prevented me from reading it for a while until a trusted friend gave it a glowing recommendation. It’s really for everyone! I’m stumped on a better cover option, so I guess just don’t judge a book by its cover like I did, mmkay?
The Deal:
Orphaned baker’s apprentice Mona has seen her share of dead rats around the bakery, but coming in one morning to find a dead girl on the ground is certainly kicking it up a notch. Since it looks like the girl was killed with magic, and Mona happens to have a small magical ability—just a talent with baked goods, is all—she gets hauled in front of the Duchess as a murder suspect. It turns out someone in the city is targeting magical residents, and while Mona knows she isn’t the killer, she figures she better find out who it actually is very quickly before she becomes a target herself.
BFF Charm: Platinum
I loved Mona, and who wouldn’t want to be BFFs with a baker who can keep you supplied in endless croissants and dancing gingerbread men?! Mona would be the friend you can count on, and while I value loyalty highly, I also like that she’s got a good head on her shoulders, and she’s kind. She reminds me of many book BFFs I had growing up, and it’d be an honor to give her a diamond-encrusted BFF charm.
Honorary BFF Charm shout out to Spindle, a precocious ten-year-old sneak-thief that I want to give a hug to, even if he probably smells and wouldn’t like it.
Swoonworthy Scale: 0
No romance in this one; Mona is too busy unraveling a coup!
Talky Talk: Squee
Y’all, this book is so adorable, I don’t even know where to start. T. Kingfisher is one of those authors who knows that while kids are kids, they aren’t stupid, and plenty of them are smart enough to grasp important truths about the world that some may think “beyond” their capability. Although there are plenty of dark themes in this book—it opens with a murdered teen on the ground for goodness sake—it never feels dark. Mona’s voice is wry and filled with a light touch, even as she ponders injustice, death, and learns the hard truth that not even the adults in charge always know what they’re doing.
The writing is deft and the pace snappy; I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. I just adored Kingfisher’s wit, and a clever line is a sure-fire way to my heart:
Dance, I ordered it.
The gingerbread man began to dance a very respectable hornpipe. Don’t ask me where the cookies get the dances they do—this batch had been doing hornpipes. The last batch did waltzes, and the one before that had performed a decidedly lewd little number that had even made Aunt Tabitha blush. A little too much spice in those, I think. We had to add a lot of vanilla to settle them down.
and
You may think that I’m being ridiculous, mooning over how famous a man is when I’m being accused of murder, but—well—it was Lord Ethan. The closest we had to a living legend, like one of the heroes in the old stories who slew monsters. He had a chiseled jaw and wavy hair the color of melted butter and dark eyes like cinnamon and broad shoulders and—look, I’m not doing this well at all, he sounds like a pastry when I do it. He looked heroic, let’s leave it at that. He looked like he should wear gleaming armor and carry a sword that sang.
Bonus Factor: Tasty Business
I wish I had some fresh baked bread to nosh on while I read this book, so let this be your lesson: prepare a snack before you dive in.
Bonus Factor: Loyal Pets Familiars
If you also want me to instantly love your book, give your protagonist a loyal companion (THAT YOU DO NOT KILL). Kingfisher obviously knows the importance of a loyal whatever, because Mona has a hard-as-rocks, army-general gingerbread man who rides around on her shoulder and protects her, and a freaking sentient, carnivorous sourdough starter named Bob:
I’m not actually sure if we could kill [Bob] any more. One time the city froze so hard that nobody could go anywhere, and Aunt Tabitha was stuck across town for three days and I couldn’t get down the block, and nobody fed Bob. I expected to come back and find him frozen or starved or something.
Instead, the bucket had moved across the basement, and there were the remains of a couple of rats scattered around. He hadn’t eaten the bones. That was how we figured out that Bob could feed himself. I’m still not sure how he moves—like a slime-mold maybe. I’m not going to pick the bucket up and find out. I doubt there’s a bottom on it any more, but I don’t want to risk annoying Bob.
Gingerbread man and Bob aren’t really “pets” and not exactly “friends”, since their very lives came about by Mona’s magical touch, but they are amazing and I’d kill for them.
Bonus Factor: Magic
Magic in Mona’s world isn’t as powerful as it used to be, and if you do have a magical affinity it’s usually for something extremely specific, like straightening the knots in wood, or being able to talk to baked goods and encourage them not to burn or animate for a spell. But even though it’s specific, that doesn’t mean it’s limited…as long as you exhibit some creative thinking.
Bonus Factor: Real-World Commentary
At one point, after they’ve been slowly disappearing, wizards are required to “register” with the city and neighbors are encouraged to report if they know their friends or family have magical powers. Before this, Mona had boasted how her city was pretty accepting of magical folk and even boasted itself as a safe place for them to reside. Sounds a bit familiar, no? It was interesting to see how Kingfisher wove multiple real-life, complicated topics into her fantasy world at a easy enough level for younger teens to begin to contemplate the moral ramifications of certain ideologies.
One of the residents of the Rat’s Nest is Knackering Molly, an older woman who can animate dead horses, and was thus drafted into the army when she was younger because of this powerful ability. Her storyline also seemed like a pretty pointed look at how we in the U.S. treat our veterans…
Ant-Bonus Factor: War
I loved this theme about how, sometimes, being called a “hero” doesn’t mean anything more than having to deal with a lot of shit and trauma. People expect things from you, and while you may be able to give it, what happens if they keep asking you to just give and give and give until eventually…there’s nothing left?
Relationship Status: Meet Me At The Alter
You knew the way to my heart was wit and well-written words, Book, and you knocked down all my defenses so easily I’d happy give you the keys to my kingdom without a fight, no giant bread-men needed.
Literary Matchmaking
The practicality and wit of Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle (Howl’s Moving Castle #1) by Diana Wynne Jones reminds me of Mona.
Daine is another very Mona-esque character with a fantastical world with no shortage of commentary and lovable companions, all from Wild Magic (The Immortals #1) by Tamora Pierce.
Another girl with a rough start to life is Plain Kate by Erin Bow
FTC Full Disclosure: I purchased my own copy of this book. I received neither money nor peanut butter cups in exchange for this review. A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is available now.
