The Sisters of the Winter Wood

The Sisters of the Winter Wood by Rena Rossner

This book is a blend of fairytales & Jewish history. Our story follows two sisters, Liba & Laya, in chapters that alternate perspectives. Liba is cautious & rule-abiding, while Laya is more of a free spirit. When their estranged grandfather falls ill, and their parents travel to the city and the girls are left alone to begin a coming of age journey. But before their parents go, Liba & Laya are each given some information about their family history & their own natures, they realize that they may not be simply human as they seem. This is where some of the fairytales come to life in our story.

Things that I especially enjoyed about the book was the reference to Rosetti's Goblin Market poem, the seamless interweaving of the history and fairytales, especially towards the end when the more fantastic elements of the story affect the real world outcomes. I enjoyed themes of transformation, sacrifice and forging new pathways when you don't like the options you have.

I listened to the audio book of this one, and ended up increasing the playback speed because of the repetitive, slow nature of some of the descriptions & internal dialogue. I've never actually done that with an audio book before, so I'm not sure if it was in fact the writing, or just the way the reader paced her phrasing, but it was too slow. It also took me about 5 hours of listening to actually get interested enough in the story to commit to finishing it. So while it had some really excellent parts once it got moving, I'll probably be cautious in recommending it only to avid readers who are likely to push through that initial drag.

In all honesty, I think my reading of the book did suffer because I very recently finished Naomi Novik's Spinning Silver which is similar to Sisters of the Winter Wood in quite a lot of ways, and I love Novik's voice & prose so much that it would really be hard for anyone to follow that, let alone with a similar tale.