Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow
The Nevermoor series, Book 1
Jessica Townsend
Little, Brown
Fiction, MG Fantasy
****+ (Good/Great)
DESCRIPTION: Anyone in the Wintersea Republic knows that being born on Eventide makes one cursed... even the daughter of a chancellor. The merest glance or whisper from such a child curdles luck like bad milk, spreads illness, breaks things, sours the weather, disrupts the Wunder powering the city's marvels, and worse. It's likely a blessing that they die on their twelfth birthday, at the turning of the Skyfaced Clock to a new Age. Morrigan Crow has lived with this burden all her life, blamed for any misfortune, big or small, in the whole of the city of Jackalfax. As she approaches her eleventh birthday, her family already treats her like one dead and gone, her father remarrying and starting another family before she's even fallen down. A girl like her doesn't have a future to look forward to - until, on Bid Day, when masters put forth bids on the town's children for apprenticeships, she receives not one, not two, but four offers. She hardly has time to consider whether this is a cruel joke or a cruel hope when the Skyfaced Clock shifts to midnight black: the new Age, starting one year early. And, with the new Age, comes her death.
Or, at least, she should be dead, but for the strange red-haired man Jupiter North who swoops in at the last moment, whisking her away from Jackalfax, from the Wintersea Republic to the Free States, off to a grand city she's never heard of: Nevermoor.
The world, it turns out, is far bigger and grander and bolder (and wilder, and more dangerous) than anything she learned in the Republic. Just the hotel she finds herself living at, the Deucalion, bursts at the seams with strange wonders: a giant talking "Magnificat" Fenestra, a vampire dwarf, and a room that reshapes itself overnight are just the least of these. Even as she marvels, she can't help feeling that there must be a catch; you don't grow up being told you're cursed every day of your life without knowing that nothing good happens without a catch. Jupiter North bent quite a few rules, and left others dazed and broken, when he plucked Morrigan from Jackalfax and crossed the border, but he claims he has very good reasons, for all that he won't divulge what they are. What he does tell her is that he intends to sponsor her as a candidate for the Wundrous Society, the most prestigious society in Nevermoor. Among them, she'll be safe and wanted for all her days. But there are hundreds of candidates from the city and beyond, all competing for a mere nine openings in the Society, and they - unlike Morrigan - all have special "knacks", talents and gifts to make them worthy of passing the four Trials for entry. What does Morrigan have besides her curse?
REVIEW: I'd heard some decent things about this book and was in the mood for something a little whimsical, so when I found a copy that was free to me, I figured I'd give it a try. There's a natural tendency to compare stories like this - where the unloved but special child is whisked off to experience adventures and wonders in a magical world they never realized existed right inside their own - to Harry Potter, but that comparison falls far short of the mark, and not just because Morrigan already comes from a place with some magic in it, if a dour and rather bleak place. She has it even worse off than Harry, too; the "boy who lived" was simply invisible to his aunt and uncle, while Morrigan is actively considered both cursed and doomed, to the point where her father finally cancels her education because it's a waste of time and money to teach a child who won't see the far side of twelve. She knows, deep down, that she can't possibly be the cause of everything she's forced to write apology notes for (and her politician father is forced to pay restitution for), but feels even deeper down that there really must be something wrong with her for everyone, even her family, to treat her this way, with so much fear and hate. On Bid Day, when she gets her unexpected offers for futures she knows she'll never have, the twist of hope in her gut is worse than anything she's felt before, even before it's snatched away. This insecurity and skepticism follows her to Nevermoor, an expectation of failure and rejection that colors her actions even as she desperately wants to believe she can escape her seemingly inevitable doom.
Nevermoor itself is a place of wonders (and Wunder), brimming with whimsy and wildness but with counterbalancing complexity and darkness to give it some heft and weight. Morrigan barely scratches the surface of it all in her adventures and the assortment of colorful characters she meets, from hotel guests and staff to the other young candidates for the Wundrous Society to the Elders and a mysterious man in gray who turns up at the oddest moments with the oddest advice. Along the way, through the Trials and beyond, Morrigan slowly learns how to trust and make friends and believe in herself, to step boldly forth even when it seems certain she's going to plummet over the edge. Nobody is excessively stupid just to prolong the plot, and nobody is perfect, nor are they helpless. All this comes through in a story that hooked me from the first page and kept going right to the end without ever feeling exhausting and only once in a while feeling a touch convenient, with sparkling prose and great dialog. My only minor complaints were the lengths to which North went to avoid telling Morrigan certain important things, and an ending that's just slightly up in the air (not quite literally)... though I suppose that's partially my fault for not grabbing the second book to have on hand, which I really should've done once I realized what I was in for with the first few pages. Tight as the budget is these days, I suppose I'll have to carve out a little room for another book store run sooner rather than later. This is a series I definitely want to follow through on.
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