Dear TBR,
I heard FLOWERHEART by Catherine Bakewell, was a new “cottagecore” update on KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE, so I picked it up. Sixteen-year-old Clara has been disciplined by the Council of Magicians for the last time. She has been told all her life that magic reflects a magician’s heart, and as her magic sets things on fire, grows random flowers through the floor boards, blows out windows, and often only barely avoids really hurting people, she’s convinced she’s the original Bad Seed. This makes everyone but Clara’s father wary of her. He believes the best of her, and just knows someday everyone else will see her as the prodigy he believes her to be, but Clara is beginning to not just doubt him, but to hate the sound of his constant encouragement. The Council is firmly on the opposite end of this, and wishes to bind Clara’s magic, to keep everyone else safe… mainly because of her mother.
Clara’s mother was trained by the Council too, and was a prodigy as well – however she chose to take her powerful magic and become a notorious criminal, making illicit potions and curses that broke the Council’s strict rules and covenants on the uses of magic for the mind and body. Though she has never met her, Clara’s heard all of the horrible stories of the people whom her mother’s potions have harmed, and she HATES her, hates what she stands for, and despairs of ever overcoming the cursed and tainted gifts she’s inherited. In a desperate bid to be worth something in her society and to right a terrible wrong for which she is responsible, Clara agrees to her magic being bound, but first, she makes a secret agreement with her childhood best friend and the youngest member of the Council. In return for helping her, he’ll take her magic – all of it. But… what does he need it for?
魔女の宅急便 or Majo no Takkyūbin is the Japanese name of this book. What we know as KIKI’S DELIVERY SERVICE is translated literally as ‘Witch’s Express Home Delivery, which is somehow deeply amusing to me. (There’s a live action film AND a musical with various names as well, based on the same novel.) First published in 1985, the story we’re familiar with is the first episode of a six book series. Until now, I’d only seen the Miyazai animated film. As the animator often takes quite a bit of license with his source material, I’ve been meaning to read this book for YEARS, and it was nice to finally get around to it.
As expected, many of the characters and situations with Kiki are similar to the film, but her struggles and frustrations are job-centric. What does it mean to be in a profession or have a calling which either dismiss as whimsical or old fashioned, or have been taught to disdain and fear? How do you take pride in trying something at which you’re not sure you’ll ever be good enough to succeed? What constitutes success? How do we…make space for ourselves in a community? A lot of the questions dealt with in the book are indeed similar to Clara’s, but with six books, Kiki has a lot more time to mull them over, and her stakes aren’t nearly as high, so there’s plenty of time for new adventures along the way. The eccentricities of the townspeople are deeply, adorably weird in a delightfully non-Western fashion (Two words: belly bands…). I would have loved this book as a child, and though it doesn’t quite have the lushly beautiful scenic imagination which makes the Miyazaki film such a gorgeous and beloved classic, it was still a treat.
Finally, THE SPELLSHOP unexpectedly came in at our local library, and since as bloggers we’ve been Sarah Beth Durst’s stans practically since she started writing, I immediately snatched it up. I’ve really enjoyed Durst’s writing for adult audiences, and was happy to see her venture into the wildly popular romantasy genre. This book is definitely an adult-teen crossover, with all the right beats for a cozy, atmospheric escape.
Kiela is the poster child for introverted magical librarians on steroids. She lives IN the library with Caz, her adorably weird magically sentient spider plant, and …there’s a revolution. Durst is clear: there’s nothing cozy or comforting or fun about a revolution. People die, and they die horribly – basically of politics. All of the blether by the rebels doesn’t meant that when it comes down to it that they won’t destroy everything in their quest for a level playing field. Kiela, finally noticing that the world is literally going up in smoke around her, escapes on a library delivery boat with as many books as she can save. (Metaphor for ignoring the world as loudly as you can, until you can’t anymore, anyone?) In desperate need of a safe place, she goes home – to a tiny, forgotten village she hasn’t thought about in decades, taking up residence in her semi-derelict childhood cottage, trying to be unnoticed amongst the nosy, stodgy, and staid villagers who’ve never gone anywhere or done anything. It’s not easy, obviously. Kiela gives off go-away vibes, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference to her handsome neighbor, the cheerfully baker in the village, and the myriad people who fondly remember her parents. As Kiela carves out her tiny niche in the village, her life soon becomes something more than just survival and hiding. Things have changed in the village, and they could really use some help. And, since she’s brought all of these illegal magic books from the capital that are just sitting there… If the Emperor is really dead, and if the rebels really believe that knowledge is for the people, surely it won’t hurt anything if she …makes a little magic happen close to home?
All of these books can be described as “witch lite,” the sorts of books that have nothing to do with anything remotely resembling a belief in the occult, but rather just about females coming into the own and learning to help others and themselves. It would be reductive to say that the proliferation of witch books is solely about the power of femininity or whatever, but I do love that these books seem to be a bildungsroman for women from thirteen to an thirty-five. We can Become at any age – and becoming more is at the heart of these delightful books, the most important thing of all.
Fresh onto the TBR:
- Winterlost, Patricia Briggs
- Sanctuary, Ilona Andrews
- The Blue Book of Nebo, by Manon Steffan Ros
Until the next book, 📖
Still A Constant Reader
