Winternight Trilogy Readalong! discussion
BEAR+THE NIGHTINGALE-DISCUSSION
>
PART THREE - discussion
date
newest »
newest »
Finished! I absolutely love Vasya and by the end hated Anna. I absolutely hated when her father, partly due to Anna's influence, tried to first force Vasya to marry and then when that didn't work out, decided he would send her to a convent. He was trying to protect her, but I just hate the idea of how little control women had over their own lives. Overall, I think this was a beautiful and enchanting fairy tale. I loved this so much and am looking forward to reading the 2nd book.
Finished the first book and I liked it even more the second time. It's definitely helped me to get into the winter mood (tho we have no sign of the snow yet .-. )This time I knew what to expect and what happened next, so I was able to see all the small details and highlight my favourite phrases and just enjoyed the reading process.
What I liked the most:
- Characters!!!
My favourites are Vasya (of course). She is such a strong female character and I really enjoyed growing up with Vasya throughout the first book! Morozko (I mean... he's Morozko). We love mysterious men in this household lol 😂 And Solovey! Literally the STAR of all the books, love him so much.
Well... What can I say about Father Konstantin and Anna Ivanovna... They are BOMB as the 'villains' of the book, so that's super cool! Actually that's pretty funny how 97% of Vasya's problems caused by Konstantin (whether he wanted it or not).
I wanna talk about Medved later, because his character is more showed up in the second and the third books.
Honestly I like every single character because without any of them the story wouldn't be the same and every one of them has really interesting personalities, even the "evil" characters have their own charm and play an important role.
(Can't wait to write more about every character and the development they're going through the second and the third books!)
- Absolutely adore the relationship between Vasya and her siblings.
- Amazing diversity of mythical creatures and the way how wonderful author described Russian culture and folklore. All the books written with so much respect! Oh, and all of this researching work, this is absolutely insane!... And it's really warms my heart.
- The story line, the (dark and magical) atmosphere and how everything is a slow-pace. I know this is not for everyone but I really enjoyed it!
- One of my favourite scenes is when Vasya and Morozko came to the Father Konstantin to scare him, I literally laughed out loud. Iconic!
Even if it is more on a darker side of fairy tale story (or more like an adult fairy tale), "The Bear and the Nightingale" is a fascinating, enchanting, whimsical and cozy winter book. And reading it in this time of year is absolutely magical.
Although I absolutely love every single book in the trilogy, ''The Girl in the Tower'' is my favourite part, so I'm VERY excited to start reread it next month!
Rating of the book: 10/10
I also finished a few days back and I loved loved it
I loved Vasya loved how strong she was and she had a strong sense of right and wrong inspite of Anna her step mother being mean to her she doesn’t let that make her a victim but she rises above it and still goes on to shine bright in her own way!! I actually liked her father till he got influenced by Konstantine and Anna but I was in tears at the end with his sacrifice. Loved the sibling relationship and I just can’t wait to read the next book!
I finished the book! I feel like I need to immediately reread it again to understand all that just happened LOL. I rated the book four stars. The atmosphere was beyond magical and I really enjoyed Vasya, her siblings, and all of the other characters. I am very, very excited to see where the rest of the series goes. It might be because I am not used to reading series and usually stick to standalones, but I did not give it five stars because I felt like there was so much more to be explored. Maybe that will happen in the upcoming two books!
i absolutely loved this book. imo the last part was the best, and i am now excited for december so i can start the next book! i love vasya and morozko so much, and to be honest i didn’t really care that anna and pytor died, i didn’t like their characters much and i think they were necessary deaths for the plot as well.
This was amazing! The books a whole is beautiful and soooo atmospheric. Part three, however, was my least favorite if I'm honest. It just felt a little rushed towards the end and I really don't know what to think of Morozko. It seems like he's looking out for Vasya but is he really?
The death of the father hit me quite hard even though I started to dislike him during part two. I just can't deal with the fact that he wanted to send his daughter away because she was being "difficult". I would expect more love and compassion from a father. Anyway, he kind of redeemed himself by sacrificing himself at the end.
The family, the house spirits and the horses are my favorite part of the story! Dunya felt like a kind old grandmother to me and the siblings are all lovely. At the beginning I was hoping for Anna to be a bigger part in the story but turns out she's just an evil stepmother that's going a little more crazy everyday.
And Konstantin... man, I don't know what to think of him. Clearly he's one of the bad guys in this book but I feel like there's still hope for him?! I would really like to see more of him in the next book.
I already ordered the next two books so I'm ready to gooooo! :)
Reading for the second time! I still love the line "My horse insisted" in Part 3 (Morozko telling Vasya why he brought her to his house). It's just such a simple way to establish the nature of horses in this story. They're like brave puppies, with loyalty and love for their companions that most of the other chyerti don't quite display. It's soon followed by "Hello. You will ride me" and I just love it.
Mod
This book was mostly exactly what I expected. I think I'm going to give it 4 stars. I really enjoyed the atmosphere, Vasya's character and her relationship with her family. However, I would have loved a little bit more structure to the plot or better pacing. My favourite part was Vasya's childhood and the family before Anna. I didn't really like the part when dead people start showing up, because I'm a wimp.I really liked Vasya, but I'm intrigued by Konstantin. He did some awful stuff, but I would like to see more of him and see him question his own actions. I feel like Vasya has a lot more to go through, but I liked her development in this first book.
In the second book I want to find out more about the uprising, because I usually really like political stories.
wow I loved the way this book ended and I'm very excited to start the next book, I'm starting book two literally as soon as my loan comes in. I'm very excited to see what vasya does next and reading the synopsis of book 2 has got me so hyped to see a more expanded setting. this book was a more isolated tale which I still enjoyed, the dead rising had me very shook too ngl, I too am a wimp in anything similar to or in the arena of zombies
I've been trying to be stingier about giving out 5-star ratings to books, but I had to give it to this one. The atmosphere, the characters, and the deeply rooted folklore made this into a story that I couldn't get enough of. This book was rather slow-paced, and usually I find my attention wandering if there's not enough action in a book, but I actually think the pacing was a perfect choice for this type of story. It helped create a sense of foreboding leading up to the climactic ending, which just added more to the dark wintery feel of the story.
Surprisingly, I think one of my favorite parts was when the dead started rising and Medved was creepy and manipulative with Konstantin. I was not expecting the book to take that dark of a turn, but I was totally here for it. I also just really enjoyed when Vasya went out into the woods and was brought to Morozko's house because it felt so whimsical.
Of course, I love Vasya but I also really love Alyosha for how willing he is to believe Vasya and allow her to be herself. I know Konstantin is one of the "bad guys", but I think he's such a well-written character and I really hope we get more of him in the next book. And then I can't help but love Morozko because I feel like he's just lonely and has good intentions for the spirits, not to mention I am a sucker for mysterious characters.
I'm excited to see where Vasya ends up going in the second book, and I'm looking forward to her exploring and making new friends and allies with new spirits. I also really want to see more development between her and Morozko, and I'm curious what he's going to reveal in terms of Vasya's role in the "bigger picture" of the spirits and the world. Then there's all of the subtle set-up for events outside of Vasya's village that was going on during the first book, like with her sister in Moscow and the political plot-line there, and her brother as the monk.
I think this is a solid 4 star. It took me a bit to understand what was going on, and the end happened a bit quickly. My favorite parts were the atmosphere and the old gods. It was picturesque and enthralling.
Vasya was definitely my favorite character, and while I have no idea where the other books will take her, I'm excited to read more about her. The thing is...I don't think Vasya really developed throughout the book. She was always headstrong and passionate, which I appreciated a whole lot.
Can't wait for The Girl in the Tower!
Mod
Set your reminders - it's happening at 8:30pm GMT tomorrow (1st Dec)!!
Can't wait to chat about this book with all of you!
https://youtu.be/Jz0rYBbKpXs
Full spoilers welcome!
What was your rating of the book?
What was your favourite and least favourite part?
Who was your favourite character?
What do you think about Vasya's development through the book?
Where are you hoping the series will go in the second book?
Was the book what you expected?
Make sure you look out for the live show announcement! It will be happening at the end of November/beginning of December on my channel! I'll make sure to announce it in this group, on my twitter (@megwithbooks) and the readalong's twitter (@winternightread)!