Book of a Thousand Days

by Shannon Hale

[nitzan_schwarz]

This is a good friend's favorite book, and I can see why she likes it.

The story is told from the point of view of Dashti, a maid who finds herself trapped with her lady in a tower for seven years. Dashti is brave, optimistic and sweet. She works hard and finds the silver lining to every situation, and you grow to love her very quickly.

Saren, her lady, on the other hand, is MUCH harder to love. The girl is so... helpless and pathetic. She spends most of the book crying, staring at nothing, being afraid of shadows and noises, throwing tantrums and latching so strongly to Dashti it's a wonder she leaves no physical marks. Sure, she has a past. Her own father locked her in a tower and left her to the rats. None of that is an excuse to act like a small child and be completely unable to do anything for yourself. Even when she finally DOES get some courage and starts DOING things, it's because of a cat??? Like, I didn't get that. Sure pets are great but *suddenly* she is smiling and working hard and just... she watched everyone else work their butts off thus far but it's a cat that makes her change so drastically?

Then we have Khan Tegus. Definitely a stand out in this. He's a king (but their title is "Khan") who has exchanged letters with Saren when they were younger and the two have promised to wed. Such as this, he comes once he hears of her imprisonment. Only, Saren is so scared to even utter a word that she makes Dashti pretend to be her. With Tegus being funny and sweet, and genuinely SUCH A GOOD GUY, there is no wonder the girl starts developing feelings for the fellow. I know I would.

Now, as much as I enjoyed this novel, and I really did, there were some things I just wasn't feeling.

* The Villian. He is just so flat. He's a king who wants to conquer everything (for no reason at all). I like my villains a bit more complicated and three dimensional--Pure evil for evil's sake just doesn't quite cut it for me.

* The world building is lacking. So this is a world where Muckers (farmers who have healing songs who don't really heal but just make the body remember to be whole), it has shamans, and it has healers. They have nine gods who are called The Ancestors and everyone worships them and follow their creed. There are eight kingdoms (I think), and all with weird ass names like Song for Evela. I had a REALLY hard time with those. They don't sound like countries?? And aside for some customs sprinkled about I felt like I knew NOTHING of these places. The mucker lifestyle is pretty heavily discussed tho.

* I don't need you to say "XX, Goddess of Z" every time you mention a god. I'm glad you know your system is hella confusing, but also it feels really odd in the story and I would hope we could understand from contextual clues which god it is without you explicitly telling us every single time. And they come up A LOT.

Anyways, those are minor issues. Overall a solid read.