The Familiar

This one is a Hunger Games isotope, at least structurally. I'm only halfway through, but we’ve got an Oppressive System, we’ve got a hot-tempered, lower-class oppressed Girl with Secret Talent and secret-er connections, chosen for a brutal life-or-death competition. Assigned mysterious tutor. She’s not very bright, she’s a little paranoid, and doesn’t trust the people who are obviously trying to help her. She is taken for makeover, and people buy her pretty dresses. She is moved to the center of power and society to compete for their pleasure, but the very nature of her power threatens the ruling class.

In this case our heroine is a lowly kitchen maid in Inquisition-era Spain; secretly Jewish and with some minor (increasingly not secret) magic powers. Honestly the best part of the book for me is pattern-matching.

Noted on April 15, 2025

I think I need a name for the situation where you read one book by an author, really really enjoy it, and then proceed to be disappointed by every other book that author writes. Maybe this is just too genre-y for me? Heck, maybe the first book I read of Bardugo’s (Ninth House) was also very genre-y but in a genre I don’t read, so maybe that's the difference here?

Noted on April 15, 2025