★★★☆☆ Where the Dark Stands Still, by AB Poranek
Dark and sad Beauty and the Beast
Where the Dark Stands Still
AB Poranek
** spoiler alert **
Dark and sad Beauty and the Beast
I read A.B. Poranek's Where the Dark Stands Still on a cold, wet Canadian December day, and that felt appropriate. To be sure, Orlica, the fantasy nation in which Where the Dark Stands Still takes place, is clearly based on Poland. But let's not overthink this: Poranek grew up in Canada but spent her summers in Poland. Canada and Poland are cold northern lands.
Liska's village Stodola is not like the cold, bright Canadian university town I live in. If there is such a thing as a University in Orlica, Liska knows nothing of it. Stodola is a small farming village where oppression wears a Christian face. Liska, a target of that oppression, runs away into the forest, where she binds herself in service to the Leszy, demon of the wood.
At the beginning the story looks much like Beauty and the Beast with a Slavic flavor. When I say, "at the beginning", I mean for the first half of the book. It varies from Beauty and the Beast, but it does hit the major beats of of the classic fairy tale. So much so that at the 69% point I thought, "This story seems to be approaching its end. How is there still a third of the book left to go?" The answer become obvious when the story suddenly took off in a new and more adventurous, not to mention violent, direction.
The publisher's summary reads, "Liska soon makes an unsettling discovery: she is not the first person to strike this bargain, and all her predecessors have mysteriously vanished." Although the publishers claim that Liska makes this discovery "soon", the event referred to here occurs after about three-quarters of the book. Furthermore, it comes as a complete surprise to Liska, and, I have no doubt, was meant to come as a surprise to the reader. It would have surprised me, had not the publisher spoiled it.
It's an uneven book. The last third is undoubtedly better than the first two-thirds, more exciting and full of challenging stratagems and a few fun new characters. I found it a mostly predictable hash of familiar plot elements told on an unusually dreary background. Readers who enjoy Slavic folklore will like it, however.
I think Simon and Schuster Canada for an advance reader copy of Where the Dark Stands Still. This review expresses my honest opinions.