![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grav_ityI have this terrible habit with books where I will read the back and the blurb...but not read the inside cover flap. Usually, this is because I buy books when they come out, which means they're hard covers with dust jackets, and then I take the jacket off so it doesn't get damaged. More often, though, it's because I don't want to accidentally spoil myself for the book.
So going into "Alphabet of Dreams", I knew that the story took place in Persia, and was about a girl whose brother had prophetic dreams. There was a LOT more to the book than that!
Turns out that this book was actually about a girl named Mitra, her true-dreaming brother Babek, AND THE THREE MAGI. Yes, those guys. Which made the book entirely more cool than I was expecting it to be. It's not often you get the story of the Nativity from a) a female POV and b) a Persian one. I was very impressed.
I picked the book up in the first place because the cover has a girl dressed as a boy standing in the desert. I thought it was fantasy, until I saw the map, at which point I became just thrilled. I'm not a huge fan of Persian archaeology, but Persian history is kind of fun, and Zoroastrianism is probably one of the neatest religions in existence. I loved watching Mitra struggle with her faith (being a girl dressed a boy is a big no-no in Persian religion, which is different from the Zoroastrianism of the Magi, because of the Persian idea of purity), and her station. She fought so hard for her family, even when that might not have been the smartest thing to do, and I kind of love her for it.
The Magi were interesting too. Fletcher set them up so that Melchior was kind of a pompous jerk, Gaspar was obsessed with knowledge, and Balthasar was basically a saint. Of course, Mitra and her brother fall in with Melchior, who exploits Babek's dreams to his own end, using them to track down the message in the stars that will, eventually, lead them all the Bethlehem. When they all finally see Jesus, they are changed, even though they have no idea what they've witnessed (all they know is that they've witnessed something huge).
Mitra and Babek are both affected as well, but that would spoil the ending, so I'm not going to tell you what happened to them. :)
In any case, given that I wasn't expecting to read a book about religion, I really enjoyed finding out what the story was about. Fletcher managed to deal with three religions crashing together with the perfect amount of grace and deftness (well, four, if you count Christianity, which had just started). Some of the conversations that Balthasar has with Mitra towards the end of the book simply made my heart sing.
8/10 for history, religion, adventure, personal growth and being set in the desert. I can't wait to track down the author's other book (because it's about Scheherazade).
+++
I was totally going to start a new book tonight, but this one made me hungry for "Stealing Fire"...
So going into "Alphabet of Dreams", I knew that the story took place in Persia, and was about a girl whose brother had prophetic dreams. There was a LOT more to the book than that!
Turns out that this book was actually about a girl named Mitra, her true-dreaming brother Babek, AND THE THREE MAGI. Yes, those guys. Which made the book entirely more cool than I was expecting it to be. It's not often you get the story of the Nativity from a) a female POV and b) a Persian one. I was very impressed.
I picked the book up in the first place because the cover has a girl dressed as a boy standing in the desert. I thought it was fantasy, until I saw the map, at which point I became just thrilled. I'm not a huge fan of Persian archaeology, but Persian history is kind of fun, and Zoroastrianism is probably one of the neatest religions in existence. I loved watching Mitra struggle with her faith (being a girl dressed a boy is a big no-no in Persian religion, which is different from the Zoroastrianism of the Magi, because of the Persian idea of purity), and her station. She fought so hard for her family, even when that might not have been the smartest thing to do, and I kind of love her for it.
The Magi were interesting too. Fletcher set them up so that Melchior was kind of a pompous jerk, Gaspar was obsessed with knowledge, and Balthasar was basically a saint. Of course, Mitra and her brother fall in with Melchior, who exploits Babek's dreams to his own end, using them to track down the message in the stars that will, eventually, lead them all the Bethlehem. When they all finally see Jesus, they are changed, even though they have no idea what they've witnessed (all they know is that they've witnessed something huge).
Mitra and Babek are both affected as well, but that would spoil the ending, so I'm not going to tell you what happened to them. :)
In any case, given that I wasn't expecting to read a book about religion, I really enjoyed finding out what the story was about. Fletcher managed to deal with three religions crashing together with the perfect amount of grace and deftness (well, four, if you count Christianity, which had just started). Some of the conversations that Balthasar has with Mitra towards the end of the book simply made my heart sing.
8/10 for history, religion, adventure, personal growth and being set in the desert. I can't wait to track down the author's other book (because it's about Scheherazade).
+++
I was totally going to start a new book tonight, but this one made me hungry for "Stealing Fire"...
