“Magic does that. It wastes you away. Once it grips you by the ear, the real world gets quieter and quieter, until you can hardly hear it at all.”

Title: Deathless
Author: Catherynne M. Valente
Series: Leningrad Diptych #1
Number of pages: 352 (paperback edition)
Good things about this book: The fairy tales parts.
Bad things about this book: Too confusing and complicated in my opinion.
Do I recommend it? Yes, it’s a very interesting read even if hard.
Rate: 3/5

Read the summary and add this book on Goodreads: here

I wish I knew how to put into words what I understood about this book. Because I think I understood next to nothing. Nevertheless I liked how peculiar it was, and the way it was written, with time jumps, always unexplained, and chapters that read just like fairy tales with their repetitiveness.

I would’ve loved to have understood more, to be more connected to the story, while I think I was just a random passenger that casually listened to someone else telling a story, from far away. I would’ve loved more insights about Koschei the Deathless, to understand more of the death thing. More of the birds. All the birds.

Long story short, UNDERSTAND is the key work here. I was confused, but intrigued, I wanted to know more and while I got told more, I didn’t understand what I’ve been told. It’s weird because I feel inside of me that I liked the book, how peculiar it all was, with the war and the fantasy parts, but at the same time I don’t think I got enough of the book to tell you exactly what I liked.

So yeah, it’s interesting, it’s weird, it has very bad characters who do bad things and are bad to one another. Yeah, that’s it, that’s my review.