A review by mary_soon_lee
A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar

3.0

This is a lyrical, beautifully-written fantasy with many smaller stories contained within the larger tale. A major theme is the significance of books and of reading, and, in particular, there are two paragraphs that describe the experience of coming to the end of a book that are quite wonderful. Yet the prose is so lyrical that I was often aware of the wording rather than falling into the story itself. Also, for a large part of the book, the first-person narrator didn't care enough about anyone else for me to care about him. Had I liked the narrator throughout, I would have loved the book. As it is, I liked it and I admire the writing.