Review of The Swan Kingdom. Mostly a Review of The Wild Swans, Though

[damselfish]

There is an odd feeling you get, a mingling of pleasure and pain that comes with reading a perfectly good book that didn't do what you expected it to.

Such was the case with The Swan Kingdom by Zoe Marriott.

Swan Kingdom is a middle grade book with a compelling protagonist, beautiful prose, and I wouldn't hesitate for a second to recommend it to anybody, especially young girls. It's also based on one of my favorite Hans Christian Anderson stories, the Wild Swans. Which is actually a much older story also known as The Six Swans. Everybody loves this story.

One thing I always want more of from Wild Swans is more time with the sister and her brothers--them hanging out in the woods, being adorable siblings, etc, because every retelling about the sister and her swan-brothers makes them out to be total cuties and it warms my heart. Well, that and I'd like to see a brother take out the noxious king who tries to interrupt the sister's attempts to break the curse on her brothers. Basically, she has to sew each brother a shirt from nettles, all in silence. So what happens? A king shows up and throws an epic tantrum when this random girl in the forest won't talk to him. Not only that but he keeps calling her "girl" and is like "girl you're so pretty come to my castle and if you're good I'll marry you!"

Thanks but no thanks, ya creep.

Then she marries the turd!

I don't know why, probably because hey all chicks wanna marry a king right, even a king who is a total domineering creepshow who gets mad when you won't talk to him and threatens to undo all your hard work and leave your brothers as swans forever. But then he's like "naw man, actually, that's pretty sweet! I'll marry this girl who doesn't talk back! Hotness."

Seriously, one day I'm going to write a version where a brother shows up outta nowhere and punches that jerk in the face. The sister could do it, but she's busy with her nettle-shirts and silence and I'm boggled at the thoughtlessness of brothers who make their sister fend off strange dudes in the forest. Come on, siblings look out for each other!

So when I saw some of the reviews and the description of this book, all of which focused on our MC, Alexandra, and her relationship with her brothers, I got excited. Especially since the brothers now number three instead of eleven, making them a much more manageable cast for frequent appearances.

I read 170 pages of this 250 page book, anxiously waiting for the brothers to show up and some good old fashioned sibling shenanigans, but around page 170 it became clear they would never surface: Alexandra was making the nettle-shirts to bring her brother's souls back from limbo.

As for the love interest: I'm glad she meets him before she starts making the shirts so you can believe that she likes him (and she does! With age appropriate sexual awakening and all) so when he shows up while she's silent you don't feel like he's some entitled jerk. Personally I'd just dump the love interest side of the story completely, but if you're gonna keep it in, this is probably the way to do it. Of course, when he does meet her and she's silent within two paragraphs he's like "oh so there must be some reason for this" proving that reasonable people find reasonable solutions by assuming other people have their reasons.

Still. I finished the book and sat back to realize that I'd pretty much ignored a rare, mostly solo, journey for a female protagonist because I wanted what I wanted and I wasn't getting it. Which is a shame because if I hadn't been expecting more of the brothers, I have to say: it's a great little book. Alexandra carries the story alone a lot of the time, she's deeply introspective but the narrative moves at such a clip that her recounting all her obstacles never feels maudlin. I particularly like that she's a tough, resilient character--strong female character alert!--without ever relying on masculine types of strength. She's a cunning woman--essentially a witch--and the story focuses on the growth of her magic. You never doubt that other people admire her capabilities just because she never picks up a sword, and because she navigates a female sphere of influence. And the book does a decent job suggesting that a female sphere of influence in this time period involved more than dresses and looking pretty.

But now what I really want from this story:
1) More brothers and family relationships
2) No love interest, he's the worst.