scijessreads

I was not expecting all that came with reading The Bone King and the Starling by Elizabeth Stephens. This little novella was packed with so much in terms of theme and emotion and confrontation of realities that not everyone realizes exist.

The themes of thrall and King. The abuse in the village and the power imbalance that holds everything in a tight grip of dread. We see that choice is a luxury, and that after living a life without it, having it can be seen as a trap that might get sprung at any minute.

As much as I appreciated how Calais wanted to fix things, he also bulldozed into Starling’s life and took over without explaining anything in his haste to claim. He sought revenge and violence (toward others, not toward her but for her). There was a fragility to Starling, as well as a deep inner core that kept her standing, kept her going on in spite of everything that had been taken from her and placed upon her.

This one was both excellent to read, and also hard to read because it forces a confrontation within the reader’s mind about how much you don’t realize that choice is often a freedom tied to privilege and power.