The Girl in the Tower - Katherine Arden (The Winternight Trilogy #2)

Oh second books.  They're a bear--and just when you thought that Vasya had defeated the bear.  I was excited about this book, as I adored The Bear and the Nightingale, and this volume promised us adventure for Vasya, moving out into the world beyond her small village and a step into full adulthood, and maybe even more glimpses of the tantalizing frost demon Morozko.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel that this was quite as strong of a book as the first one.  There are some strong elements to it, certainly--we get to see more of the siblings that were rarely glimpsed in the the first book, as Olga and Sasha left fairly early on in the first volume.  Vasya does get to see the world, and learns a little bit in the process, though perhaps after her ordeals in the first book she shouldn't have been quite as naive when she went out into the wide world beyond.  And we get to watch the development of Morozko's feelings towards Vasya, feelings that he is not supposed to have, though this remains a minor element and is not nearly as played up as I would have liked to have seen.  (Please, someone, tell me there is a robust fanfiction community for this series somewhere, because this is a series that could spawn some amazing fanfics.)  However, Vasya's naivete, constant need of rescue, and headstrong ways are getting old, and they're getting old fast.  Despite literally everyone telling her that she is making a mistake kin the way she goes about things in this book, she does whatever she wants anyway, because no one understands her, clearly.  Not even when the answer is staring her right in the face.  Again, one would think she'd learned something from her first paranormal go-round, but no.  Of course not.

Vasya has reason to be frustrated and to strain against confines, of course.  Women don't exactly have the best lot in life in medieval Russia.  If Vasya is discovered to be a girl rather than the boy she travels as, she could be raped and murdered at worst, or confined to a tower for all her days at best, as her sister is.  Vasya does not want to spend her days in a tower; she wants adventure.  However, if she wants adventure, perhaps she should have listened to a number of people who told her that parading about Moscow barely disguised as a boy was not the way to go about it, and was in fact probably the best way to be caught out and open a whole kettle of fish that could mean death for, oh, her entire family.  Additionally, beyond Vasya parading around as a boy, having smug conversations with her horse, and making herself out to be the best thing before sliced bread, nothing really happens here until the last fifteen percent of the book.  The writing is lovely, but without character growth or compelling action to move the story along, it's just not enough to make this a strong book on its own.  The wonderful atmosphere and magic of the first volume were largely gone, both literally and figuratively, and they left a weaker book in their wake.

This was decidedly a second book, and it suffers from Second Book Syndrome.  I still have high hopes for the third volume, The Winter of the Witch, due out later this year--but while The Bear and the Nightingale will be listed in my favorite reads, The Girl in the Tower most certainly will not.

2.5 stars out of 5.