Pertaining To Brightly Woven

(Written by Alexandra Bracken.) Sydelle Mirabil is not special. She's a talented weaver, yes, but otherwise is a perfectly normal girl growing up in an arid little town. So when a wizard named Wayland North singles her out as his companion to go on a dangerous journey, Sydelle is surprised and more than a little angry at being taken away from her family. She's isn't prepared to deal with all of North's mysteries and problems - and she's especially not prepared to face an evil wizard like Reuel Dorwan.

Pros: At last, a mainstream teen fiction book with real love! Sydelle and North really care for each other and want the best for each other - their love is not entirely romance. The characters seemed pretty real to me, with enough faults to make them human, but not annoying and childish like a lot of characters in books I've read.

Cons: Well, anytime a fantasy book has "goddesses," it makes me a little nervous. (Not that I see anything wrong with the goddesses in this book per se, after all, who's to say God didn't create many universes, some with guardian spirits?) It's just that the term "goddess" makes me squeamish. *Spoiler Warning* Then there's the part about the prophecy that says an evil goddess will come down in human form and crush the enemies of her followers. Sydelle is mistaken for this goddess - in other words, the goddess didn't come down. Now, this could be read as an insult to Christianity, both because it's an evil goddess who's supposed to come down, and because a not-so-ordinary human was mistaken for this goddess. However, any insult there might be is not blatant enough for me to label this book as "anti-Christian," particularly because the book is actually pretty good.

My Rating: T (sexual references and content)

Picture from alexandrabracken.com