Wind God and Dancing Girl

Ever


Written by: Gail Carson Levine

Released: May 1, 2008 by HarperCollins Children’s Books

Summary: Falling in love is never easy, but falling in love with an immortal god while your days on earth are numbered is almost more than a young girl can bear.

Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine has created a stunning new world of flawed gods, unbreakable vows, and ancient omens in this spellbinding story of Kezi, a girl confronted with a terrible destiny. Attempting to thwart her fate, Kezi and her love, Olus -- the god of wind and loneliness -- embark on a series of dangerous and seemingly impossible quests.

Well, this wasn’t what I expected when I picked up this book at chapters from the clearance shelves. Nope, I was expecting something more along the lines of Ella Enchanted and Fairest. And at first, I was incredibly disappointed and put out, but then I gave it a chance. Granted, this will never be my favourite by Levine, nor will it be one of the top books of hers that I have read, but it was alright. Considering that I had such high expectations, this wasn’t half bad.

The characters took a while to grow on you, or else I just took a long time warming up to them, but once that connection was made, I didn’t want to stop reading. Ok, I’ll admit, I also didn’t want to stop reading because I wanted to finish the book period and it was rather short in comparison to most books. It took a long time, too, to really get to the action, but once it did, as a reader, you needed to know how things turned out even though there are no unhappy endings (that I’ve read) in a Levine book.

The premise of the book was one that I really enjoyed and though it seems incredibly familiar, I can’t even begin to put my finger on why. I imagine that it borrowed from some legend or myth, like some of her other books borrow from fairy tales, but my knowledge of those isn’t up to snuff, so unless someone can tell me, it might be a while before I can find it out. It was incredibly reminiscent of several Greek myths, though; Persephone and Pandora come to mind with small aspects of the book which are similar. Has anyone else read the book who knows what it could be?

The ending surprised me a little. I can’t say too much without giving it away completely, but let’s just say that at the very end I wasn’t fully expecting the chain of events which led to the finale which I did expect. I thought that it was very well written and true to what might have really happened.

In all, this was an alright read. I’m not sure if I would read it again like I do some of Levine’s other books, but I would recommend it to a few people. It was a nice way to spend a night reading, so I’m going to give it a 6/10.