I’ve been wrestling back and forth over whether I want to give this five stars or not, but I think for now I’m going with four because this took me longer to read than I would have liked, and it’s not sticking with me as fully as book two has. Maybe on re-read I will bump it up.
Anyway, this is book three in the Tiffany Aching subseries of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, and as usual, was a jolly good time with sneakly affecting undertones. There was something so charming and yet also terrifying about this book, which features the Wintersmith (basically a god of winter??) becoming obsessed with Tiffany because he mistakes her for the Summer Lady in a morris dance one time. He’s so befuddled and easily confused and yet SO powerful. This book also continues to flesh out side characters introduced in previous books, like Annagramma and Roland, and their whole community.
Something I am really enjoying about this series, which I wouldn’t have expected had I thought about it (but should have because it’s Terry Pratchett) is that we’re getting to watch Tiffany come of age. A lot of middle grade or books for younger readers keep their MC’s as perpetual youngsters, presumably because they believe they need to capture the same feelings over and over, but any author or editor worth anything knows the real emotions stories evoke in readers comes from change and growth.
I am seriously fast approaching the end of Discworld, something I’ve been working on since I was sixteen years old. I might try to slow down my pace a little, but I do have book four in this series up in October for Spooky Season. We’ll see after that.
[4.5 stars]
