buttercup turned pirate

Okay, so I'm feeling a bit silly about how long it took me to get on the Brandon Sanderson train, but at least I'm on board now! Because if the rest of his books are anything like this delightful novel, then I can be considered a fan for sure. The more fantasy novels I read, the more I realize how nuanced the genre is. High fantasy with a heavier focus on complex worldbuilding and action isn't the cup of tea I'm going to choose when a story that prefers to flesh out genuine characters in an easier-to-grasp world is sitting right in front of me. I think this novel seems to have found a perfect little pocket between these two descriptions. The idea of a planet where oceans are made not of water, but dangerous spore materials poured out from different moons seems ungraspable at first, but Sanderson's effortless writing style triumphs over descriptions of such a world that other authors might stumble around and never quite get right. Really, though, his writing style presents as not only effortless, but engaging to a level of actual laughing out loud on every page. This man's ability to come up with and make a piece of figurative language perfectly describe whatever it is he's set out to describe is suspiciously good.  His sense of how to make language work like a well-practiced song is clear from the very first page. I loved Tress from her first description, and only continued to love her as she developed into the kind of main female character I live to read. The amount of times she's underestimated by herself as well as others was refreshing to read after the amount of badass female heroines I've encountered in wildly popular BookTok titles. Nothing's wrong with those types of heroines. There's just a lot of them out there, floating around to fit the needs of current tropes and trends. Tress, with her people-pleasing, timid, inadvertently genius intelligence and quiet charm, was just a breath of new air. And knowing that she's meant to be a Princess Buttercup who believed her Wesley was still alive and went to look for him herself makes her even better. To keep this a spoiler free review, I will also just say that I love Huck the rat, and how much he ends up being a larger part of the story from a bird's eye view than I was expecting. The  novel's range of side characters was fantastic, too. Seeing Deaf representation and how Sanderson utilized the freedom of writing inside a fantasy world to make Fort's super cool writing board made me very happy (and also taking some notes for my own book's Deaf character). I admired the individual aspirations and goals each of these side characters had, since their stories are meant to exist on the sidelines of Tress' main journey. But any lovable character, whether main or side, needs hopes and dreams, and Ann, Salay, Fort, Dr. Ulaam, and even charmingly-confusing narrator Hoid, aren't lacking such things. There's a quality of distinguished storytelling in this novel that holds space for whimsicality and serious reflection on very human things, like loss, self-confidence, irony, and love. The quotes I've included below really speak for themselves, I think. Considering this novel as my fourth 5-star read of the year, I highly recommend it!


Some of my favorite quotes from Tress of The Emerald Sea:

"That said, you must understand that this is a tale about people who are both what they seem and not what they seem. Simultaneously. A story of contradictions. In other words, it is a story about human beings."

"Yet I've found that the people who are the happiest are the ones who learn best how to feel. It takes practice, you know. Effort."

"If you wish to become a storyteller, here is a hint: sell your labor, but not your mind."

"Deadly beauty is the starkest variety. And you will never find a murderess more intoxicating, more entrancing, than the sea."

"Unfortunately, sympathy is not a valve, to be turned off when it starts to flood the yard. Indeed, the path to a life without empathy is a long and painful one, full of bartered humanity sold at a steep discount."

"People consistently misjudge common things in their lives. (Other people come to mind.)"

"Memory may not be the heart of what makes us human, but it's at least a vital organ."

"Enjoy memories, yes, but don't be a slave to who you wish you once had been.
Those memories aren't alive. You are."

"Heroism is often the seemingly spontaneous result of a lifetime of preparation."

"Our words, like our hearts, are weapons still hot from the forging, beating themselves into new shapes each time we swing them."

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