Pages and Patterns

Synopsis

In the enchanted kingdom of Brooklyn, the fashionable people put on cute shoes, go to parties in warehouses, drink on rooftops at sunset, and tell themselves they’ve arrived. A whole lot of Brooklyn is like that now—but not Vassa’s working-class neighborhood.

In Vassa’s neighborhood, where she lives with her stepmother and bickering stepsisters, one might stumble onto magic, but stumbling out again could become an issue. Babs Yagg, the owner of the local convenience store, has a policy of beheading shoplifters—and sometimes innocent shoppers as well. So when Vassa’s stepsister sends her out for light bulbs in the middle of night, she knows it could easily become a suicide mission.

But Vassa has a bit of luck hidden in her pocket, a gift from her dead mother. Erg is a tough-talking wooden doll with sticky fingers, a bottomless stomach, and a ferocious cunning. With Erg’s help, Vassa just might be able to break the witch’s curse and free her Brooklyn neighborhood. But Babs won’t be playing fair…

Thoughts

Thoughts – 3 stars

I was eager to read Vassa in the Night - It had a really interesting premise and sounded like nothing I’d read before (and just look at that cover!). And boy was I right. It was definitely interesting, and strange. Now, I have not read the original Russian folktale Vasilisa the Beautiful, from which this story is based, so I didn’t have any beforehand insight as to what to expect going in. Maybe I should have.

I went in blind, not knowing what to expect and it truly was different. Vassa lives a tragic life, in a small apartment with her half-sister, step sister, and step mother, all abandoned by Vassa’s father some years ago, her only company a kleptomaniac, magical doll named Erg (that no one else knows about). In their Brooklyn, magic is real, and night has been altered and has slowly become longer and longer, the minutes lasting hours. During the night, the only store open is a dancing convenience store called BY’s, run by Babs Yagg, a proprietor with a habit of beheading shoplifters. Vassa isn’t a thief, but Erg is, and one night her sister has had it up to here with her thievery. She sets her up to go out and buy light bulbs from the only place open at midnight, which is quite possibly a suicide mission.

From here the story takes an even stranger twist. While looking for light bulbs, she’s almost framed for shoplifting and becomes indentured to Baba for three nights. Each night she is given an impossible task to complete or else it’s her head on a spike in the morning. Vassa encounters severed limbs, strange magical foods, mystical beings, and more, all the while learning about herself and some of her family history. It gets very weird and very dark. There is blood, death, and gore. Vassa learned who she was and became stronger for her trials.

I give Vassa in the Night three stars for uniqueness and creativity, but also because it left me confused unsure of how I felt about it. I thought there would be more magic and less blood. I think this is a book that everyone should read and figure out for themselves if it’s something they’ll like. I have a feeling it might be one where people are either going to really like it or really hate it.