10 pages into The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow, I wondered to myself – as I have with each of her books – how does she do this? How does she manage to so effectively paint a scene with words that sometimes don’t seem to go together, but do, and so beautifully?
How does she strike a tone that is epic, yet intimate, humorous, yet heartbreaking?
The Everlasting is a gorgeous book that takes you apart and puts you back together, and not gently, but wonderfully enough that you would happily do it all over again.
The synopsis:
Sir Una Everlasting was Dominion’s greatest hero: the orphaned girl who became a knight, who died for queen and country. Her legend lives on in songs and stories, in children’s books and recruiting posters—but her life as it truly happened has been forgotten.
Centuries later, Owen Mallory—failed soldier, struggling scholar—falls in love with the tale of Una Everlasting. Her story takes him to war, to the archives—and then into the past itself. Una and Owen are tangled together in time, bound to retell the same story over and over again, no matter what it costs.
But that story always ends the same way. If they want to rewrite Una’s legend—if they want to tell a different story–they’ll have to rewrite history itself.
The Everlasting takes place in a world just off center from ours; it looks and sounds and feels a little like “here” – certainly enough to be relatable – but is just a bit foreign. It also takes place in an indeterminate “when,” which is appropriate, since the reader is quickly unmoored from time as the main characters travel back and forth (and through) a thousand different years.
The story is told to different people and through different viewpoints, reading sometimes like a letter, sometimes like a journal, sometimes like a legend. Harrow seamlessly pivots these perspectives at just the right point for maximum impact, though, and with surprising clarity.
Overarching themes of power, cultural/national narratives, history, truth, heroes and villains, even of what is expected from men vs women, give The Everlasting a vast, layered terrain for the reader to explore.
But it’s the characters of Una and Owen who give The Everlasting a heart, which will break the reader’s over and over. I have always admired the way Harrow writes flawed, complicated, even arguably unattractive characters. So much about Una and Owen is unexpected, and the delight of constantly being surprised by them was one of my favorite things about this book.
As the book folds in and around itself with time jumps and repeated lives, I admit I was sometimes confused as to how it all worked. My best advice would be to pay attention, but let the story flow, and assemble the pieces as you go. They more or less all fit together in the end, but fussing over the logistics as you read is probably the surest way to miss all the beautiful details of this book.
The Everlasting is a book I will be reading again (maybe I’ll restart right now…) and enthusiastically recommending to fellow readers.
*Many thanks to Tor Books and Edelweiss for an advanced digital copy of The Everlasting for review.
BOOK:30 