This book is a beautiful fairytale retelling that weaves together imagery from so many different stories. While not always succinct, the author is still very skilled at selecting the right evocative words. The world-building and the characters are rich and alive; there was plenty of potential for this to have been a series, or for more books in the same world.

But Spinning Silver has MANY short-comings in its structure and themes:

The first 200 pages are solid. We are introduced to three women whose destinies are loosely braided, but tightening swiftly. They are each, in some way or another, victims of abuse, and striving to reclaim power in their lives. They are also struggling with moral ambiguities: Whether to be selfish or sympathetic, do they honor or disown their families, do they owe good character to an uncaring society and should they protect the society they hail from at the expense of a neighbor's? All delightful quandaries to ponder. And, depending upon our ladies' final decisions, they could end up friends or foils. Ooo, intriguing, right?! Throw in some brooding fairy hunks and you've got YA gold!

But about halfway through the book, the story gets bloated with MORE PoV characters who do not serve these themes or conflicts in the slightest. We have an old handmaiden, who largely complains about being old and useless unless she's knitting. We have a ten year old boy (who may or may not be coded as having autism), who covers his ears every time something eventful is happening because it's overstimulating, and the author makes the baffling decision to have this kid narrate the climax of the book! And finally, we have the possessed tsar, who is haughty, violent, and disinterested in being the tsar. Three narrators who either cannot, or do not want to, effect the plot in any way, and draw focus away from the main characters and central conflict in order to complain about themselves! It's mind-boggling, and infuriating, and boring. And sadly, the choice to give the back-half of the book to these secondary PoV's meant that the book lost a lot of emotional heft, and the story doesn't crescendo or resolve as interestingly as it could have.

Frankly, what the book needed to do was axe everything about Wanda and her brothers. The really juicy part of the story is Miryem and The Staryk King's "Dances With Wolves" arc, and Irina and Mirnatius's "Beauty and The Beast"-ish arc. The two women are crowned against their will, come to empathize with their respective people (who are on opposite sides of both a border and a culture war), even come to empathize with their brooding husbands once they see the magical burden each is carrying, and alternate as friends and as enemies over the course of the book as they grow into their power. Phew! See? Juicy!

Along the way, it is implied that both women have a strong (even magical) connection to their heritage, and it seemed that something was being said by their mismatched elements: Miryem (Human, Sun) is married to The Staryk King (Staryk, Winter), and Irina (Staryk descendant, Snow/Ice/Water) is married to Mirnatius the Tsar (Human, possessed by Summer demon). Were the women promised to the wrong kingdoms, and meant to swap places? Were they meant to resolve each other's curses? Were they meant to temper their wicked husbands, and become the symbolic rulers of the two halves of the year, finally at peace? Maybe, all together, these couples were meant to represent the four seasons, and Irina is Spring and Miryem is Autumn? All of that speculation is a stretch, and sadly, moot. The elemental alignments between the main characters do not matter thematically, it's a red herring. The elements' only purpose is plot, in the stupidest Rock-Paper-Scissors I've ever seen: Summer beats Winter, Winter beats Sun, and Sun beats Summer? How does SUN beat SUMMER?! But that's the secondary climax of the book: Miryem, using the power of a magical Solarbeam, defeats Summer incarnate, a giant lava demon. It's messy. Maybe it has its roots in a fairytale, but with all the seasonal and weather powers played up in this book, I cannot comprehend how two almost identical elements are foils to each other. I shouldn't have to do research to understand the conclusion of this book; the elements introduced should make sense. And the story should make use of its sympathetic core four in equal measure to set up and resolve its conflict.

By the end of the book, all of the themes about overcoming abuse, finding belonging, the morally grey line of duty, and the complex relationships between women, are all thrown out the window in favor of a typical fairytale wedding ending. After 400 pages... I'm not sure what this book stands for anymore. I wish it either had less or more: Cut the filler, or be a series. But have a clear vision for what these characters mean to each other.