I loved the whole thing, but the biggest takeaways for me were the protagonists, Ophelia and Thorn, both as individuals and as a pairing.

Rowling, a dash of Philip Pullman, and a generous splash of Hayao Miyazaki. How smug was I when I read an old interview with Dabos wherein she cited all three as inspirations? Super smug. I praise it as a delightful concoction of originality, sprinkled with some J.K. Although it was originally published in France in 2013, with the next two volumes having since been published, the English translation was only just released in September, with the second book due for a May release here in the States. Ophethorn La Passe-Miroir les disparus de clairdelune the mirror visitor the missing of clairdelune christelle dabos long book reportĪ Winter’s Promise is the first novel in The Mirror Visitor quartet by French author Christelle Dabos. After some consideration (and a re-read), I do have some more thoughts about OpheThorn.

I had a good response to my first OpheThorn analysis (it’s hereand thank you for all the kind words), so I did think that I’d like to put something out about Clairdelune as well, I just wasn’t sure what. But, essentially, it left me with a bit less to say. telling style.Īs you may or may not recall, after I finished A Winter’s Promise, I spent an embarrassing amount of time copy/pasting excerpts from this book into Google Translate with the result that I really did spoil a lot of the OpheThorn parts for myself-which I don’t exactly regret. But the novel really succeeds by continuing to follow the less-is-more mantra and the showing vs. Christelle Dabos allows herself slightly more exposition. We get more of what we loved about the first book, more pieces to the larger existential puzzle, yet it smartly stops short of resolving too much so that we stay invested for the third episode. The Missing of Clairdelune is a superb second installment in The Mirror Visitor quartet. OpheThorn II: A Slightly Less Rambling Analysis Ophethorn the mirror visitor La Passe-Miroir the memory of babel la memoire de babel christelle dabos long book report slow burn romance While I feel there’s less to analyze, I do really love this pairingĪnd I like writing about their dynamic. Like groundwork being laid for the finale. Thisīook is definitely a penultimate novel. Through and survived in the previous novels-and come out resilient As Fuck. I love that she’s taken the measure of her worth-all the things she’s been The backbone Ophelia shows in this book is awesome! Wait! Babel is exquisitely written and, incredible as it sounds, even more We’re dropped onto Babel just as lost, bewildered, andĭetermined as Ophelia to get to the bottom of this ark.

La Mémoire de Babel by Christelle Dabos