Customer Reviews

The Dollmage (Northern Lights Young Novels)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

My DD and I loved "Keturah and Lord Death" by this same author. Her storytelling draws you into the story and keeps you there, rooting for the hero only for the story to take a different path.

"Dollmage" is no different. Strictly fantasy, this story is about the storyteller of the village, the Dollmage. She is growing old and must have a successor. She predicts that on a certain day, the new dollmage will be born. And on that day, four children are born: two girls and two boys. She picks one girl over the other because of her pride has been hurt.
The dollmage gives dolls that will bring comfort, peace, and tell of future promises.

As in any village, there are certain laws and expectations. This village is no different. Promises are kept and very rarely broken because it is punishable by death. But who is to say that a promise given because another is extorted is a promise?

The dollmage's story was hard to hear: her pettiness and pride and the ripple effect they have on the entire village.

Interesting story. I would recommend this book for old teens. But my favorite of this author is "Keturah and Lord Death"

This is a beautiful, thoughtful book, with a narrator who willingly shows us how her own mistakes have caused so many problems. I loved the descriptions and the perspective on the selfishness of human nature and how difficult and painful it can be to overcome it and how much we hurt others when we think only of ourselves. Beyond that, I liked the world that Leavitt creates, with the aspects of life made and cared for in miniature dolls.

I found this book to be wonderful, an intricately woven tale of love, pride, hate, and broken promises. The characters were well-formed, and the narrator was very open with her faults.
The ending was perfect, a little rushed, but very well done.
I would recommend this book to at least teen girls, as there is content not suitible for younger readers.

This story by Martine Leavitt has a lot in common with her other novel, Keturah and Lord Death. Both stories have Leavitt's unique style of story telling, which is almost like a Grimm's fairy tale, but more full bodied, and much more wise.

This story begins with the narrator trying to persuade a mob of angry villagers not to stone a young girl to death. Her persuasion takes the form of a story. As the reader sees more and more of the story, you come to realize who the different people in the crowd are, and just what their places are in the story that is unfolding. It is a story full of happiness and tragedy, innocence and wisdom, power as well as helplessness. The narrator herself cannot help but admit her own fault in causing the eventual scene before her, but Leavitt has the skill only some authors posses, of making even the most hateful characters seem redeemable, as much beset by tragic flaws as the heroes themselves.

I found this book to be wonderful, an intricately woven tale of love, pride, hate, and broken promises. The characters were well-formed, and the narrator was very open with her faults.
The ending was perfect, a little rushed, but very well done.
I would recommend this book to at least teen girls, as there is content not suitible for younger readers.

The Dollmage is a dull, underdeveloped book. I was greatly disappointed after the reviews I had read. The characters were two-dimmensional and lacked believability. By telling the story from the Dollmage's point of view, Leavitt had an opportunity to use hindsight in her description of characters. However, the narrator and the characters bumble along in their own self-pity (the Dollmage) or in their all too frequently stated faults. In a good novel, the characters are three-dimensional and their actions can be mostly understood in regards to their character. Martine Leavitt rushes past the developement of her characters and therefore leaves the readers behind.