I'm not easily impressed. I’ve never been more enthusiastic about any book. While reading Becoming Leidah, I wondered: What am I ‘becoming’ as I read? Will I ever-after be more alive than I’ve ever been? In the end, some of that excitement was lost - replaced with something deeper.

How many dimensions of literary delight exist? I think I experienced all here: surprise after surprise - micro to macro - subtle yet electrifying.

Both innocence and experience are in full bloom. Not just a fantasy, it’s very grounded in reality. Magical realism with an emphasis on both magical and real.

It did not fulfill my wishes. It brought me somewhere more nuanced, more mature - an integration that made magic more real. It invited self-reflection, and brought some of my life into greater perspective.

I saw Becoming Leidah on a list of historical fiction. Fair enough. It certainly presents a deeply-researched time and place, and adds layers beyond factual or even speculative histories, so although it is not about famous people or events, it is historical and it is fiction. I’d also call it a mythical folktale, and family drama. And (perhaps like all family dramas, beneath the surface) it's a mystery. It's not only a mystery to discover what happened / what's really happening in this story - it's a mystery into humanity's greatest mysteries. And it opens world-changing(?) possibilities.

The book jumps between time periods and narrators, and although I have read books where that bothered me, here I loved weaving the story together. Still, I can imagine some readers finding it a challenge. Unreliable narrators and intentionally undeclared travel between worlds can make it seem like the story is inconsistent, when it’s actually just more layered than you might assume.

Reading the jacket description, I wondered if it would present a stereotype of religion or men. Turned out I was the one doing the stereotyping. (I came to identify with both husband and wife.)

The ending is highly poetic, and ambiguous - which might not work for people who want a clear ending / definitive closure. It’s not a cliffhanger - it is complete in itself - and yet, I would love to read a follow-up book - I want to explore where these characters go after growing to this point. Perhaps that exploration is up to me.

I used to wonder to what extent / in what ways it would be true to say "With imagination, anyone can be rich." Well, I've never been richer.

A supernatural love story encapsulates a small family as deep as the sea and as cold as ice in this debut story by Michelle Grierson.

It follows Leidah, a girl born with blue skin and webbed fingers and toes who awakens to an ancestral magic that has her Mother guarding a tragic secret. Maeva, the mother, is hiding a mystery about her past that will have devastating implications for her entranced husband. Fate weaves a delicate web that is heartbreaking and unavoidable for the family, who must embrace their ancestry, as the present and future are dependent upon their secrets coming to light.

This was a beguiling tale about how love and loss can help someone to embrace who they are by remembering who they were, who they are, and who they are to become. It featured Norse mythology and some witchy elements that tied nicely together. It was part fable and part magical realism which read like an old forgotten legend. The writing was atmospheric and made me feel as though I was living on the edge of a wintry forest in Norway. 

Overall I felt the book was a little disjointed because I didn’t feel the story about the fates tied in with Leidah’s story that well. The elusive nature of Maeva for most of the book made it difficult for me as a reader to understand how it connected to the shapeshifter character. It seemed as though I was reading two different stories that were very loosely intertwined in some evasive way. That may have been the intention by the author, but I would have preferred if the connections between the characters were clearer earlier on.

Not the easiest story to grasp, but original and suspenseful nonetheless. I look forward to reading more by the author.