This was a bit of a struggle for me. The idea is really neat and interesting, but it got a bit over complicated and hard to follow at times.

This book captured my heart in the most unexpected way. It’s a journey into a world where meaning is everything, and discovering the power of a single word can change the course of history. It is a beautiful exploration of language, identity, and the uncharted spaces that exist between what’s named and what’s forgotten. I couldn’t get enough of the way the author built tension between the characters and their larger quest to understand the power of language, and how it affects everything around them. It’s a thought-provoking ride, one that will keep you hooked from start to finish I don’t think I’ll ever look at words the same way again.

Imagine a world which is literally shaped by the power of words. That people travel around to share a new name for a Thing or a Feeling, because all the words were lost during a great disaster. Even the details of what exactly happened were lost, because there were no words to remember… until they are found again.

Our protagonist herself has no name, because her father chooses not to grant her one for her own sake. This sounds immensely strange, but as the story goes on, we see the power that the ‘Nameless’ themselves have, as the everyday, normal state of life begins to be challenged. Because those who do the naming control the words, and so the world.

‘It’s hard to speak something out of existence when it was never named in the first place.’

Those of you who’ve read my personal writing know that I have a lifelong love-affair with language: the different shape and feel of every word, how they inspire and shape things with their similarity and difference. This book understands that deeply, and is itself so many descriptors: beautiful, evocative, engrossing, challenging, and so very timely. It tells of being willing to change the very story of the world for the sake of what is true.

I was reminded of other great world-shaping novels as I read on, from the doublespeak and thoughtcrime of ‘1984’ and the stratifying colours of ‘Brave New World’. This tale gently explains how we describe a Thing in our head based on how we sense and connect to it, but ask if that Thing - say, perhaps, a cat? - is truly Itself without a name (because after all, the naming of cats is a difficult matter). When we encounter a troupe of dramatists who convey the forgotten history of how this all came about, there are shades of Hamlet’s play-within-a-play. Jedediah Berry is a master of knowing his own literary history, allowing it to flow through his storytelling with all the power of every author gone before.

I rarely found myself lost in this strange land, despite the first few moments seeming intensely weird. After all, what is a book but a collection of words? So how can this book exist if the very words that make it are being discovered as we read? Some may find this journey slow, as time is taken to set up the world and how it communicates and understands, but that’s true of the characters in the story as well. The pages soon begin to move as effortlessly as a train on its track, painting their reality inside our own heads, ramping up the tension as the courier makes discoveries that she never asked for, finally running with her few allies to deliver the one ultimate, crucial Word to where it needs to be.

‘She had to maintain vigilance on every border, especially those inside her head.’

Nothing I write here can adequately convey just how wonderful this book is. For those who love literature and the deep messages of humanity, it’s an absolute must-read. I tip the piece of clothing that sits atop my head to the master wordsmith who birthed this amazing adventure.

I really don’t know how to properly rate and review this one. ‘The Naming Song’ is one of the most unique and strange books I’ve ever read. There’s no detail I can give that won’s sound unbelievable or outlandish. Definitely worth a read just for the experience!

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publishing Company for this Advanced Readers Copy of The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry !

I had no idea what was going on for the first third of this book. It has a real Buried Giant by Isiguro to it, but the author does a great job building out the world and magic and making your think really hard. It's not an easy book to read and to be honest it felt like it was much longer than it was, but over all i really did enjoy the story that was told.

Thank you NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to review "The Naming Song." A magical realism novel that interweaves stories like Alice in Wonderland, and Wizard of OZ with its own original story line. A completely new world, where some things have names and others don't. Ghosts exist and so do monsters. It can drag on in some parts. There are a multitude of characters and I found some parts hard to follow which is why I gave it 3 stars. Berry is highly imaginative and readers who love complex fantasy worlds would enjoy this book.

I really wanted to like this book, but unfortunately it was not for me. The premise sounded. really interesting and right up my alley. But there was just something about the writing that I just could not fully connect to. I think that I will likely revisit this book and give it another try. Thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this on audiobook for review from NetGalley.

Thoughts: I listened to this on audiobook. I stopped listening to this about 33% of the way in. This is my second time attempt to listen to this and I really struggled to stay interested in it. I gave it a second try because I got it for review and I don't like to DNF review books. I usually don't give DNFs below 3* but the way I struggled with the story (trying to get through it multiple times), combined with the poor audiobook quality on this one put it in 2* territory for me.

The world here is very confusing; there is never a plausible explanation for why the names of everything would have gone away; I struggled to wrap my mind around this. The only information you get is that the names of things were lost "when something fell from the something tree".

I also struggled a lot with the characters; they are hard to picture and relate to. There is a whole culture around naming things and divining the names of things. Given that I just couldn't get over my disbelief of everything losing its name, I really struggled to understand the plot and the motivation for the characters.

Things did get more interesting about 25% of the way through the book, however they also got more confusing. It's revealed that our main character (a nameless courier) can dream nightmares into existence. I thought, "wow that is interesting, maybe this is getting better". Then suddenly, we were in a very long story about the founding of the city of Whisper that didn't seem to have much to do with our main protagonist, and I was like "What the heck am I listening to now?"

I did get this on audiobook and I would not recommend it. The narrator's voice is both raspy and kind of whispering, and I found it grating and unpleasant to listen to. Maybe if I have gotten this book to review in ebook format rather than audiobook I would have gotten farther in? Honestly, I probably would have just skimmed the boring parts, which would be the whole beginning of the book.

Not sure what to say about this one. It is creative and different. However, it leaves any sort of logical thinking or plausibility behind, and I struggle to read a sci-fi where nothing I am reading makes any sense at all.

My Summary (2/5): Overall I did not enjoy this book. It is a creative premise that is never well explained and seems implausible. The story only gets more confusing as it goes along. There were elements of the story I found intriguing, like the never ending train journeys, nameless monsters, and dreaming nightmares into reality. However, I could never quite figure out what was going on and lost interest in this. I did give this a shot a couple of times but couldn't make it through. It didn't help that I found the narrator's voice for the audiobook grating and hard to listen to.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an advance copy of this title in exchange for honest feedback

I am so late to getting to this review, I think I finished the book like 2 months ago? So I'm sure some details will have been lost.

To start though, I think this was the perfect execution between incredible concept and vague exposition. I'm not sure I ever really had a grasp on this novel, but much like the train that was so integral to the story, I kept chugging along, and was rewarded along the way.

If the world building felt intangible, the characters were the exact opposite. Three of the main characters were different... species? One was a nonverbal cat, one was an incredibly verbal human, and one was a humanoid made of dream garbage that fell somewhere between the two in terms of communicating. The POV character is the human, and in any other novel it would mean that the other two were simply characters to bolster her up, but the way those two characters grew, even without compelling dialogue, was incredible to experience. Berry certainly showed the proper way to handle characters that exist outside the norm.

Also, as a book/literature/writing nerd, I loved the concept of this book: the power of words. It felt like something that many many people need to be reminded of in today's society.

I highly recommend this book, although certainly not for everyone. I would suggest this to someone worn down by speculative fiction, and looking for something fresh. Fans of Piranesi might like this one, not because they're similar, but because they're both existing right on the fringe of, for lack of a better word, "normal" SFF.

I LOVE WEIRD BOOKS!!!!!

And when I say weird books, I mean Capital W Weird, not just weird. This one fit the bill for that SO well. It was so strange and creative and fascinating and I feel like I don’t understand the world but also like that’s kind of the point?

This book was entirely about names and the Named vs the Nameless, so it makes sense that the names are goofy, but they were So Strange and it was fun but also kept confusing me! You have Oh and Two and Ticket and Book and Gardener of Leaves and other such strange names, and half the time people had multiple names and none of them were easy to remember!

It was confusing enough that it took me a LONG time to read. It felt like I was reading this for a month. But I also kept getting lowkey bored. It definitely picked up a lot towards the end and I enjoyed the ending a lot more tho.

Overall: this was super creative and fun and Weird and I definitely would read another book from this author.

A big thanks to NetGalley and Tor for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

..................What? (In a very confused way)

The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry is a fantasy/science fiction novel that stresses the importance of a name. When the words went away, the world changed. All meaning was lost, and every border fell. Monsters slipped from dreams to haunt the waking while ghosts wandered the land in futile reveries. Only with the rise of the committees of the named—Maps, Ghosts, Dreams, and Names—could the people stand against the terrors of the nameless wilds. They built borders around their world and within their minds, shackled ghosts and hunted monsters, and went to war against the unknown. For one unnamed courier of the Names Committee, the task of delivering new words preserves her place in a world that fears her. But after a series of monstrous attacks on the named, she is forced to flee her committee and seek her long-lost sister. Accompanied by a patchwork ghost, a fretful monster, and a nameless animal who prowls the shadows, her search for the truth of her past opens the door to a revolutionary future—for the words she carries will reshape the world. The Naming Song is a book of deep secrets and marvelous discoveries, strange adventures and dangerous truths. It's the story of a world locked in a battle over meaning. Most of all, it's the perfect fantasy for anyone who's ever dreamed of a stranger, freer, more magical world.

I just don't have words to describe this book. It's weird byt also enlightening. I feel like my brain is now mush.

I loved this book and was enthralled with the writing. I loved the character study. Would read more from the author!

The premise of this book was so intriguing to me but I think I wasn't in the right headspace when I read it. It was too metaphorical for me to get into. I did finish it but it was a slog. I'm sure that the reader it was written for will love it, but it didn't land for me.

This book was such a banger and had me hurrying through the day to get to my evening reading time! The worldbuilding is so fascinating! The ways that new words are first divined and then delivered, almost like a birth; the governance and bureaucracy that grows up alongside that process, and the ways ordinary people find to push against or exist outside that bureaucracy; the recognizable remnants of stories from before the Silence, and the way words and stories as art can be both a means of subjugating people and a means of resistance. And the ghosts! The ghosts, who are believed to have no emotions or memories of their lives and believed to feel no pain, who are enslaved for free labor and used as literal fuel. Deeply painful. And the trains!!!!! The Number Twelve, where the courier, our protagonist, lives and works, and the train of the Black Square traveling show. It's all so specific and intriguing, part Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play and part Infinity Train.

All this captivating setup leads the reader into a really classic, but uniquely done, fantasy journey a la The Wizard of Oz, a motley crew of companions and unusual side characters and interesting antagonists, and a final confrontation that literally changes the world. I loved what this book had to say about systems of oppression, and morality, and art, and individual expression, and personhood. I loved the drawn-out denouement like the many endings of Return of the King. I loved the little bits of comforting queer romance that didn't get in the way of anybody doing what they needed and wanted to do, and loved the deep platonic and familial relationships driving the story.

The Naming Song tries to pull you into a world in which meaning is often delivered by courier, where nameless things can grow wild and strange, and what goes unspoken can take on a life of its own. On almost all fronts, this book succeeds wildly. Our protagonist is a nameless courier whose job requires them to literally bring descriptive meaning to people across the world (which has been rocked by a calamity), and their unique perspective as both an outsider and insider into this fundamental role of their society is fascinating.

Unfortunately, the slow style of worldbuilding that is being put to use here can hurt the pacing, with the start being difficult to get through as while the reader is learning things it felt as if not much was happening. When things pick up later in the plot and things go more or less off the rails, this stops being an issue for me, and the journey is well worth it.

The Naming Song is such a thrilling and uniquely interesting ride through a world where things have lost their names and there is a certain magic and power in divining and delivering these names. It is a captivating read that beautifully blends whimsy with deeper themes.

The often lyrical prose will draw you into a world where names hold immense power and meaning, creating a rich tapestry of characters and emotions. Even with characters having names such as “Book” and “Rope,” I felt that these characters had more depth and history driving their motivations than characters in so many other books that I have read.
I loved how the story explores identity and the significance of names in shaping our destinies. Berry’s imaginative storytelling and vivid descriptions make every scene come alive. While the pacing may slow down in a few places, the narrative flows effortlessly and the overall journey is enchanting and well worth it, all the way to the end of the line.
The audiobook certainly added to the enchanting and lyrical experience, immersing you into the world and the delivery of names from page one. I easily got lost in this story. This is one that will definitely linger with me for a while.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
Thank you so, so much to @torbooks for the ARC and @macmillan.audio for the ALC. All thoughts are my own.

There are parts of The Naming Song that I loved. The beginning introducing the system of delivery of words is unique, poetic, and beautiful. Two, Book, and the stowaway are brilliant characters I enjoyed immediately. The story of Hand and Moon is the stuff of myth and Shadow. I loved so much of this, and yet it took me nearly three months to get through reading. The introduction is beautifully written, yes, but also incredibly disorienting. It took me to 40% through to be able to understand the basics. What are monsters? What are ghosts? Who are the sayers?! The difficulty with world-building made reading much less enjoyable than I wanted it to be, and the rest of the novel has ups (Black Square everything) and downs (so much traveling) in that regard. I am happy I finished this book, but I'm also relieved. I wish this ended about 7% sooner than it did as well, and that's because this book felt a bit drawn out.
I listened to the audio and switched between the ebook and audiobook frequently to try to better understand the story. The audiobook narrator has a beautiful lilting voice, but she spoke very fast and did not help my understanding of the story as I often found myself zoning out the audio, which is unusual for me.
This may come across negatively overall, but in fact, there were parts of this story that will stay with me for a long while still. I truly did enjoy it once I was situated within the context of this strange place of magic and make believe after the Silence.
Thanks to NetGalley, Tor, and Macmillan Audio for this ARC!

It’s for the reader who wants literary fantasy or for the literary fiction reader who doesn’t mind fantasy elements. As the summaries say, words went away and monsters crept into the world. The Named Committee is finding the words for everything again and basically trying to hold, the world together with the magic of language. I found the characters shallow and didn’t care too much about any of them but it’s a book more about the set and the writing. For the right read this might be a four star book. For a reader who just wants a straight up fantasy this is not going to be the title. I would recommend them. But for someone who wants some more literary this could be a good choice.