Title: Book of a Thousand Days
Author: Shannon Hale
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
Release Date: September 18, 2007
ISBN: 978-1599900513
Size: 5×8; 320 pages
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
When Dashti, a maid, and Lady Saren, her mistress, are shut in a tower for seven years because of Saren’s refusal to marry a man she despises, the two prepare for a very long and dark imprisonment.
As food runs low and the days go from broiling hot to freezing cold, it is all Dashti can do to keep them fed and comfortable. With the arrival outside the tower of Saren’s two suitors—one welcome, the other decidedly less so—the girls are confronted with both hope and great danger, and Dashti must make the desperate choices of a girl whose life is worth more than she knows.
This book was a little weird for me. I liked the romantic parts but there were parts that just didn’t work. I can’t decide what I thought.
This book was amazing. The plot was intense, and Hale’s trademark skill with language and nuance was in full force. You love and root for the main character, Dashti, from the start. I also thought it was very creative to reimagine this traditional fairytale on the Mongolian steppes.
This book made me love speculative fiction and YA fiction, neither of which interested me before.
I'm about half and half on Shannon Hale books. Some I like (goose girl & princess academy), some I don't (enna burning). This one is by far my favorite.
So when I first saw this book on a friend shelf, I immediately asked how my friend had liked it. “Well, it’s a little weird,” my friend said. So I put off reading it until this last summer when I finally had too much time on my hands. I started it one boring evening, and read it all night long! I couldn’t put it down. This was such a fun read! I loved Shannon Hale’s other books, but this one has an amazing charm of its own. I love this book!