Sandry’s Book
These were a re-read on a recent flight, and I blipped through all four of them like they were candy, but with a newfound appreciation. Or maybe the same appreciation I’ve had all along? These books were, and continue to be, a lodestone for how to write ‘cozy fantasy,’ where the stakes are real but the peace between (and the world building, aside from the magic rule building) is as important.
Should go without saying that of all the Pierce quartets of books, this is by far my favorite. My biggest complaint is that there aren’t more Circle books of our mages as adults! I am largely uninterested by their individual adventures, although I imagine that has more to do with my sentiments towards friends (my preciousss) and less to do with the quality of storytelling.
Here at the start of all things, we have Sandry’s book. Sandry, one of our four precocious child mages with abilities that are both different and far outstrip the usual rank and file mages who occupy the Winding Circle, the real star of this series (has there ever been a magic campus that appealed more than the Circle). There is, like in all of these books, a big conflict with magical undertones that needs solving, but really this book is about how four scarred teenagers with PTSD take time to heal, meditate, eat good food (the FOOD in these books) and find support from adults who care for them unconditionally.
Tris’ Book
I think I find Tris the hardest of the four to empathize with–her magic seems the most amorphous/least tied to a home-and-hearth craft, and most of her issues come from being misunderstood by parents who were emotionally closed off. In that sense, I’m treating her like the very family who disavowed her and turned her into the snappy, sarcastic girl that she became.
Tris’ story is one of opening yourself up to a new family when you have an existing family, and in that sense she’s also quite different from the other three (all of whom have no family left, and are literal orphans). Perhaps she speaks more to our current era of ‘cutting ties,’ wherein we objectively scrutinize our relationships with our birth families and judge them using the same boundaries that we more easily set with our found families. She might have magic, there might be pirates, but nonetheless Tris’ conflicted feelings come back to: they were supposed to love me, but they didn’t.
The way Pierce carries over the threads from the prior novels is classic and a real mark of a good author. Yes, there was an earthquake, and in this sort of world a prosperous land dealing with massive devastation is going to be a target for pirates. You don’t get a break just because things are hard!
Daja’s Book
Here, we journey outside the walls of the Winding Circle and see how our four mages interact with those for whom they are actually quite bizarre. Despite the loss of the comfort of home, their mage mentors provide the stability that we’d otherwise lack.
This book tries to (or maybe we can say that it starts to) answer the question: what are the limitations of magic? Our mage cohort are visiting the Gold Ridge Mountains, which has suffered from multiple years of drought while also managing to suppress any and all forest fires through the herculean efforts of the town’s chief mage. The issue is, though, there’s not much that our three mages can do to fix this issue, and there’s no real villain to point to either. I’m forgetting his name, but the chief mage of the Gold Ridge Mountains has a conversation with Daja one day where he points out that there’s a large difference between being a Special Mage with Special Powers and being a mage of no real renown who nonetheless has to make a living. It’s a message that is repeated throughout these books, and will once again pop up in the next installment, but it helps each of them in turn to realize that they’re special and with that power comes responsibility.
Briar’s Book
Briar’s book has always been my favorite for a number of reasons. By this point the four mages have formed a secure bond, and we’re in the phase where they bounce off of one another and are delighting in their community. It’s about a plague, and so science-y/medicine-y, which is of course a topic I innately love. And the big bad villain is the one you cannot outrun (death) but is accompanied by a whole host of smaller villains who we know of so well, especially after COVID–apathy, ignorance, willful denial, lack of preparation, etc. Even here, in the Winding Circle, where everyone is quasi socialist and working for the best of all!
Some of my favorite bits in this book involve Briar drawing upon his EQ skills to fix a problem that only he notices–realizing whilst in quarantine that Rosethorn needs greenery to survive, and therefore asking Tris to bring over plants from Discipline cottage to help her out (and Tris knowing, innately, which plants to bring). My absolute top moment is when Briar suggests Tris as Crane’s assistant, and watching her stand up to Crane/school him a bit, and then catching the hint of magic in the pox–just a chef’s kiss of events that show Briar off in the best possible light, with humor that belies the seriousness of their mission against the plague.