The Grimoire of Grave Roasts

An inclusive school brought to its knees by unacknowledged anti-Slavic discrimination, not that even the authors themselves realized that they were writing THAT kind of a story. 

Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen's The Grimoire of Grave Fates comes with a steel chair.

 

By the way "The Grimoire of Grave Fates" started, I thought that I'm holding the best anthology I've ever read. United by the murder mystery concocted by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen, each of the eighteen chapters of the novel is written by a completely different author. Every chapter brings in a new character and, with it, a unique perspective, turning "The Grimoire" into a delightful box of chocolates... with only a small handful revealing themselves to be rotten. These were Cam Montgomery's Keturah and Yamile Saied Méndez's Delfina who, in a better world, would have fallen into hands of better writers (honestly, by how inept Cam Montgomery's writing was, you'd think that she never written a character-focused story in her life - she must have won her her invitation to this project in a bag of chips because nothing else makes sense), and Jessica Lewis's Ivy Barta who, and I cannot stress this enough, should not have happened at all.

(Initially, I wanted Marieke Nijkamp's Wren to join this list, but then I realized that I may be petty here, since, after my disappointed with Nijkamp's "Kith and Kin", I cannot view their writing objectively. I may have found Wren's story a tad underwhelming, especially since it's meant to be the first story of the bunch and the whole novel's hook and I may have found Wren not very likeable, but, still, they were still leagues better than the actual worst entries, and they brought in something valuable to the story.)

Still, it's was the best score I've ever experienced. Three or four rotten stories opposed to fifteen others that I genuinely liked and could recommend? "The Grimoire" started off really strong in my eyes.

It wasn't a perfect story, of course. 

I felt annoyed by how heavy-handed some authors were describing murdered Professor Dropwort's bigotry. There was nothing wrong with Dropwort being a bigot or with the students whom he discriminated against hating him for that, mind you. It's just that when you're writing a novel aimed at teenagers and not preschoolers, you should have a bit more faith in your audience's own sense of morality and make your character's sudden tirades about how much of a meanie Dropwort was a bit less clunky, you know? 

There were moments when I simply had to take photos of lines that I wanted to roast. 

And it was especially sadly ironic how the novel's - on its own, a very sweet - dedication of "For everyone who wanted to feel like they were Chosen: magic belongs to you, too" contrasted with the amount of characters who were some kind of chosen ones with a prophecy behind them. 

But the characters overall were an interesting bunch with fascinating magical powers on the top of that (the worldbuilding in that aspect is superb, I cannot commend it enough for that) and I wanted to see in what direction their little mostly-independent investigations were heading. I wanted to find out who killed Dropwort. 

And oh, well, I wish I didn't. 

I'm glad that I was reading the story moreso for the characters than the intrigue, otherwise the disappointment would have stung even more, but, nevertheless, I feel myself duped for being foolish enough to get invested. To expect that what started as a really good story would have an equally ending as well.

It started with another clue written in a mysterious script. Could be a code, could be a foreign language, could be both. Maxwell was instructed - by Professor Vaughan-Crabtree who seemed to understand, at least vaguely, what the note was about - to drop it off to Delfina, a girl whose magical talent is linked to language learning, to have her decode it. Delfina Moore was hailed as the most knowledgeable student about foreign languages in the whole school by both Maxwell and Professor Vaughan-Crabtree. She was also someone whom Maxwell knew personally and for whose integrity he could vouch, which is a factor not to be underestimated when you're investigating a case where anyone in the school could be the murderer. Logical. Makes perfect sense. She can crack it! My bet was either an exctinct language, a dead language or a very old and outdated form of a living language combined with some sort of a code. I was hooked...

...and I was completely wrong because the cryptic note was actually written in the Cyryllic alphabet. 

Okay, that's... way less special than I anticipated. So, no code? No other gimmick? It's only a direct translation of the text? My excitement was dimmed already.

And it was getting even worse the more you thought about it. 

"Maxwell picked the letter up as if it might disintegrate in his hands - even though the paper seemed new - and he unfolded it carefully.

It was a mix of strange symbols, ones that Maxwell didn't recognize; in his studies of math and the various formulas he'd read about, he'd never seen anything close to this. He didn't even think it could've been accidentally as some ancient form of math or equations.

His mind immediately went to Delfina; she knew how to read, write, and speak more languages that Maxwell knew existed. Could she help? Would she now what all this meant? Should he get her involved?" (p. 333)

Are you trying to tell me that the Cyryllic alphabet is SO obscure, so rare and confusing that nearly no one in the entire magical school - filled to the brim with student of various nationalities - would be able to recognize it as the Cyryllic alphabet? (Are you telling me that Maxwell Aster is one of the Englishmen who are, unfortunately, very ignorant about the world at large? A pity. I really liked him before that. Everyone has flaws and all, but it's sad that such ignorance would be one of his.) 

Are you trying to tell me that the Cyryllic alphabet is SO obscure that there are only three people in Galileo who can read it?

• Professor Septimius Dropwort
• Professor Nora Vaughan-Crabtree
• Delfina Moore
  

None of whom are Slavic, of course, because apparently the school's inclusivity policitics don't include Slaves (who knew, right?!), and all of whom learnt the Cyryllic alphabet to seem cool and worldly because, as we all know, knowing the Cyryllic alphabet is a niche little thing that won't get you anywhere in life so you need to be a bit of a weirdo to want to learn it in the first place. It's like telling someone that you know Old-Church-Slavonic. It's definetely not an alphabet that is used by over fifty different languages in Europe and Asia. It's definetely not something that could aid you in travelling... 

(Have I told you already that this school is regularly moving from country to country Howl's Moving Castle's style, with the current location being Sweden and the future one, Turkmenistan? No? It doesn't matter. I'm sure there's a spell that'll protect the eyes of poor English speakers from seeing the signs written in the Cyryllic alphabet when the time comes. You need to dose foreign exposure. Otherwise, these poor kids may learn that Eastern Europe exists!)

Also, what, I cannot emphasise it enough, THE FUCK, do you mean that the note was written in the Cyryllic alphabet?

• Do you mean that it was written in English but merely transliterated into the Cyryllic alphabet?
  
• Do you mean that it was written into any of over fifty languages that use the Cyryllic alphabet? 
• If you mean the latter, then WHY don't you ever specify which language the note was written in? You surely don't intend to imply that Delfina knows over fifty languages that use the Cyryllic alphabet but for some reason can't tell them apart? That she knows these languages perfectly but telling you the actual name of the language would be beyond her?

What, THE FUCK, do you mean?

"Delfina was determined to find out at least what the note said, and the first course of action was to call for help from her ancestors.

She sat in front of the door, her back to it in case anyone else tried to barge in and interrupt her, and she smoothed the parchment in front of her. It had been torn from a larger sheet. Still, she could read the message as clearly as if someone were dictating its meaning in her ear, a real-time interpreter from the beyond.

She had learned to read the Cyryllic alphabet her second year at Galileo. She had been sick in bed for two weeks after, like every time she used her powers. Any suffering was worth it, though. Even now, she felt the jolt of excitement and surprise when the meaning of the words jumped to her from marks that to other people didn't mean anything. It was like a window into a different world. Another language added in her armory to free her people.

Now she read, soundlessly mouthing the words not even the walls could eavesdrop on her. At Galileo, the walls had ears and eyes no one could see." (p.384)

Let's drop the fact if she was mouthing the words, then if she was being observed by someone who knew the language and could read from lips, her precautions would be all for nothing. As we've established, there are no Slavic people (or non-Slavic freaks who know Slavic languages, aside from Delfina herself) studying in Galileo. Delfina's safe.

Let's establish what we know now based on this snippet:

1. The note is written in the Cyryllic alphabet.   

2. Delfina can read the Cyryllic alphabet because she learnt it herself with magic.

3. Yamile Saied Méndez believes that the Cyryllic alphabet is a singular language. It's clear by the way in which she structures the line "Another language added in her armory to free her people" (384) but it's also the only explanation that makes all of THIS make any sense because in the context of the note's actual content (referencing a Fabergé egg and the Romanov dynasty), I'm fairly sure that by "the Cyryllic alphabet", the author actually meant "Russian". Except "Russian" doesn't sound half as fancy as "the Cyryllic alphabet"... or perhaps the author is just stupid and didn't bother to do any language-related research despite writing a character whose very superpower is language-related, and neither the two authors overseeing the whole project, Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen, nor any hypothetical editors of the book, bothered to check whether Yamile Saied Méndez isn't writing complete bullshit and, thus, ruining a vital clue at the end of the book.

I literally bought this book for Margaret Owen. My respect for her plummeted drastically. 

What a way to ruin the chapter and, with it, the whole book! 

1. You're heavily implying that Slavic people are not welcome in Galileo. EXTREMELY not welcome. There are not even nth generation Slavic immigrants who could at least vaguely recognize the Cyryllic alphabet for what it is. Not a single Slav managed to sneakily enroll into Galileo. We're not talking about Slavs. We can reference that there's a magical bird in Eastern Europe, we can mention a Fabergé egg and the Romanov dynasty in the actually-Russian note, but we WON'T give you any Slavic characters in Galileo. They don't exist. I'm laughing through tears that in Galileo you can be accepted for being queer but you'll be banned for being Slavic. If you're a Slavic queer? Sorry, this magical school fantasy is NOT for you. Galileo is aiming to be more inclusive, but being Slavic is a bit too inclusive, you know. You need to be more understanding. Try in the next century.

2. You're offending Slavs by treating the Cyryllic alphabet as a stand in for Russian. It very much is not. In fact, it's used by languages of countries that either still are or used to be subjugated and opressed by Russia. Including languages such as Belarussian and Ukrainian in which cases Russia actively tried to eradicate them and force their native speakers to speak Russian instead with way too much success. Slavs are all too used to being considered Russia and Russia-lite by mainstream media, but it doesn't mean that we're happy with it. And being done so dirty by a book that's trying its hardest to promote diversity? It really fucking sucks. I expected BETTER.

3. You couldn't squeeze in a Slavic character and wanted Delfina to handle the translating? FINE. But at least don't be ignorant and stupid, and don't ruin what would be otherwise a fine clue by acting as if the Cyryllic alphabet was obscure, mystic and oh, so difficult to read.

And then when you think that they've run out of disappointment and the story will be on the right track? 

Jessica Lewis's Ivy Barta ruins the remainder of the investigation plot.

She's the only character who's actually harmful to the plot. Keturah Austin was annoying and atrociously badly written to the point where she's my most hated Grimoire character but at least she was harmless, with a very limited impact on the plot. Meanwhile Ivy is not only an insufferable know-it-all who you want to personally strangle but also this brilliant kid detective who - gotcha! - managed to connect a vast majority of the dots on her own where everyone else was clueless or fumbling around. You fool, you thought that every little personal investigation will matter and in the end the murder mystery will be solved thanks to the collabarative effort? No need when a noisy prodigy is here! All these investigations that you've been following so far? To hell with them! And now that Ivy's here, she'll be here to connect the remainder of the dots - herself or with Delfina's help, neither of which helps much because all the dots that are connected during her investigation are disappointing and frustrating. Do you want to know what happened to Sidney? No, you don't. You really don't. Do you want to know who killed Dropwort? Skip this chapter - you'll get the answer anyway and it'll be conveyed in a less annoying way.

I'm at my wits's end WHY Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen let Jessica Lewis to have a detective character, WHY they let Ivy have so much power over the plot compared to other characters and WHY neither Jessica Lewis, nor her character have been reined in when the plot's chapter started going too far. And yes, it went too far, even if you want to pretend that Ivy's is actually a joint chapter between her and Delfina (with a few lines about Sidney). 

The worst thing is that there ARE so many options to let Ivy remain a detective of some sort, yet have her more in-line with the rest of the characters. If she were a passionate detective amateur like Shivanaya from Jamie's chapter, I wouldn't bat an eye. (Come to think about it, we were ROBBED for getting Ivy instead of Shivanaya. I really liked Shiv. It's Ivy who should've stayed a minor background character.) If she turned out to be the missing link between all the characters so far - the one who knew them all, directly or not, and could base her deductions off theirs? Again, lovely! But nooo, Ivy had to be the specialest girl in Galileo, to hell with the story's investigation plot or even Ivy's own plausibility as a character (because let me tell you that Ivy's not only a self-appointed detective but also a hired spy! Yes, they hired this teen as spy after they heard about she successfully solved one murder mystery at her own school. Isn't Ivy the coolest? It's very telling that in the world of numerous chosen ones, Ivy was the only one who crossed the line of any believability).

And the conclusion? Preschool black-and-white morality strikes again. All the bigots in the novel are revealed to be criminals. [big spoilers]Dropwort was a thief and a smuggler. Ladybird was a thief and a murderer. Fornax was a kidnapper and a murderer.[/big spoilers] What a neat line between the diverse cast of kids and adults who are all Good (well, except for Marieke Nijkamp's character Wren who's a bit morally shady), and bigots who all end up revealed to be actual criminals. Geez, yeah, bigotry is bad and different kinds of evil often come in pairs, but can you be less heavy-handed about this? Do you even realize that many people start out as bigots but grow out of it? Do you realize that we're all capable of holding horrible beliefs and that we're growing to be better people each day? Do you realize that being queer or belonging to any other marginalized group does not make you a saint with perfectly correct opinions about all things and absolutely no room for growth? Because, goodness, at one point I started wondering whether being queer and/or otherwise marginalized is a Magical Shield against being an awful person or a straight out criminal. Bless Marieke Nijkamp for giving the representation to queer people who aren't all perfectly morally upstanding but also... goodness gracious, why is Marieke the only one? Why are the proportions here so messed up? [big spoilers]I'm not telling you that Professor Dropwort HAD to be murdered by any of the students or the staff who were affected by his bigoted comments (though if they did kill them, that's very understandable and I wouldn't judge them for snapping), but[/big spoilers] why is that every mildly nasty person in the book is revealed to have skeletons in their closet? I know that it's a fantasy book about a magic school, but, please, maintain some plausibility. Let some character's biggest crime remain, for example, homophobia. You don't need to upstage it with, for example, murder. I assure you that there are plenty of homophobes who aren't also murderers.

Overall, my feelings about this book are very complicated and refuse to be cointained in any short phrase. I loved the inclusivity (though, again, it sucked that the authors, I'm fairly sure completely unintentionally alienated all Slavic people reading it). My mind was positively blown away by the story's magic system, the breadth and the creativity of the characters's powers. I learnt about many great authors whom I'd love to check out later (opened by Darcie Little Badger whose Taya became my very first favourite character in Grimoire) and, until Delfina and Ivy's chapters, I was having almost non-stop fun. However, as a detective story, Grimoire fails miserably. The investigations are wrapped up in a very disappointing way. The story attempts to save itself at the end with a solid Lupita chapter and the final staff interlude, but by that point, the damage's done. Percentage-wise, I liked much more of the book than I disliked, yet the ending was such a huge disappointment that I can't genuinely say that I liked this book overall. Read it at your own risk.

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Citations from the paperback edition of The Grimoire of Grave Fates written by Hanna Alkaf and Margaret Owen, published by Delacorte Press in 2023.