An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah Bobet

An Inheritance of Ashes by Leah BobetI chose to request this title because I have read some of Leah Bobet’s short stories and enjoyed them. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect from An Inheritance of Ashes, and what I got was definitely not what I expected. This is not your typical story, and that’s what makes it powerful. It’s a war story without a war. It’s a class story where the classes are defined by conformity. And it’s a personal story in the sense that the reader is sucked into the assumptions and misunderstandings of the characters.

The book begins with a prologue, with a horrible moment in Hallie’s life that is excruciating, evocative, and yet the true meaning only becomes clear as you read the rest. The person who chooses to skip it will lose something of value, and that largely defines the whole book. Every piece builds together to create situations where Hallie, her family, and friends have to twist their way through complex moral and social decisions where the answer isn’t always clear, nor are the consequences.

The story is about good people trying to do the right thing and failing. It explores the dangers inherent in hero worship and the need to take risks whether in an attempt to understand each other or the world you live in.

It’s a powerful narrative that had me in tears more than once as it struggled through the costs of war and the complications of family and history. There is a lot in here that is gut-wrenching and totters on the edge of despair. It never falls down that cliff, though, because no matter how wrongheaded she might be, Hallie doesn’t hurt people on purpose, and she runs toward the future instead of shying from it.

It might sound as though I’m talking around the story, but the truth is this book must be experienced. Giving you pieces would simultaneously spoil some elements and make no sense at all.

For example, the feel is fantasy medieval with the focus on farming communities and working by hand. As the story unfolds, though, you learn it’s post-apocalyptic but that the destruction of technological society is no more than a curiosity. It happened so long ago that the attitudes grown out of that time have more importance than the remnants of the world you know. Then you have magical elements, but how much are they magical? Having been cast back into a pre-technology world, the question is more complicated than you might expect and ties into the greater conflicts within the story.

In my reading, I care little for genre conventions and more for the characters. An Inheritance of Ashes offers a large cast with complicated interrelationships and fascinating personal histories that grab hold of your sympathies and drag you through the ringer with the characters. This is not an easy or light read, though it has its moments. At the same time, I would recommend it wholeheartedly. The story is good if untraditional and the meaning behind the experiences is crucial. Most definitely a thinking novel, but one that doesn’t require you to notice how much you’re thinking as you’re drawn into the escalating events in the characters within them.

P.S. I received this title from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

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