I got this book through NetGalley to review. I am a huge fan of Carey’s Kushiel’s books and also enjoyed her Agent of Hel series. This ended up being a well done retelling of The Tempest. This is a beautiful story that is constantly overshadowed with a feeling of doom. It was well written, easy to read, and I enjoyed it.

Miranda is raised on an island alone with her father Prospero. Her only occasional company is the wild boy that also lives on the island. Her father initially makes it his goal to civilize Caliban but doesn’t take into account how close Miranda and Caliban will become with each other as sole companions.

It’s a beautifully written book with a dark undertone to it. Prospero is very mentally abusive and manipulative of both Miranda and Caliban. As a reader you sense this heavy cloud of doom looming over the entire story...you just know that Prospero has a larger game he is playing and it isn’t going to be good for Miranda or Caliban.

I read the Tempest a long long time ago so I am having trouble drawing comparisons between the two. Despite that I enjoyed this beautifully written and melancholy story. I found it strangely compelling and had trouble putting the book down.

Overall I enjoyed this and would recommend. The book is beautifully written and strangely engaging. It’s not a story that will lift your spirits but it is well done.

Miranda has grown up very lonely, with only her father and their animals to keep her company. Her father is a powerful magus, and says they must live this way to keep her safe. Then, a wild boy shows up, and everything starts to change. Miranda is growing up, and maybe, when she becomes a woman her father will finally tell her who she is and why they are hiding. This book was ok for me. I am a big fan of Jacqueline Carey, but this was not my favorite.

This Tempest retelling is imaginative and unique, portraying the perspectives of Miranda and Caliban, and will make you rethink the play you may have read in school. It is a fabulous story for fans and those who have never read the play alike! Focusing on their perspective, the plot of The Tempest is slowly revealed in an expertly devised way. The world building is great, but the characters are what makes this story so unique.

Caliban’s character is by far my favorite, and the one that made me the most emotional. His learning of language is fascinating and his implicit trust and love for Miranda is touching. At the heart of this novel, is a coming of age story for both protagonists, which can be a challenge. However, it is well written and I was rooting for both of them! While I could definitely empathize with Miranda, I also wanted her to do more, to be more curious, and rebellious. I never really rooted for her or Prospero when I read the play in high school, and this retelling picks up right where I left off. The depths of my feelings for Caliban were intensified and complicated by this story.

The measure of a truly great retelling is when it changes your opinions and views of the original. I have to say that this story definitely does that for me.

In Act 1, Scene 2 of The Tempest, Prospero launches a virulent verbal attack on his servant Caliban: he is 'filth', a 'poisonous slave', 'hag-seed'. He has greeted all Prospero's efforts to civilise him with brutish indifference and, worst of all, he has repaid the magician's kindnesses by trying to debauch Prospero's young daughter Miranda. The play, like the island, is dominated by Prospero's will and superficially we see nothing to counteract this stinging denunciation. But, if we look more closely, there are hints that all may not be so simple. Jacqueline's Carey elegant novel draws out some of these allusions and offers a subtle retelling of the story, in which a childhood friendship between two motherless children develops into a heartbreaking study of the loss of innocence.

This is perhaps the most satisfying thing about the book: the way that, by telling the story from a slightly different angle, Carey reverses the traditional labels of hero and villain. Prospero is a vengeful, power-hungry magician who rules his small domain with tyrannical precision. His daughter and his servant boy are controlled not by kindness but by the threat of magical punishment (and Carey deals well with the magic, which feels less like the sorcery of high fantasy and more like a very successful form of alchemy). He brooks no opposition to his plans, even if to bring them about he must resort to controlling the blossoming of the human heart. And yet, lest that sound too black-and-white, there is an element of humanity here: this Prospero, too, is a man broken and lost, exiled from his home and left to rely on his own resources in a kingdom whose subjects - for the most part - are sylphs and sprites, a mocking reminder of the people he formerly ruled in Milan.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to tackle Shakespeare on his home turf, but Carey adopts a beautiful, gently archaic prose style which suits the subject very well and blends effortlessly into the events of The Tempest proper. Shrewd and sensitive, it fleshes out the members of Prospero's unusual household and gives a voice to characters who, in the play itself, are little better than pawns in their master's game of political expedience. Definitely recommended to those who like to delve into their Shakespeare a little more deeply.

The full review will be published on 10 February 2017 on my blog at the following link:
https://theidlewoman.net/2017/02/10/miranda-and-caliban-jacqueline-carey

I'll probably give anything by Jacqueline Carey a chance. I'm not a huge Shakespeare fan, and I wasn't really sure if I'd like something retelling The Tempest. But it's Jacqueline Carey's work, so I requested it anyway. And... I loved it quite a bit. I wasn't sure about the narration: honestly, Miranda sounded rather like Phèdre in many ways, and far too mature considering the narration is present tense, even when she's a small child. I wasn't sure about Caliban's narration either, because I'm not a fan of broken English portrayed in fiction -- it quite often comes out sounding like mockery.

But all the same, the writing has grace to it, and it's certainly easy to read and absorb, despite the tendency to thee and thou. (I wish Ariel didn't say "Oh, la!" like he was from Pride and Prejudice or something, though. It always sounds far too comical for me.)

The relationship between Miranda and Caliban, their tenderness for each other as each helps the other, is well done. The portrayal of Prospero as a somewhat abusive father who sometimes nonetheless shows tenderness for his daughter makes perfect sense, and so does the way his behaviour pushes the two together. Ariel's capriciousness and ambivalence works, too.

The only problem, really, is that you know how it's going to end. I found myself hoping all the same that it would end differently -- it's a retelling, after all. But at the same time, there's always that sense of inevitability: you know what's going to happen. I don't think there's anything revolutionary about this telling, but it humanises Caliban and makes of him much less of a monster, and more of a lover. The ending gave me a lump in my throat: his hope, despite Ariel's warnings, despite Miranda's doubts. It's so tender and naive.

[Review goes live 17/02/2017.]

I'm not sure if it was me, but I just couldn't get into this one. Sorry! Great concept, but the writing didn't hook me.

Ah, I've missed Carey's writing. I won't lie. I missed the way she could evoke emotion and make me experience the world as if I were there, too.

That being said, anyone who is a Shakespeare enthusiast such as myself will recognize that this is a retelling of The Tempest, which made me clap my hands because MIRANDA AND CALIBAN...forget Ferdinand! Except this is a retelling of the story through Miranda and Caliban's eyes, it watches them each grow, and for Caliban we see him grow so much, it does not differ in the end from the original, ahem...sorry folks!

Caliban is a native to the island where he 'rules' but when Prospero is banished with his daughter to the island he takes over as the 'ruler' and seeks to tame this wild savage known as Caliban. The boy befriends Miranda and she helps aid in his schooling, together they grow and childhood friendships begins to blossom into something more.

As I stated above, Carey builds worlds (or in this instance embellishes it to make it her own) and places you on this island along with everyone else, that part was seamless for me.

The characters, Carey knows how to create some three-dimensional ones and I adore the way she wrote Ariel. I believe she did him justice!

Now what made this book rating difficult for me was that we tread the water for so long, and I felt as though I were holding my breath for something to happen and it never did. I was expecting something or anything to take place and then at the end (last 10 pages) everything happened and I was left blinking and wondering wait, what happened? So I had to read it again. This made me waver on my rating... 3.5? ... urgh, no because the writing is well done, the retelling is well done...but the but kept it from a 5.

The end felt rushed and too uneventful. I was waiting for SOMETHING.

Alas, nothing, but....it was still a great read, especially for those who are mega Carey fans.

Also, if you have NOT read The Tempest by Shakespeare, please don't before this book. It'll be one giant spoiler at the end. ;)

Il romanzo prende spunto da La Tempesta di Shakespeare, senza esserne una rivisitazione. Come chiarito dal titolo, la storia si concentra sui personaggi di Miranda e Caliban, soprattutto nella fase che precede la storia del Bardo. Soltanto negli ultimi capitoli, questa viene rappresentata. Preciso di non avere un particolare amore per La Tempesta, quindi cambi e stravolgimenti - anche nel tono, che nel romanzo non è affatto comico - non mi hanno turbato.
Il romanzo, in generale, funziona. La storia, un po' prevedibile, è l'innamoramento dei due. Personaggio fondamentale - forse il più complesso - è Prospero, quello che più dà dinamismo al romanzo. L'autrice è brava a rendere il rapporto fra i due protagonisti e le loro relazioni con Prospero. Abbastanza efficaci sono i rimandi magico-religiosi. Infastidisce un po' la prosa che, sempre un tantino troppo ricercata nelle opere della Carey, qui raggiunge una voluta pomposità - forse in omaggio al Bardo - che francamente a tratti stanca.
Chi conosce l'autrice non si stupirà nello scoprire che il romanzo tocca spesso il tema a lei caro di cosa sia il bene e cosa il male. Non mi pare però vi sia altro intento che intrattenere il lettore. E forse vendere un po', cosa che auguro all'autrice, il cui successo commerciale nell'ultimo decennio si è rapidamente appannato.
In sintesi, una lettura scorrevole e piacevole, priva di spunti di originalità ma non banale, che mi ha tenuto una buona compagnia in un periodo di grande stress.

This is a familiar story, but it's told in such an engaging way that I couldn't put it down. I was desperate to find out what happened next, even though I (and anyone else familiar with The Tempest) knew how it had to end. I loved it, it made me cry.

Miranda and Caliban by Jacqueline Carey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thanks to Netgalley for this ARC!

There's a lot going for this tale as long as you're a certain type of reader. You must love Shakespeare's Tempest, but even if you don't, you might still get a kick out of this retelling from the points of view of Miranda and Caliban switching back and forth from early childhood through the events of the play.

I would definitely recommend this for general fans of YA fiction, for one, because most of the novel if not the action revolves around childhood friends and the stresses of growing up under one hell of an absolute tyrant who never lets his wards even guess that he controls every aspect of their lives. Oh, Prospero.

It's fine for what it is, but if you're aware of the play, you know that this budding tale of thwarted romance between the dark boy and the rightful Duke of Milan's daughter, you also know that it is a tragedy.

The play is only a romance if you identify with certain characters.

This novel invites us to love Caliban, and his is definitely not a happy tale.

We're grown-up readers, right? We can handle a bit of disappointment at the end of a book, right? This isn't an Alternate retelling of the play. This is a straight-up retelling of the play with many added dimensions and depth, but the results are still the same.

For me? I appreciate what the book was trying to accomplish and I got a lot of out it on that level, but by the time I was invested in the tale, I was just cringing because of what I knew was going to happen.

I'm hedging on this one. I can appreciate the writing and the premise as far as that goes, but my own enjoyment was curtailed by the rest.

However, since this was the first book by the author that I've read and I've heard a lot of good things about her other works, it behooves me to pick them up and see if it was just the subject matter that was painful and not the writing. :)