Series Info/Source: This is a stand alone book. I got this on audiobook for review from NetGalley.

Thoughts: I listened to this on audiobook. I stopped listening to this about 33% of the way in. This is my second time attempt to listen to this and I really struggled to stay interested in it. I gave it a second try because I got it for review and I don't like to DNF review books. I usually don't give DNFs below 3* but the way I struggled with the story (trying to get through it multiple times), combined with the poor audiobook quality on this one put it in 2* territory for me.

The world here is very confusing; there is never a plausible explanation for why the names of everything would have gone away; I struggled to wrap my mind around this. The only information you get is that the names of things were lost "when something fell from the something tree".

I also struggled a lot with the characters; they are hard to picture and relate to. There is a whole culture around naming things and divining the names of things. Given that I just couldn't get over my disbelief of everything losing its name, I really struggled to understand the plot and the motivation for the characters.

Things did get more interesting about 25% of the way through the book, however they also got more confusing. It's revealed that our main character (a nameless courier) can dream nightmares into existence. I thought, "wow that is interesting, maybe this is getting better". Then suddenly, we were in a very long story about the founding of the city of Whisper that didn't seem to have much to do with our main protagonist, and I was like "What the heck am I listening to now?"

I did get this on audiobook and I would not recommend it. The narrator's voice is both raspy and kind of whispering, and I found it grating and unpleasant to listen to. Maybe if I have gotten this book to review in ebook format rather than audiobook I would have gotten farther in? Honestly, I probably would have just skimmed the boring parts, which would be the whole beginning of the book.

Not sure what to say about this one. It is creative and different. However, it leaves any sort of logical thinking or plausibility behind, and I struggle to read a sci-fi where nothing I am reading makes any sense at all.

My Summary (2/5): Overall I did not enjoy this book. It is a creative premise that is never well explained and seems implausible. The story only gets more confusing as it goes along. There were elements of the story I found intriguing, like the never ending train journeys, nameless monsters, and dreaming nightmares into reality. However, I could never quite figure out what was going on and lost interest in this. I did give this a shot a couple of times but couldn't make it through. It didn't help that I found the narrator's voice for the audiobook grating and hard to listen to.

Thanks to NetGalley, the Publisher and Author for an eARC of the audio of this work in exchange for my review.

The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry is an extraordinary, magical novel about the power of names and the power of being unnamed. It is a captivating story about a world where magic and meaning entwine with stories of self-discovery, revolution, and the power of language.

The world of the Naming Song is a post-apocalyptic dystopia in which words and language are taken away and as they were rediscovered, committees rose to create order from the chaos. The book is full of magic, whimsy, intrigue, and danger. it manages to be many things at once and yet completely unique.

firstly, thank you to the publisher for a physical arc and an ALC!

unfortunately, dnf'd @27% - the concept was interesting, and the narrator did a fine job as well, but just did not hold my attention. i think i will eventually give this another chance

This book was fantastic. The world building was amazing and it was nothing like I have ever read before. I received the audiobook arc via Net galley and I am super thankful for that. It was dystopian/fantasy which may be my new favorite genre. The only problem I had was that it could have ended a lot sooner than it did. The ending was good but it felt a little unnecessary.

I DNF'd this simply because I didn't like the voice actor. The narration was stilted and full of upspeak. I would consider reading the print, as I do like the premise of this title.

This book was difficult to understand at first due to the complex premise where things can’t be said due to the nature of language in this world. It felt like a dream but also like mythology - by the end I was picturing our characters are gods ruling over their creation even tho that is not what is happening. It is worth pushing through and just going with it while it feels a bit like a fever dream.

There are parts of The Naming Song that I loved. The beginning introducing the system of delivery of words is unique, poetic, and beautiful. Two, Book, and the stowaway are brilliant characters I enjoyed immediately. The story of Hand and Moon is the stuff of myth and Shadow. I loved so much of this, and yet it took me nearly three months to get through reading. The introduction is beautifully written, yes, but also incredibly disorienting. It took me to 40% through to be able to understand the basics. What are monsters? What are ghosts? Who are the sayers?! The difficulty with world-building made reading much less enjoyable than I wanted it to be, and the rest of the novel has ups (Black Square everything) and downs (so much traveling) in that regard. I am happy I finished this book, but I'm also relieved. I wish this ended about 7% sooner than it did as well, and that's because this book felt a bit drawn out.
I listened to the audio and switched between the ebook and audiobook frequently to try to better understand the story. The audiobook narrator has a beautiful lilting voice, but she spoke very fast and did not help my understanding of the story as I often found myself zoning out the audio, which is unusual for me.
This may come across negatively overall, but in fact, there were parts of this story that will stay with me for a long while still. I truly did enjoy it once I was situated within the context of this strange place of magic and make believe after the Silence.
Thanks to NetGalley, Tor, and Macmillan Audio for this ARC!

Alexa, play Nobody's Soldier by Hozier
I am constantly looking for something new, that breaks away from expectations and trends, and this book was just that: wholly unique. This theater kid epic, full of intrigue and curiosity, is hard to pin down. Berry spends this one-of-a-kind novel celebrating the ability of story to shape the world we live in, and the power held in carving a story of your own. It had me mystified, pulling me through this narrative not by a need to find answers to its questions but by a joy of traversing the unknowns.
Theater kids, lovers of language, storytellers of all kinds, folks who are fans of the journey rather than the destination, I implore you to check out this dystopian literary fantasy.
The audiobook version was fairly solid, and the narrator was efficient but middle-of-the-road for me. However, due to the complexities and ambiguity of the world and use of language, I did have a harder time following along to this via audio.
Thank you so much to Jedediah, NetGalley, and TOR for sending me an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The Naming Song entices you to enter a world built around the power of language. What has been named and can be controlled? How is that power of control wielded? And what goes nameless, and seeks to haunt the world? These themes swirl around scholars aboard a train dedicated to furthering knowledge, but just out of reach is an understanding of the things that have gone nameless. These scholars (who frequently feel like they might as well be wizards) live side-by-side with ghosts, coexisting almost casually. It's that blatant supernatural element that really teases you to understand how the world works, and to see what relationships the living and dead have in their world.

I really loved this book. I had high hopes based on the marketing blurb, which called it a "fantasy in the spirit of Miyazaki and del Toro," and I could definitely see both influences in this story. I love language, and a book about words and their power is perfect for me. The strange companions and found family and queerness included were bonuses I didn't expect. I loved the worldbuilding, the characters and their growth, and the evocative writing. Narrator Marisa Calin gave an engaging and dynamic performance throughout that kept me hooked, brought the characters to life, and paced the story well. I loved luxuriating in this audiobook and I think you will, too, if you like fantasy and language!

I saw a recent QOTD that asked what was the last book that surprised me, and I now have an answer! Going into The Naming Song I expected something heavily fantasy and magic-based, but what I got was nearly dystopian with magic that wasn’t magic—until it was! I think the best way to describe this book is literary magical realism??? The world of the Naming Song is a post-apocalyptic dystopia in which the apocalypse took away words and language and as words were rediscovered, committees rose to create order from the chaos.

This book is so hard to describe because it has a fantasy feel despite it’s dystopian plot; I’d almost call it a cozy mystery as the MC, the unnamed courier who straddles both the world of the named (as a courier) and the borders of the nameless (having no name herself), begins to unravel a web of connections between the two worlds and find answers to who she is how the world should be vs. how those with the power of naming want it to be.

It was so interesting to me that this world essentially used magic but in a way that made it more like science and technology—there are ghosts and monsters, but their explanations for being seem perfectly scientific and not magical at all. Later in the book there is a way to use words called spelling (and I absolutely adored the wordplay because in a world when words are being rediscovered and there is no name even for the alphabet, spelling might not mean the same thing to them as it does to us, but of course reeks of magic!) that causes reality to bend in the way the user needs it to—for instance, saying “light” but using spell illuminates an area, or spelling “sleep” will knock unconscious the people around the speller! This book straddles science and magic the same way the inhabitants of the book live in between the named and unnamed!

This book was entertaining and thought-provoking—so clearly carefully crafted—down to the very last word and was so pleasantly surprising, it was absolutely five stars!

The Naming Song was a Macmillan Audio pick!

Sorry to say this was a definite DNF for me…
I’m at 52% in with close to 8 hours LEFT of the book…
And, it lost my interest a couple of hours ago…

Funny thing is that NetGalley states it is 14 hours 54 minutes in length. That’s long to start with! And then, when I begin it Monday morning, the actual book states it is 16 hours and 28 minutes long…. ????

Ok. So we begin with The Courier delivering ‘names’…
The whole world needs to be named, and it’s her job to help out with this. She herself, the main female character, does NOT have a name. (???)

So, I’m starting the book and I’m already lost…

A few hours in, I realize that I’m actually enjoying parts of it! This is a good sign!! The courier is trying to locate her sister ‘Ticket’. And this is interesting. So I’m invested again…a bit. But that too was short lived.

This was very difficult to follow in so many ways. Although the premise sounded good, I wasn’t enjoying the story enough to invest that much time into it. Sorry to say…

Thanks so much to #NetGalley and #MacmillanAudio for an ARC of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review. Sorry this one is not good, but this one was just NOT FOR ME. Way too many hours left in the book, and little to no interest left in continuing…

The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry and narrated nicely ( at least for the first 8 hours or so) by Marisa Calin.

2 ⭐️⭐️ for me.

Release date is TODAY, 9/24/24.

I like the creativity and cleverness of the author. This book gave me "The Giver" vibes, where you are in a future dystopian setting where dictators have erased the words for everything so it is very hard for the people to remember or know what anything is. This story does show the dangers of letting people in power rename, change, or distort our history to fit their agendas. There is a powerful lesson in this book.

I just found this book hard to understand and get into. The beginning was a little rough. I had to push through the beginning and force myself to keep reading to understand what was going on in the world and the roles of the characters. I also didn't feel an attachment to the main character.

I like the idea and potential of this book, but ultimately, it just wasn't great for me.

4.5 / 5 stars

The Naming Song is a beautifully written fantasy set in a unique dystopia where all language was lost and must be found again. The narrative follows an unnamed courier who is tasked with delivering newly divined words out to the world. However, she find herself fleeing the life she knows when she is caught up in a plot of betrayal and monstrous attacks. Accompanied by a ghost, a monster of her own making, and a mysterious stowaway creature, the courier sets out to find her long-lost sister, who may have the answers she is seeking.

Reading this book brought to mind so many other wonderful fantasies, and I suspect that the author has incorporated them intentionally. Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, and The Wizard of Oz are specifically called out by the narrative. (But not named, because those names have been lost.) The dreamlike, not fully explained world with its conflicts between ghosts and war machines feels very much like a Studio Ghibli film (Howl's Moving Castle particularly comes to mind). The monster Oh, which is part train, part cat, and part dragon, would be right at home alongside Totoro's famous Catbus. The importance of words and of naming things felt akin to The Wizard of Earthsea. The roving band of performers seeking to restore history to a fallen world with their plays brought to mind Station Eleven. Living one's entire life on a moving train after disaster reminded me of Snowpiercer. The narrative plays with all of our previously conceived notions of a dystopian tale and creates something I found unique and lovely.

Marisa Calin's narration is a perfect fit for the book. Her lilting voice fits the dreamy tone and she kept the pacing of action scenes clear and easy-to-follow. I especially loved her choices for dialogue delivered by the courier's monster. Just perfection.

The story did feel perhaps a bit on the long side, which is why I can't quite give it five stars. The world-building is excellent and I could immerse myself in this version of my world following a horrible disaster. But a bit of trimming on the exposition and setting could have kept things moving a bit more briskly.

This book is an excellent choice for anyone who loves the Studio Ghibli films and has longed for a novel-version of their aesthetic. This is perhaps one of the most beautiful books that I have read this year and I will be thinking about it for a long time.

This review will be posted to Goodreads and Instagram (@goodquietkitty) on September 21, 2o24.

I've been trying to listen to the audiobook of *The Naming Song* by Jedediah Berry for several days now, but I just can't get through it. The narration is extremely odd, and it's been difficult to follow the story because of it. While I usually enjoy unique styles, this one felt distracting rather than enhancing the experience. That said, the premise and writing still intrigue me, and I believe the book itself holds a lot of potential. I'll probably pick up a physical copy instead because I think the story will resonate better for me that way.

Probably one of my top listens of the year, so original and delightful. I haven’t read any thing by the author and hope to find more!

I couldn’t get into this book. It sounded like a really interesting premise but the narrator was not for me. I wasn’t able to focus on the story due to the inflections of the teller. What I did retain wasn’t interesting enough for me to push through.

The concept for The Naming Song and its promise to offer a story “in the spirit of Haya Miyazaki and Guillermo del Toro” sucked me in like black hole to this title. My hopes were so high, but the inspiration got lost in the execution for me. Berry’s narration style flows with poetic language, but it grasps for mystery with a telling that reveals too little at a time to build suspense without causing lasting confusion. The narrator’s voice is pleasant enough, but the stilted pacing exacerbates the obscurity of the text, and I just couldn’t get through it and had to DNF.

My thanks to Macmillan Audio for the ALC, for which I willingly give my own, honest opinion.

Unfortunately not for me. In a world with SO many books being published, I just don't see this as a must in our collection.

• set in a fantasy world that entirely revolves around the power that names & language give to objects, people, & ideas
• beautiful language & descriptions accompany the adventure the narrator must embark on
• the structure of the book is as important as what the book says
• if you liked ‘the starless sea,’ you’ll enjoy this one