The Naming Song is on the literary end of the fantasy spectrum, with a mystery/suspense plot taking backstage to the world-building. This is a world in which all of the words were lost long ago and now some people are researching to find words while others are dispatched to share the discovered words with the populace. There's also some stuff with ghosts being incinerated for fuel and monsters summoned by people who are "unnamed," like the main character.
Mostly, I was confused. The ideas are big, the narrative is disjointed and I struggled to tell people apart because of the world's naming conventions. Some of the ideas didn't make sense to me when I stepped away for a bit. For example, when a new word is first shared, a messenger is sent to deliver it to a specific, relevant person first. The narrator hates delivering some words because she is forced to give sad and difficult words she knows will hurt the person she shares them with. This makes sense at first, but loses impact when we think of the fact that soon everyone will have that word.
It's possible some of these details were lost in the audio experience. While the narrator did an admirable job with the content, I don't believe this is a book best suited to audio. So much of the text is self-referential that I needed to re-read sentences and paragraphs to understand. I ended up switching to an ebook copy to make sense of things.
I'm sure this will be a great fit for many readers! Just not for me, sadly.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.25/5

The Naming Song is a whimsical, inspirational fantasy with quirky characters and a fascinating plot that hooked me from the first page.

I really enjoyed this one. The characters and world were interesting and well-developed. I loved the found family and how we saw the characters interact and develop throughout the story. I loved the way words and theater played into this fantasy. The queer characters and beautiful writing were captivating, and I adored how odd the entire tale was. This is not your regular story. It felt like Strange the Dreamer, with a little Divine Rivals and Someone You Can Build a Nest In. This story sparks conversation, and although the pacing was slow at times, and I found some aspects of the story difficult to remember, it was a great read.

Marisa Calin once again narrated this audiobook with the ideal amount of power, emotion, and depth. Her voice and performance added to the already immersive story. I would recommend listening on audio but reading along with the story (I did not have a physical copy but wished I did multiple times because I think the dual reading experience would be wonderful.)

Thank you to the publisher for the free ALC!

I'm so sadden to say that this was. a DNF at about 30%. The premise and mystique of this literary dystopian fantasy was so intriguing. The power of words was explored with such intensity in this book, but yet I couldn't connect to it. I couldn't keep my attention to the overall scenic drive throughout each section. Perhaps this shouldn't have been a listen but rather a focused read.

Each scene would hold my attention for a bit, but for the life of me, I couldn't recall what was happening in the previous scene. I also wasn't truly excited what would happen next or after this and that happened. I was intrigued, sure, by the setting and the way they talked, but not enough to get so absorbed in this world. I certainly appreciated the care and the intensity that. the author poured into this book, but unfortunately, I was most likely the wrong audience for this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for a copy of this audiobook. All opinions are my own.

The Naming Song is a lyrical meditation of the power of words and naming, imagining the arbiters of language bringing words and pronunciation to the community. In this train-bound society, this is a sacred act with special priest-like beings in charge exclusively to do this. It is a power that we take for granted, but made me think about how names and words relate to each other and what they name; what a language's words and grammar say about their culture; and how language evolves -- what catches on and what doesn't.
The novel itself is quite long and sprawling beyond the thoughts, but well worth the effort.

I’d been excited about this book for months. But my listening experience was like opening up a much anticipated toy at Christmas, only to find it broken.

First, the chapters are LONG. My audiobook is broken into only four chapters. The exposition goes on and on… and on. So if you like breaks, you’ll have to make your own somewhere along the way.

Then, the story. Umm… I don’t know what to say. The potential for whimsy is there. And yet. Nothing worked for me. The writing is very much telling, not showing. The characters didn’t come alive.

The narrator does a great job with the audiobook, but none of it was holding my attention.

DNF at 16%

A literary fantasy novel about words and ideas, and how naming things both enables broader use and yet constrains our understanding. There is a lot to absorb in this multi-layered journey as The Courier learns about herself and what happened to her family while she does her job of delivering words. There are train rides, ghosts, people in masks, Tarot cards, theatre performances, and dreams that create monsters. It's confusing, but that's part of the fun. Goodreads member Asher wrote a killer review and I suggest you read it if you are on the fence about this novel. The writing is beautiful if at times the meaning obscure. It's also on the longer side - the audiobook is 16+ hours - long enough to lose yourself in the world of the novel. I expect reading and savoring it is a better approach to the material, yet I happily consumed the audiobook and caught the flavor if not all the ingredients.
My thanks to the talented author, publisher, producer, and #NetGalley for early access to this audiobook for review purposes. Reserve your copy now in advance of its Sept. 24, 2024 publication date.

The Naming Song enters us into a world that sounds remarkably like our own, but one that's been changed after something fell from the something tree. In this world, it is the named versus the nameless, the named attempt to restore order to the world by convening diviners to come up with names provided by the Sayers, while they chase out the nameless from the world. Except, our narrator is an unnamed who is a Courier, responsible for bringing names of things provided by sayers to the world. The Courier soon finds herself on a mission as she tries to make sense of the world as she knows it.

The Naming Song contains a unique world that I keep thinking back to and is so expertly crafted by Jedediah Berry. I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator is absolutely incredible - she really captured me and held me along this ride. She captured so many different voices and her emotions felt like exactly true to what the characters would be feeling throughout the story. The world took me a minute to get my bearings and she helped anchor me.

While The Naming Song may be billed as a sci-fi/fantasy, it has a dystopian edge to it that I enjoyed. The number 12 train in the story reminded me of Snowpiercer, with hierarchy present and constant movement. The Black Square also had hints of Station Eleven and its Shakespeare troupe that goes around telling stories so that people remember what happened before and have a connection to the culture despite whatever else may be going on. Of course, the book is so much more than just those connections I made.

The importance of words, stories, and their meaning and what it means to name a thing is a theme that I'll continue to digest. Although one of the pieces that will stick with me most is how the world in The Naming Song runs on ghosts, as fuel for war machines, or as slaves, who are sometimes forced to continue the work that they did while they were living through their death.

If you're ready for a world of dystopian adventure with a hint of coming of age and some sci-fi vibes mixed in - this is the book for you and is one of my very favorites of the year. Thank you so much to NetGalley and to Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy.

I really liked the first 25%, but the majority of the book felt rather disjointed, feeling with the same kind of weird chaos as Wizard of Oz (there’s even a reference to Wizard of Oz itself, which is really weird because how on earth do they know what that is??)

It’s not exactly whimsical, but it doesn’t have much in the way of darkness. It’s a sort of literary “fantasy” about the power of words and the names of things - how the ones who define things have power over them but also how those who reject names exist outside of the limited boundaries created by the names.

I particularly grew bored with the ending after the climax was resolved. It just stretched on too long without much in the way of payoff.

But at least it was gay!

"The Naming Song" is an intriguing fantasy book that delves into a unique concept about the power of words and meaning. However, I sometimes found the audiobook confusing, I would have preferred a written version. It's a good read for those who enjoy thought-provoking fantasy novels focusing on language and its impact.

Thank you to NetGalley and to MacMillan Audio for the audio ARC of The Naming Song by Jedidiah Berry.

First, I'd like to compliment Marisa Calin's narration. Calin gives depth to each of the individual characters, many of whom are characterized by their cadence of speech and their use of words. There is an emphasis to each person - Book, 2, The Courier, Barrel, Seven, Six, O, Ticket, the Sayers ,etc. and it felt like each were given their voice that best lent itself to the reader and to the story itself.

As for the book, I just finished it about 2 hours ago, and I am still processing it. There is a lot happening within the 15 hours, and, after looking at the reviewers from the ebook version vs the audio version, it does feel a bit like we have drastically different opinions. I think another reviewer may have said it best in that this book, which is built upon the building of words, may be best read as opposed to listened to.

For me, the book seemed to be about a young woman, the Courier, as we know her, who lives in a world where words went away centuries before. There is a new society of The Named, built upon the work of ghosts, as when the dead die their ghosts remain physically on the earth to toil in fields and factories. There is some sort of committee-based government to divine and name the things of the world, and by removing (deleting) the name of a thing these committees can remove them from remembrance. Similarly, until a place on a map has been named, people cannot find it. When something is named, people, places, things, then it comes into existence. There is another society, the Nameless, who live in the unnamed spaces, generally avoiding the Named. They have been at war / are in a constant state of distrust of each other.

When we meet the Courier she is someone who delivers the names of things so that they can be brought into public consciousness and understanding. It is odd for a Nameless person to work for the Named, and many treat her with suspicion and apprehension, especially after an attack by the Nameless kills close to 20 people where the Courier is present. When the Courier is delivering another word and finds herself followed by these same Nameless, the story jumps into its first wave of plot.

Unfortunately, this is where the book started to lose me. The book description mentions that the Courier is forced to flee and seek her long-lost sister, but Ticket seems very much like an afterthought through the first 50% of the book, and the way her relationship is characterized is one of ignoring and dismissing the Courier and abandoning her to the dangerous experiments of their father. Instead, the Courier is fleeing, she is growing powers, she is saving her childhood friend, the Patchwork Ghost, she is joining a performing train troupe where she believes her sister may be, etc. etc. etc. There is SO much happening, but for me, the Courier seems to change directions on what she's trying to accomplish so many times that I honestly did not know why what was happening was happening in large chunks of it. I think, for me, the world building didn't make sense, and the society wasn't fleshed out enough to fully understand what the characters were trying to accomplish, and what the limits of the magic system were. An example: the Courier is able to remember people who were deleted - so is it magic? Is it symbolism for authoritarianism and oppression? When I got to the end, it just didn't make sense to me how things were accomplished in the plot. It also almost seemed like the battle lines between the Nameless and the Named were much, much, much more complicated by other factors, and in the end I could not piece them together coherently.

The Courier, though she had relationships with many people, still felt distant in all those relationships in a way that made it hard for me to care about them. She takes great risks for those she cares about, but on the next page she might be off doing something entirely different without them as though they are just passing flickers of emotion.

Part of me is now wondering if there is a metaphor here for colonization, exploitation and authoritarianism, but I can't seem to make it stick. My reflections on the story are a bit lost in the unnamed, very similarly to the world of The Naming Song.

All that being said, I listened to the whole story. The writing style itself is very beautiful and thought out. There were parts of the story that were deeply engaging, when I knew where to place them. It reminded me a lot of Emma Torzs Ink Blood Sister Scribe, which is another book where things seem to really pick up around 50% of the way through the book.

I didn't get very far into this audiobook before becoming completely lost and confused. I am soft DNFing this for now. The narrator was fine but I think this is just one of those books that needs to be read with eyeballs and not listened to. It has a very unique voice/writing style and I couldn't follow anything that was happening.