Fantasy set in the medieval Estonia, in the land where the people of yesterday could speak Snakish. But now all is modern and the village life seems like the top of development. Leemet seems to be the only one who is still interested in the Snakish language...

While I have wanted to like this book and for a half of it I did, I can not say that upon finishing the novel. First - while the book is sarcastically and deadpan funny (which I like), almost nothing happens here. But you realize it only when you crawl out from the mastefully woven net of words - and this author is capable with words, yes. But really, the book is prolonged, most of it are pictures of the forest life (or other life, in small doses).
Second - the novel is repetitive. All in all it is just the rightness of the old ways (but only the reasonable ones, not the crazy old shaman Ulgas, no, not that!) and the wrongful stupidity of the new ways, compared with more than one jabs against Christianity. While I can get that, I think the book should be build on more (a better conflict/motif) than just this smartly (and sometimes rightly) presented antagonism.
Third - Leemet as a character is interesting, with more layers - and naturally smart, which I like. But for a boy with that kind of emotional ability is his ability to love particularly lacking. One moment he loves Hiie, the next moment (after her death, no less) he is back lusting about Magdaleena. While I know that this is not Dostoyevsky, I would still like to have some maturity here.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC of The Man Who Spoke Snakish. I enjoyed the first half of the book, but then it started to unravel a bit. Lots of twists and jumps in the plot that were hard to follow. Maybe I needed to be more familiar with Estonian history.