Arthurian myth has always fascinated me. I took a lit class a few years ago dedicated to all things Arthur. It was a great class, but by the time we had finished we had read nearly 50 different re-tellings of the Arthurian legends. This book is my first foray back to the land of Camelot, and it did not disappoint. It took some of the most interesting stories about Arthur and Morgana and wove them into a wonderfully complex and intricate story. Morgana is always seen as a disruptive character, but in this book I felt like I knew her more intimately than before. This Morgana has feelings and motivations of a real person. The more I read, the more she came alive. I know I have read a good book when I am sad to leave behind the world and characters that I have been reading about. This book left such an impression on me that I am anxious to read more, but know that there is no more. I will definitely be looking up this author's YA books.

[Full disclosure: I requested and received a free ebook copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]

I requested I, Morgana on a whim one day while browsing through NetGalley. The blurb sounded interesting enough but when I began the novel I was under the impression it would be all about Morgana railing against her wrongfully deserved evil reputation. Fortunately, it was nothing like that.

Morgana is an interesting narrator because she’s not very self-pitying. She accepts that she really did deserve a lot of her reputation and you can really feel her deep regret at all that she did in the name of trying to seize her kingdom back. Maybe her reputation as evil incarnate is not deserved but she was far from a good person in her younger years. Still, even though I didn’t like her as a person her introspective voice as she writes looking back on the events is enough to make me keep reading. Morgana is a complex person whose ultimate downfall was her pride so you really can’t help but empathize with her.

I liked how Felicity Pulman stuck to the traditional Arthurian legends most of us are familiar with but also put her own flair on them. Morgana can travel into the Otherworlds, which was never really mentioned in the traditional legends. She was also taught by Merlin himself and that makes for some very interesting confrontations later in the novel as both of them regret their shared past. Felicity Pulman decided to set her novel much, much later than most authors choose to set King Arthur’s time (she set it around the 1100s) but it works pretty well.

The only thing that disappointed me was that Felicity Pulman’s writing lacks description. Morgana is always telling us what is going on rather than describing the scene as she saw it at the time. It makes her a more sympathetic character in general but I would have loved a little more description of the various scenes throughout the novel. Telling is okay for some purposes but reading a whole novel of it isn’t necessarily the most exciting.

Still, I really did enjoy I, Morgana. It’s a very interesting take on a complicated woman who has become one of the great villains of legend.

I give this book 4/5 stars.