Save Her Reply has absolutely beautiful prose and is a gripping retelling of the Children of Lir story. What struck me the most is the continuous reiteration of the legend/tragedy being Lir's alone and not his children's or anyone else connected with the story. This hit me hard because were his children or his wives not worthy enough for their importance to shine through in the traditional tellings?
I loved that each chapter began with a poem and each part of the story told from Aífe's perspective is not black or white but so many shades of grey and she never shies away from her own faults & culpability of the events as they played out. This book is going on my re-read shelf and I am looking forward to exploring more from the author.
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Reviews with images
A dark, feminist retelling that doesn’t ask for forgiveness
This book was stunning.I’ve been a huge fan of myth retellings like Circe and Kaikeyi, but one thing I find is that sometimes in retellings we are told why the original story is wrong, and the villain isn’t the villain.While this book does seem to write some parts that were altered for whoever decided to tell the story, this story never once undercuts what was done nor does it ask for us to forgive our narrator. This book is raw, and covers themes of grief, inadequacy, pain, isolation, and anger. While it covers those themes, our narrator never once tries to deny that these aspects are a core of who she is, and why she did what she did.An excellent and truly dark retelling. One thing I also enjoyed was the writing style. There were so many lines and poems that felt so incredibly powerful. One line that I thought was beautiful was this:“I thought of the sacred spaces I had known back in Sídh Femuin, where I had been a girl with my sisters. I remembered the peace of my two feet at the ground and the tall trees all around me and the golden sunlight filtering through them like a blessing, like a promise, and why, when all of that was all around you, would you need four walls to find your god?“This is an absolutely incredible story of an old world meeting the new, and how we as people, despite time and circumstance, still seem to be the same.
Top reviews from the United States
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Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2023
I’ve been a huge fan of myth retellings like Circe and Kaikeyi, but one thing I find is that sometimes in retellings we are told why the original story is wrong, and the villain isn’t the villain.
While this book does seem to write some parts that were altered for whoever decided to tell the story, this story never once undercuts what was done nor does it ask for us to forgive our narrator. This book is raw, and covers themes of grief, inadequacy, pain, isolation, and anger. While it covers those themes, our narrator never once tries to deny that these aspects are a core of who she is, and why she did what she did.
An excellent and truly dark retelling. One thing I also enjoyed was the writing style. There were so many lines and poems that felt so incredibly powerful. One line that I thought was beautiful was this:
“I thought of the sacred spaces I had known back in Sídh Femuin, where I had been a girl with my sisters. I remembered the peace of my two feet at the ground and the tall trees all around me and the golden sunlight filtering through them like a blessing, like a promise, and why, when all of that was all around you, would you need four walls to find your god?“
This is an absolutely incredible story of an old world meeting the new, and how we as people, despite time and circumstance, still seem to be the same.
A dark, feminist retelling that doesn’t ask for forgiveness
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2023
This book was stunning.Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2023
I’ve been a huge fan of myth retellings like Circe and Kaikeyi, but one thing I find is that sometimes in retellings we are told why the original story is wrong, and the villain isn’t the villain.
While this book does seem to write some parts that were altered for whoever decided to tell the story, this story never once undercuts what was done nor does it ask for us to forgive our narrator. This book is raw, and covers themes of grief, inadequacy, pain, isolation, and anger. While it covers those themes, our narrator never once tries to deny that these aspects are a core of who she is, and why she did what she did.
An excellent and truly dark retelling. One thing I also enjoyed was the writing style. There were so many lines and poems that felt so incredibly powerful. One line that I thought was beautiful was this:
“I thought of the sacred spaces I had known back in Sídh Femuin, where I had been a girl with my sisters. I remembered the peace of my two feet at the ground and the tall trees all around me and the golden sunlight filtering through them like a blessing, like a promise, and why, when all of that was all around you, would you need four walls to find your god?“
This is an absolutely incredible story of an old world meeting the new, and how we as people, despite time and circumstance, still seem to be the same.
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2021
I was afraid to read this book because I thought it would be too sad and too deeply rooted in Irish lore for me to understand. It was neither of those things. And yes, there is a pronunciation guide at the back of the book.
The book is written from the perspective of Aife, the wife of Lir and stepmother and aunt to the four children who she turns into swans. The legend briefly mentions certain facts-- Aife and her sisters are foster daughters to Bodhbh, Aife is turned into a demon of the air as punishment for her curse, Lir never visits the children after they depart the lake where they spend the first 300 years as swans. What strange little tidbits! Sullivan has fully fleshed out the legend and developed a complete narrative that allows Aife to be a full character in this story. Her perspective here is that of a 2,000 year old being, zoomed out into almost a god-like peace. An immortal, with a full contemplation of her motivation, her guilt, her anger, her fate, and those of all humans. Sullivan's writing is not flowery, but her descriptions are heart-piercing.
She contemplates the telling of stories, and the real meanings in legends:
"Take the story of Oisin and Niamh, for example. He abducted her, and her father the king of Munster came with hundreds of warriors to bring her home. She stood upon a hill away from them, and as she saw them and their approach towards her, her heart burst out of her chest, they say, with shame, and all her serving women followed suit. Shame doesn't do that to a heart, but a spear will do a fine job of it, if you've one handy..... She was just a silly girl who couldn't keep her legs closed or her heart inside her ribcage. And, to keep people from reading in between the lines, they mixed her up with another story and another."
And, getting to the heart of the entire story and its real players:
"It had never been about me, or even Aebh.
It was these two men, circling each other. Vying for dominance.
One a born leader, a fierce warrior.
One the son of a god."
The structure of the book follows the legend exactly, each chapter starts with a quoted paragraph or two from the legend, an illustration by Karen Vaughan, and a calligram- a poem in the shape of an Ogham character. These little touches evoked the love for Irish mythology, even as Sullivan pulls apart the misogyny so deeply embedded in many legends. The overarching theme here is that Aife is more than her part in this story, there is more to the legends that is lost in the telling, and we must examine who is telling the story and who that serves. The gutting truth of that is obvious to any woman, or anyone who is not a part of the dominant cultural voice, but instead of feeling downcast, it feels optimistic. It feels like reclaiming something, like hearing a voice that has been silenced for too long.
The book is written from the perspective of Aife, the wife of Lir and stepmother and aunt to the four children who she turns into swans. The legend briefly mentions certain facts-- Aife and her sisters are foster daughters to Bodhbh, Aife is turned into a demon of the air as punishment for her curse, Lir never visits the children after they depart the lake where they spend the first 300 years as swans. What strange little tidbits! Sullivan has fully fleshed out the legend and developed a complete narrative that allows Aife to be a full character in this story. Her perspective here is that of a 2,000 year old being, zoomed out into almost a god-like peace. An immortal, with a full contemplation of her motivation, her guilt, her anger, her fate, and those of all humans. Sullivan's writing is not flowery, but her descriptions are heart-piercing.
She contemplates the telling of stories, and the real meanings in legends:
"Take the story of Oisin and Niamh, for example. He abducted her, and her father the king of Munster came with hundreds of warriors to bring her home. She stood upon a hill away from them, and as she saw them and their approach towards her, her heart burst out of her chest, they say, with shame, and all her serving women followed suit. Shame doesn't do that to a heart, but a spear will do a fine job of it, if you've one handy..... She was just a silly girl who couldn't keep her legs closed or her heart inside her ribcage. And, to keep people from reading in between the lines, they mixed her up with another story and another."
And, getting to the heart of the entire story and its real players:
"It had never been about me, or even Aebh.
It was these two men, circling each other. Vying for dominance.
One a born leader, a fierce warrior.
One the son of a god."
The structure of the book follows the legend exactly, each chapter starts with a quoted paragraph or two from the legend, an illustration by Karen Vaughan, and a calligram- a poem in the shape of an Ogham character. These little touches evoked the love for Irish mythology, even as Sullivan pulls apart the misogyny so deeply embedded in many legends. The overarching theme here is that Aife is more than her part in this story, there is more to the legends that is lost in the telling, and we must examine who is telling the story and who that serves. The gutting truth of that is obvious to any woman, or anyone who is not a part of the dominant cultural voice, but instead of feeling downcast, it feels optimistic. It feels like reclaiming something, like hearing a voice that has been silenced for too long.
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2022
Top reviews from other countries
Daryoush ramsden
Pride, inovation, trust, care.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2021
Daryoush ramsden
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 22, 2021
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