I think it's important that the reader/listener read the history of the Prester John legend, in order to understand how the story works. Go to Cathery..Show More »nne Valente's website and at least skim through Prester John's letter. This is the story of WHAT IF the Prester John legend were real? How would it have played out?

I also think it's vital to understand that the story is narrated by Brother Hiob, and that he is copying 3 different and parallel stories from the Tree of Books. One is the story of Prester John himself, one is John's wife, and the 3rd is the nanny of Queen Abir's children.

The narrator reads the book beautifully. However, I had a very hard time following the audio version. There were many new words I couldn't understand or spell, and there was no way to go back to figure them out. I've listened to many audiobooks, and this was one of the hardest I've tried to listen to (Dante being the most difficult). I actually had to buy the written version of the book to try to clarify the language.

Once, however, I finally caught on to the story, the language, the creatures, I was captivated by the story and didn't want to stop listening to it. It was a disappointment that this was just the first of a trilogy and I'm anxious to continue the story.

I read a bunch of glowing reviews for this book. Valente writes some really spectacular prose, gorgeous and crystalline. However, some of the creatures are just distracting, and prevent you from focusing on what's going on. I think she loved the bar scene in the first Star Wars movie, and wanted to create some of her own creatures. She could have benefitted by better editing that sharpened up the story some.

We read this for book club, and several folks couldn't get far enought to finish it. There also had to be some meanings behind some of the creatures, but we couldn't figure some of them out.

It could have been a 5 star book with better editing, but it was still interesting, like traveling to Wonderland!

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