Small Spaces by Katherine Arden
Small Spaces by Katherine Arden
I fell in love with Katherine Arden's Winternight Trilogy (The Bear and the Nightingale) and was ecstatic when I saw she had written Small Spaces. Especially due to the fact it was released during the time I was waiting for the third and final story of her trilogy, The Winter of the Witch. Since I have now read 3 of Arden's books, I can officially say I am obsessed with her writing and storytelling.
Small Spaces is a middle grade novel, and is very different from the Winternight Trilogy, but Arden still wrote this so beautifully with such amazing characters. It was a fun and spooky read (that I read right after Halloween) but it also deals with grief and depression. How do you live in a world that has taken away someone who don't believe you can live without?
Our main character, Ollie, is riding her bike home when she sees a woman attempting to throw a book into the water. Ollie, currently finding solace only when reading, stops and saves the book from the woman. After spending most of the night reading, Ollie must leave her safety net behind and join her class on a school field trip to a nearby historic farm. At the farm, the children are told stories of the old owners that sound eerily familiar to the characters in Ollie's new book.
Small Spaces becomes eerier with the farm's atmosphere and the creepy monsters that Ollie and her new friends, Coco and Brian, begin to fight. But this book wasn't just a spooky read.
This book focuses on friendship and healing from grief and depression that makes life seem impossible. It shows how certain books can come at the exact perfect timing to help you heal more than you thought possible. It shows that everyone heals in their own way and their own time, and that's okay. It shows that not everyone is as they appear, and those you think are least likely to understand you may be the ones that understand you most. I cannot say enough good things about this book or about Katherine Arden and I am so excited to have found her books this year.
“Coco didn’t cry because she was weak. Coco cried because she felt things. Ollie never cried because she didn’t feel things. Not anymore. Not really. She tried not to feel things.”
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