Marya is full of agency and she is the one making all the moves. She is at odds with herself as much as the two worlds she sits in. Marya is both cruel and kind, old and young, tired yet full of life. I was shocked to learn this because the original Marya sounds nothing like the clever, cold girl that Valente portrays in her book.

But there were also displays of a love so strong it healed wounds and transcended boundaries.įrom what I have read of Koschei the Deathless’ original folklore, he is an immortal god that captures a warrior princess named Marya, who is later rescued by her husband Ivon. There is death, destruction, and cruelty in both places that broke me. The two worlds tend to bleed into one another, creating a trippy tale where the lines of Marya’s life are never clearly drawn. Her home country fractures under the civil war, and Koschei the Deathless is in a never-ending war against his brother who rules over the realm of the dead. As she is whisked away to become Koschei’s wife, Marya’s tale becomes trapped between two parallel worlds. One day, Koschei the Deathless will appear at her door and Marya will get everything she did, and didn’t, ask for.ĭeathless takes place during the Russian revolution, and the country’s violent and difficult transformation pushes at the seams of Marya’s magical world. Marya is desperate to catch more glimpses of the magical world and dreams of becoming a wife until she learns who has laid claim to her. The years pass and Marya grows older, but no birds come asking for her hand. Each man comes to the door and takes away one of Marya’s older sisters to become their wife. Each bird falls to the earth, turns into a handsome man, and approaches the house. Marya Morevna sits at the window at her home in Leningrad and watches three birds sitting on a branch. It was a challenging read, and it pushed me as a reader, but I loved the pieces I was able to pick up.

As soon as I had a grasp of Valente’s tale, it would change so sharply that I lost my confidence several times over. It is magical and terrifying like all good fairy tales are, but I also had to fight to find my footing with every sentence. Valente is one of the hardest books I have read.

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente