I received this book for Christmas from Ben’s sister. I’d heard for years that Shannon Hale and her books, starting with Goose Girl, were something to look out for, but, silly me, I hadn’t found what I’d decided was book 1 on the used/cutout market, so I hadn’t read any of them. I finished The Book of a Thousand Days in one sitting, and now have plans for acquiring the rest.

In the afterword, Shannon Hale states that the book is somewhat based on the Grimm fairy tale “Maid Maleen”. A princess refuses to marry the king her father has picked for her because she has already fallen in love with and betrothed herself to a prince. In retribution, her father locks her in a tower with her maid for seven years. Ms. Hale has reimagined the tale set in the India of a thousand years ago, changed the prince to a khan, and refocused the story on the maidservant.

The book is written in diary format, from the point of view of Dashti, maidservant to Lady Saren. She can read and write, luckily, because Lady Saren can’t. Dashti is a mucker, a somewhat nomadic peasant from the steppes. She has strawberry birthmarks on her face and arm that mark her as unlucky, and she is, to a point. Due to a series of less-than-fortunate events, she becomes the maidservant of Lady Saren just hours before the lady is locked in a tower for seven years.

Many of you are thinking, oh, great. Two girls (they’re both approximately 16) stuck in a room fighting for three hundred pages. Well, to relieve your anxieties, I’ll only go so far as to say that they escape early.

The majority of this book, as one might guess, focuses on the relationship between Dashti and Lady Saren. Dashti starts out the book believing in the class differences between the servant class and the nobility – at one point she relates a former belief that all members of the gentry must be hard to look at, for they are so beautiful and shine with the nobility of their divine ancestors. As the story progresses, she realizes that in many ways, she has not only lived a life superior to Lady Saren’s, but she herself is superior to Lady Saren in many ways.

Lady Saren herself grows and changes; her path is a little different, though. She needs a situation in which she can thrive and come to self-acceptance. This is more difficult than one might expect; she is gentry, after all.

Being that it’s in diary form, it’s in first person from Dashti’s point of view, and Dashti is a delightful narrator. She absolutely sounds like a mid-teen, and between explaining bits of her mucker culture and telling tales to keep Lady Saren interested, we learn quite a bit about her. The book does move a bit slowly, but there are certainly enough events in the plot to keep most readers satisfied. If nothing else, the language is intriguing. Shannon Hale has been described as ‘lyrical’ in interviews, and it’s certainly apparent here. Lyricism can be used to different effects, though; in some parts, the lyricism is a source of humor. Other parts of the book use the style in more poetic or heart-breaking fashions.

The characters are engaging; the story is well-paced; the ending is satisfying . . . and the book gets a full 5/5 stars from me.