Trigger warnings: Maia disguises herself as her disabled brother in order to participate in the tailor competition. She also urges her brother to try to walk while she is gone. While I enjoyed the overall story in Spin the Dawn, her brother's disability is never well understood. Spin the Dawn also heavily focuses on how society views males versus females, so the plot hinges on the gender binary.
Synopsis: Maia Tamarin dreams of becoming the greatest tailor in the land, but as a girl, the best she can hope for is to marry well. When a royal messenger summons her ailing father, once a tailor of renown, to court, Maia poses as a boy and takes his place. She knows her life is forfeit if her secret is discovered, but she'll take that risk to achieve her dream and save her family from ruin. There's just one catch: Maia is one of twelve tailors vying for the job.
Backstabbing and lies run rampant as the tailors compete in challenges to prove their artistry and skill. Maia's task is further complicated when she draws the attention of the court magician, Edan, whose piercing eyes seem to see straight through her disguise.
And nothing could have prepared her for the final challenge: to sew three magic gowns for the emperor's reluctant bride-to-be, from the laughter of the sun, the tears of the moon, and the blood of stars. With this impossible task before her, she embarks on a journey to the far reaches of the kingdom, seeking the sun, the moon, and the stars, and finding more than she ever could have imagined.
Review: As a concept, Spin the Dawn is fantastic. I loved Maia as a character. You could tell she loved, and admired, her family. Her motivations through the book felt genuine, and I loved it. I enjoyed seeing how she interacted with her family at the start of the novel because we could see how close they all were. She also stays true to her craft, which I appreciated. She is gifted with some enchanted scissors, which prove to help her designs. She only uses them once, but she quickly feels ashamed for using magic in the competition, and she resolves to only use her own skill until the end. I'm glad Elizabeth Lim chose to do that, so we could see the power of the scissors, but we still get a good grasp of Maia's talent.
I already mentioned the issues Spin the Dawn has with disability rep, and how the world focuses on the gender binary. Those things bothered me, which is what kept me from enjoying the story more. I also disliked the romance, greatly. I would have been fine with it, but the emperor's fiance makes a remark that made it seem like Edan was gay, or bi/pan. Then he and Maia end up falling for each other, and it just felt weird to me. On top of how quickly they fell for each other considering this entire story takes place in a relatively short amount of time. I did very much enjoy reading a Chinese inspired story, but I wish we got a little bit more of the world. When Maia ends up leaving the palace, the trials she faces seem to go rather quickly, and that was a pity. This is one of the few books where I think visual aids would have been incredibly beneficial. The pieces of clothing Maia creates sounded beautiful, especially towards the end of the novel, but I would have LOVED to see actual art depicting everything.
An interesting story, but I wish some aspects were a bit more fleshed out, and I wish some societal norms were pushed.
3 howls
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