Review | Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

The cover? Amazing.

The blurb? … ehhhh … (But, did I mention that the cover is amazing? Because it’s amazing.)

The book? The blurb doesn’t do it justice.

I went into this expecting a cross-dressing season of Project Runway. ( … which I’ve never seen before, but — look. at. that. cover.) What I got was a rather meh tailoring competition, followed by an edge-of-your-seat high-stakes magical quest.

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What’s it about?

Maia is the youngest of four children, and a prodigy tailor … which, wouldn’t be a problem if she had been a born a boy. But, following a series of unusual events, she winds up disguising herself as her brother, and enlisted in the emperor’s service.

Part One of the book focused on Maia’s arrival at court, and her participation in the tailoring contest … a competition between master tailors to see who will assume the role of imperial tailor.

Part Two documents Maia’s quest to gather materials to weave the three celestial dresses — the dresses of the sun, moon, and stars.

Part Three is Maia’s return to court, weaving the dresses, and her struggles to save her beloved from a magical oath.

All of this takes place in a Chinese-style nation, complete with royal palaces (plural), scandal, war, magic, political intrigue, and a silk road-style trading network. It’s well described, but there’s also lots of room for imagination.

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Things I liked:

The pacing. In a word, excellent.

A couple months ago, I read Shadow Scale — which I had high hopes for after Seraphina, but which ultimately turned out to be a major disappointment. One of my big critiques was the pacing: the book simultaneously dragged and felt super rushed. It never seemed to settle into the story.

Compare: Spin the Dawn — a book that gets the pacing right. Things move forward, but not so fast that plot, thematic, and character development are sacrificed. The world Maia and Edan inhabit is vibrant. Their quest meaningful. Their personality quirks darling. Their actions impactful.

Edan. One more to add to my list of dark-haired-powerful-and-slightly-damaged-fictional-character-crushes. I have no regrets.

Maia. Maia is a super interesting character … flawed and very young, but extremely strong. Her development (and pattern of mistakes) was engrossing. I can’t wait to see what happens to her in Unravel the Dusk.

Look at that cover. I mean, look at it. It’s gorgeous.

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What I didn’t like:

The tailoring competition. “Dislike” in the sense that it was unnecessary for setting up the remainder of the story. This arc could have easily been reduced to 2-3 chapters of character/world development — sans competition — before launching into Maia’s quest to sew the three celestial dresses.

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Favourite quote:

Above, the stars faded behind the misty sky, and the sun fanned its light upon us. We melted into each other until the dawn slid into dusk, and the sun paled into the moon, and the stars, once lost, became found again.

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Final thoughts:

Judging a book by its cover for the win. Spin the Dawn offers a unique, utterly captivating magical adventure. I’m so happy to have placed it on my TBR.

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The Details:

• The Book: Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim
• Published: 2019, Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
• My Copy: VIRL
• Read date: June 30 to July 3, 2020
• Rating/5: 👗👗👗👗