Book Review — Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jennifer Townsend
Rarely have I read a book in which the fantastical world is so clearly drawn, and so endlessly fun to imagine. This is the sequel to Jessica Townsend’s first book in the series, Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow. Though I started this book with very little memory of what happened in the first one, I knew I liked it, and I was quickly reminded of why.
The world of Nevermoor is so fun. Morrigan, our plucky, grumpy young hero, lives in a hotel that seems a lot like Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. The eccentric concierge is consistently throwing massive, magical parties to compete with rival hotels around town. The smoking lounge emits different flavored smokes based on request. Morrigan’s bed shapeshifts based on mood, including a stint as a giant bird’s nest complete with feathers and egg-shaped pillows. And one of the hotel’s denizens is a giant cat named Fenestra who is fiercely loyal but also likes to swing from the giant chandelier and swipe her paws at people when she’s annoyed.
The city of Nevermoor itself has lots of texture, and reads like an overgrown playground with a hint of danger. People travel on something called the “brolly rail,” a device similar to a zipline onto which they hook their umbrellas and whoosh around the city, hanging on for dear life. There are alleys called “Tricksy lanes” which might flip people upside down, try to squeeze them between the walls, or any number of more dangerous tricks. And as Morrigan discovers on her adventure in this story, the city is also home to a number of places built by Wundersmiths of old, some wonderful and some terrible.
In this sequel, Morrigan, or “Mog” as her legendary patron Jupiter North affectionately calls her, has successfully completed the trials which earned her a place in the Wundrous Society. Her initiation into the society comes with a group of classmates and the promise that her next year will be filled with learning how to use her “knack.” Little do her classmates know that Morrigan’s secret knack is actually being a Wundersmith, someone who can control wunder, and a word that has been synonymous with fear for decades, since the reign of terror under the evil Ezra Squall.
Morrigan’s education doesn’t start out quite the way she’d pictured, as the Scholar Mistress in charge of her school assigns her only one class: History of Heinous Wundrous Acts, which is essentially a laundry list of the terrible deeds of Wundersmiths, taught by a crochety and deeply biased professor. When people and creatures start going missing, and Morrigan herself seems to losing control of her own body, she knows that dark forces are at play, and it probably has something to do with Ezra Squall. Since the people she trust seem caught up in solving mysteries on their own, Morrigan takes matters into her own hands. In the process, she learns that much of what she assumed was true may actually be much different than she imagined.
I think I enjoyed this sequel even more than the first book. The mystery is compelling, the worldbuilding continues to be charming, and the relationships Morrigan builds in this book are well worth the wait and slogging through loneliness, even for her. The third book in the series is expected to come out February 6, 2020. As of now, the human characters in this series are majority white, and do not display any recognizably diverse traits. I hope that Jessica Townsend's imagination will continue to expand toward writing characters with backgrounds as varied as their knacks.
I’m going to be relentlessly checking the library catalog to make sure I get on the reservation list as soon as I can. Give us more, Ms. Townsend!
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