Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Pages: 387
Release Date: April 9, 2024
In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family’s social position.
What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain’s king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England’s heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king’s favor.
Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition’s wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.
Am I missing something? Did I read a different book than everyone else?
Honestly, I probably should have DNF’d The Familiar, but I kept waiting for it to get better. It never did.
The Familiar follows Luzia as she uses small amounts of magic to get through her work as a scullion. When she’s discovered, she’s brought to the country’s nobles to compete in a tournament to gain the king’s favor.
My biggest criticism of The Familiar is that it was just so boring. The story was boring. The characters were dull. The romance was sudden and lackluster.
The idea behind the story sounded like it would be interesting, but the writing dulled any of the shine the story could have had. The pacing was slow. I assumed the pace would have picked up when Luzia started competing in the tournament, but it remained stagnant.
Bardugo tried very hard to make Luzia interesting, but she ultimately failed. Luzia has no agency as those around her dictate her life. I will concede that while her lack of agency is in part due to the time and setting of the novel (16th century Spain), this only made Luzia even more uninteresting and less compelling.
The romance was sudden and lackluster. It felt like all of a sudden they were coupling and willing to do anything to be together. Bardugo had the opportunity to create a truly dangerous forbidden love story. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.
Overall, The Familiar was a disappointing and boring read. I don’t think I’ll read anything else by Bardugo. Her writing and stories aren’t for me.
Have you read The Familiar? What did you think?
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