Mammoths at the Gates

How could I stop myself from reading this lovely novella..?? I know there's still time for the release but I just needed a bit of familiarity and being back in the world of Singing Hills was a joy and I'm so glad I got the arc of this book.

Our favorite cleric Chih is back at Singing Hills too and it was so nice to finally see their home through their eyes, even though it's dampened by the grief of losing their mentor and the threat of mammoths at their gates. Almost Brilliant also finally makes an appearance, now already a mother and even more authoritative than I remember. But what this lovely novella is ultimately about grief and loss - how losing someone important maybe inevitable but how we grieve them can be different, each person's grief can manifest in myriad unexpected ways but nothing is wrong with that, and it's the bonds we have built and shared that help us through the tough times.

This is a short and maybe bittersweet but also hopeful tale about losing, grieving and moving on, finding our ways through change, and cherishing the friendships and relationships we have built over the years - all told through the form of stories. It's a perfect addition to this amazing series, carrying forward its theme of how stories keep memories alive, and paving the way for our main characters' future adventures. I can only hope that the author will let us be a part of these future journeys too.

Really interesting examination of grief and how people change over time, I also really liked the commentary on memory and identity.

Not my favorite of these, but probably my second favorite after the first one.

7.5/10

I liked this book better than its predecessor in the series, Into the Riverlands, because of its emphasis on the interactions of individuals and their memories. Riverlands was an emphasis on the local stories the cleric was collecting and less time spent on the group being travelled with.

In Mammoths I did have alot of confusion keeping track of who was talking when the word 'they' was being used. I interpreted this to be a community of individuals that refer to themselves as they/them, which means 'they' could mean the individual doing the speaking or could mean another person being spoken of, in the same sentence.

This confusion didn't detract from my enjoyment of the story or the characters.