Tress of the Emerald Sea – Brandon Sanderson
5/5
IT’S HERE!
Let me preface this by saying I had been having an awful week. When I woke up at four in the morning yesterday to open my store and I saw that email from Sanderson’s team, I lost my mind.
Every single struggle of the week faded away as I cracked open that ebook and began to devour this story.
Tress of the Emerald Sea is unique.
Tress is a girl with unruly hair who lives on a black, salt rock with her family. She’s in love with Charlie and collecting cups and cleaning windows. Nothing about her life screams adventure. That is, until Charlie is kidnapped by an evil sorceress and Tress braves the seas to rescue him.
Oh, and those oceans? They’re not made of water. They’re made of spores. These spores explode when they make contact with water. There are twelve different types and twelve different moons and twelve different seas.
Needless to say, I was eager to read this fairy tale-esque story.
On the first page of the second chapter, this cute little sentence occurred.
That said, you must understand that this is a tale about people who are both what they seem and not what they seem. Simultaneously. A story of contradictions. In other words, it is a story about human beings.
Tress of the Emerald Sea, Chapter 2.
It encapsulates everything I love to see in a book. Right there, the signposting that I will see areas of gray. Sanderson has stated in one of his lectures that if an author is signposting that an event will occur, they have to deliver on it otherwise the reader will be left unsatisfied.
Hello? I knew I was in for a treat.
There was one thing that made it very easy for Sanderson to accomplish the delivery of his promise.
The first-person omniscient narrator.
Because of the way the Cosmere is set up, this feels natural for this book. I could tell that Sanderson was having fun with this style of narration. Particularly with sentences like this one:
I once spent ten years on a planet where the only sapient life was a group of pancake like beings that expressed themselves through flatulence.
Tress of the Emerald Sea, Chapter 14.
I’ll admit it. Sometimes it did feel a bit childish, a bit foolhardy, and not at all witty.
But that’s the point! This book is whimsical. It is a little silly at times. Yet, by the end of it, I was still so moved I was tearing up.
Okay, I was crying.
This is because of the cast of characters Sanderson builds. He did something really similar in Cytonic, a book that takes place in the Cytoverse, with Spensa and the crew she finds there. The interactions between characters are genuine. The characters themselves have motives and quirks that make them realistic and dynamic, rather than fictitious and flat.
There’s Huck, the rat. Fort, a very large, deaf man. Ann, a woman who can’t aim to save her life but really wants to. Crow, the captain. Salay the helmswoman. Ulaam, the weird doctor. And of course, the one who started it all, Charlie.
I know these characters. I remember these characters. They have obstacles that keep them from achieving what they want. They struggle. They are real.
More importantly, they are relatable.
I see so much of myself in Tress. I’m sure you’d be able to see a lot of yourself in Tress, too. She starts something because she is passionate about a specific person, even though she assumes she’ll fail.
I particularly enjoyed the magic system in this book. Spores that explode when they touch water is a very unique concept. I love the way Sanderson utilizes his magic systems. There was not a single part during this book when I thought, “Why don’t they just do this?” Sanderson creates rules for his magic systems and he follows them. It helps them come to life.
Let’s talk about Easter eggs.
Not the kind you paint. The kind Sanderson loves weaving into his stories.
I won’t go into what I read and the connections I made. I think finding it out for yourself is half the fun. That giddy feeling when you see someone’s name from your favorite series shouldn’t be ruined.
That being said, there were references to the Stormlight Archives and Mistborn.
I haven’t read all of the Stormlight Archives (to be frank, I haven’t finished the first book in the series. It is a behemoth.) but I have read all of Mistborn. Having a knowledge of the Stormlight Archives is not necessary for this book, but it would add depth to the plot and certain mechanisms that are used. I benefited from what little of the Stormlight Archives I have read.
Not all of this book was perfect and praiseworthy. Some parts of it lulled a bit and some parts of the narration felt like interruption rather than comedic relief. But most of it worked for me. I loved the depth of humanity displayed in the interactions between Tress and the pirates. A lot of the “lessons” in this book are very straightforward, told to you in quotes.
You can’t taste a memory without tainting it with who you have become.
Tress of the Emerald Sea, Chapter 36.
But arrogance and self-worth are two sides to a coin, and it will spend either way.
Tress of the Emerald Sea, Chapter 49.
Because we adapt, we sometimes don’t recognize how twisted, uncomfortable, or downright wrong the container is that we’ve been told to inhabit.
Tress of the Emerald Sea, Chapter 54.
I guess you can’t call them lessons. They’re more thought-provoking sentences revolving around specific themes.
I can’t review this book and not talk about the artwork that was woven throughout. The book is very beautiful. Between the story, the cover, the intricate designs, and the illustrations, it is a complete work of art. I cannot wait to get my hardcover copy in the mail.
This book will be published on April 4th, 2023 for those of you who were not able to back the kickstarter.
I highly, highly recommend it.
This was the perfect book to start 2023 off with.
“Even small actions have consequences. And while we can often choose our actions, we rarely get to choose our consequences.”
Brandon Sanderson, Tress of the Emerald Sea