The Naming Song by Jedediah Berry
Publication Date: September 24, 2024
Summary from NetGalley:
There’s nothing more dangerous than an unnamed thing
When the words went away, the world changed.
All meaning was lost, and every border fell. Monsters slipped from dreams to haunt the waking while ghosts wandered the land in futile reveries. Only with the rise of the committees of the named—Maps, Ghosts, Dreams, and Names—could the people stand against the terrors of the nameless wilds. They built borders around their world and within their minds, shackled ghosts and hunted monsters, and went to war against the unknown.
For one unnamed courier of the Names Committee, the task of delivering new words preserves her place in a world that fears her. But after a series of monstrous attacks on the named, she is forced to flee her committee and seek her long-lost sister. Accompanied by a patchwork ghost, a fretful monster, and a nameless animal who prowls the shadows, her search for the truth of her past opens the door to a revolutionary future—for the words she carries will reshape the world.
The Naming Song is a book of deep secrets and marvelous discoveries, strange adventures and dangerous truths. It’s the story of a world locked in a battle over meaning. Most of all, it’s the perfect fantasy for anyone who’s ever dreamed of a stranger, freer, more magical world.
ARC provided by Tor Publishing Group via NetGalley for an honest review.
Confession:
This was an interesting book that I neither disliked or liked. I have very mixed feelings about it to be truthful. It has a very interesting premise, an interesting main character, and the main story was complex enough to keep me going to the end. But I often found my mind wandering off as I was reading, and then I would have to reread the last paragraph or so because it just didn’t stick. I think this was mainly due to the pacing which was slow, and the writing style.
The first 50 pages were the hardest, getting into this world was difficult. Language, or at least some of the words for things had been lost, so it would take many words to say something simple. The character names also took a bit of getting used to, as they were often named for common things, like Ticket, Books, and Shadow, and those names didn’t coordinate with who they were or their jobs. So it did take me awhile to get it all sorted. The world building itself was adequate, things were described well enough, but I also felt that things weren’t explained well enough either.
The story is told from the unnamed courier, who was just referred to as ‘the courier’. She was a very interesting character and her growth over the course of the book was tremendous. She starts off as a pawn in the events that evolved around her into a leader that pretty much changes the course of her culture. I really did like her quite a bit and I think it was her more than anything else that kept me interested in the story.
There were many themes throughout the story but the one that intrigued me the most was how language and words evolved. Basically all languages are made up, humans put different sounds together and assigned these sounds to the things around them. The courier’s job in this story was to introduce new words to the world. It is more complicated than this, but it was an interesting look at language development.
I think there will be a lot of people who will love this book. It certainly has a good story behind it and a very complex and interesting world. It just unfortunately never really worked for me. But if you enjoy complex diverse worlds with an interesting main character, than this is one that I think you should give a chance.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 
The premise for this book sounds interesting and it sounds like this type of story would be good at exploring language. Too bad it didn’t grip you as much as you wanted though.
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