The Inquisitor's Tale by Adam Gidwitz: I'm actually pretty impressed

The Inquisitor’s Tale 

by 

Adam Gidwitz

 When a girl who has visions of the future, a young monk who can shatter a stone bench with his fist, a boy who can heal anyone from practically anything, and a dog that just won’t stay dead are combined into one story 

it makes me very happy

Mostly because this book is just completely insane. I mean if you can talk about the church and other religious things (during the crusades no less) without inciting my righteous Christian rage

 (I kid' internet I kid') 

you have done something incredibly impressive my friend.

That coupled with the lovely character, (mostly) believable villains, a rather strange sense of humor (a la the Last Dragonslayer), and a Canterbury tales kind of frame story and I am sold all the way to kingdom come. 

Now I will admit . . . this is clearly a middle grade book. Not unreadable by any means. But there were several eye rolling moments.  Oh well you can’t have everything.

Characters

Jeanne: I loved Jeanne. Her visions came to her while she had strange fits, kind of like epilepsy I suppose, and she basically lives in fear of her abnormality being discovered. Seeing as how is 1242 and ‘witches’ aren’t usually . . . allowed to live 

I can see where she’s coming from.

William: Poor innocent destructive darling. He’s not stupid by any means but, much like Horace from Ranger’s Apprentice, he’s unexpectedly innocent. That coupled with his superhuman strength and half-African freakishly tall height made him pretty hilarious.

What is this tall you speak of?

Jacob: I have a soft spot for healer boys. There are very few of them in popular literature so I was very pleased when Jacob showed up. Not only was he a healer though he was also Jewish! I’m decently sure that there are plenty of books with Jewish protagonist in the world. I just never seem to find them in casual reading. So basically Jacob and I got along.

Gwenforte: Granted I won’t be able to say much about a character who was a) a dog and b) not one of the talking ones. Still I certainly like the idea of a saintly dog who comes back from the dead. Like most pet characters she had some great scenes and was always good for giggles.

Likes

The frame story: It’s been a long time since I read the Canterbury tales. But the fact that the story was told via a bunch of random strangers in a tavern was super cool. Most of the time. I liked the way it contained a hint of unreliable narrator to it. 

After all nobody knows who’s making things up, embellishing or who is actually being truthful. And it even created a nice little change of pace everyone and a while. Most every narrator had some sort of quirk or distinct voice that was interesting.

The plot: Because how could you not love the crazy hijinks of three saint-children and their un-killable dog. Granted most of the book was just of chain of one crazy problem after another, from angry knights to an extremely smelly dragon so maybe plot might be a bit of a stretch.

Everybody was actually respectful: Look I mentioned it above but it was done so well that I have to mention it again. Religion is one heck of a taboo in . . . well, everything. I cannot even explain to you how freeing it is to find an author who can actually speak respectfully and unbiasedly about Christianity and Judaism. During the crusades I might add once again!  Sir I am impressed and I am humbled. Much as I complain about it when other people do it, I can’t even speak respectfully about other people’s belief all the time. Just A+ and all that.

Dislikes

Like I said it was a middle grade novel: Which, despite my dislike of saying such things, I’ve kind of grown out of. There are some books that really can cross generations extremely well and this book got so very, very close. But there was some bits that just felt distinctly, middle grade. And that is not a bad thing! Not really at all. And it doesn’t mean that other people can’t enjoy it. It’s just not, you know, one of those books like The Hobbit or Narnia.

The writing was a little removed: I did like the Canterbury tales thing but there were times when it detracted from the story as opposed to added to it. After all you can’t have everything when it comes to third person. There were times when it was really pretty hard to understand what the character was thinking or coming from.

 Still I’d wager that, overall, the good things outweighed the bad things.

Basically I am a happy camper and actually pleasantly surprised.