A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

Review

I finished Catch-22 and needed a short and nice palette cleanser. This did the job very well! It is an uncomplicated, unchallenging read, and comfortable being as such. I find Dex so relatable as a character, and Mosscap lets us see human behavior from an outsider view. It works as well in this book as it does in the first, in which I wrote a lot more about this. I didn’t feel this one quite hit the peaks of the first, perhaps because it feels much more like a series of vignettes than a narrative. I don’t mind at all, but it did make me think I should revise my rating of A Psalm for the Wild-Built up to 4.5 or even 5 stars, as this felt like a 4 star read to me.

Notes

p90 - “And don’t think of yourself as a problem,” Dex said, a protective edge entering their voice. “If they have an issue with you, that’s on them. And it’s not even about you, personally. They just … don’t understand what you are. Or maybe they can’t fit you into their beliefs, and that scares them. The unknown makes us stupid sometimes.”

p141 - “…You don’t have to have a reason to be tired. You don’t have to earn rest or comfort. You’re allowed to just be. I say that wherever I go.” They threw a hand toward their wagon, it’s wooden sides emblazoned with the summer bear. “It’s painted on the side of my home! But I don’t feel like it’s true, for me. I feel like it’s true for everyone else but not me. I feel like I have to do more than that. Like I have a responsibility to do more than that.” ¶ “Why?” Mosscap said. ¶ “Because I’m good at something,” Dex said. “I’m good at something that helps other people. I worked really hard to be able to do it, and I benefited from the labor and love of others while I did so. I’m able to do what I do because everybody else built a world in which I could do it. If I just say ‘Thanks for all of that, but I’m running off to the woods now,’ how is that fair? That doesn’t sit right with me, not at all. I’d just be a leech if I did that.”

I get it, Dex.

p145 - “How am I supposed to tell people they’re good enough as they are when I don’t think I am?”