Nov 30

Nov 30 The Bright Sword

About the book

Author: Lev Grossman
Publisher: Viking

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

Buy and support indie bookstores (+ I earn a small commission):
Bookshop.org (print) | Libro.fm (audio)

My Review

This is not your grandfather’s King Arthur novel.

The Bright Sword is an Arthurian retelling that feels like a love letter to our generation. It’s filled with the misfits — gay, trans, abused, depressed, objectified, imposter syndrome, you name it. And yet it doesn’t feel forced. It’s episodic and magical and adventurous as any good Arthurian story should be, but it’s also FUNNY and fun and never takes itself too seriously.

And yet its themes are both timely and timeless: What happens when the golden age comes to an end? Was it ever truly as golden as it seemed? And how can we honor the past without getting stuck in it, or being doomed to repeat it?

I will say that this book is definitely playing a bit of inside baseball. It’s playing off of and building on classic Arthurian literature and storytelling. If you don’t know anything about that, I wouldn’t be surprised if this book felt too long and a little unremarkable to you. But I don’t think it takes much; I only have a little bit of Arthurian knowledge, and I had a good time. But I’m sure if I knew more, I would have loved this book even better.

Last but not least, I gotta say that the audiobook was excellent (thank you PRH Audio!). I recommend leveraging both formats to make these ~700 pages fly by.