Becky's Reviews > The Naming Song

The Naming Song enters us into a world that sounds remarkably like our own, but one that's been changed after something fell from the something tree. In this world, it is the named versus the nameless, the named attempt to restore order to the world by convening diviners to come up with names provided by the Sayers, while they chase out the nameless from the world. Except, our narrator is an unnamed who is a Courier, responsible for bringing names of things provided by sayers to the world. The Courier soon finds herself on a mission as she tries to make sense of the world as she knows it.

The Naming Song contains a unique world that I keep thinking back to and is so expertly crafted by Jedediah Berry. I listened to this as an audiobook and the narrator is absolutely incredible - she really captured me and held me along this ride. She captured so many different voices and her emotions felt like exactly true to what the characters would be feeling throughout the story. The world took me a minute to get my bearings and she helped anchor me.

While The Naming Song may be billed as a sci-fi/fantasy, it has a dystopian edge to it that I enjoyed. The number 12 train in the story reminded me of Snowpiercer, with hierarchy present and constant movement. The Black Square also had hints of Station Eleven and its Shakespeare troupe that goes around telling stories so that people remember what happened before and have a connection to the culture despite whatever else may be going on. Of course, the book is so much more than just those connections I made.

The importance of words, stories, and their meaning and what it means to name a thing is a theme that I'll continue to digest. Although one of the pieces that will stick with me most is how the world in The Naming Song runs on ghosts, as fuel for war machines, or as slaves, who are sometimes forced to continue the work that they did while they were living through their death.

If you're ready for a world of dystopian adventure with a hint of coming of age and some sci-fi vibes mixed in - this is the book for you and is one of my very favorites of the year. Thank you so much to NetGalley and to Macmillan Audio for the advanced copy.