Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Really absolutely nothing like the Narnia books, and not like his space trilogy either, much better than any of them. It's a retelling of the Eros and Psyche myth, from the perspective of Psyche's ugly stepsister. And somehow he totally nails the female narrator voice??? There are a few rough spots but having lived as a woman for 35 years I can say that he really understood how utterly rejected and worthless you're made to feel if you're not pretty. It's an emotionally and psychologically intense novel in a way I would never have known that Lewis was capable of. The worldbuilding is minimal (it's set in a fictional kingdom in the hinterlands of the Hellenic world, probably meant to be Thrace or somewhere) but all the details feel organic. The religious stuff comes towards the end but it's fairly obscure and mystical, and more like what people associate with Tolkien than with Lewis. I've read the original Golden Ass by Apuleius (the source for the Eros and Psyche myth) and it ends with a mystical revelation too, so it works for the material.
Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Really absolutely nothing like the Narnia books, and not like his space trilogy either, much better than any of them. It's a retelling of the Eros and Psyche myth, from the perspective of Psyche's ugly stepsister. And somehow he totally nails the female narrator voice??? There are a few rough spots but having lived as a woman for 35 years I can say that he really understood how utterly rejected and worthless you're made to feel if you're not pretty. It's an emotionally and psychologically intense novel in a way I would never have known that Lewis was capable of. The worldbuilding is minimal (it's set in a fictional kingdom in the hinterlands of the Hellenic world, probably meant to be Thrace or somewhere) but all the details feel organic. The religious stuff comes towards the end but it's fairly obscure and mystical, and more like what people associate with Tolkien than with Lewis. I've read the original Golden Ass by Apuleius (the source for the Eros and Psyche myth) and it ends with a mystical revelation too, so it works for the material.
I just felt like rambling about a book sorry
Didn't expect to see a C.S. Lewis suggestion on here, interesting choice!