What do you think?
Rate this book
The Secret Country #1
The Secret Country
They thought it was a game, but it was its own world...
Each vacation for the past nine years, cousins Patrick, Ruth, Ellen, Ted, and Laura have played a game they call the "Secret"—an invented, scripted world full of witches, unicorns, a magic ring, court intrigue, and the Dragon King. In the Secret, they can imagine anything into reality, and shape destiny. Then the unbelievable happens: by trick or by chance, they actually find themselves in the Secret Country, their made-up identities now real. The five have arrived at the start of their games, with the Country on the edge of war. What was once exciting and wonderful now looms threateningly before them, and no one is sure how to stop it... or if they will ever get back home.
"An intricate sparkling web of intrigue and magic. One of me very favorites.”—Patricia C. Wrede, author of Dealing with Dragons
Each vacation for the past nine years, cousins Patrick, Ruth, Ellen, Ted, and Laura have played a game they call the "Secret"—an invented, scripted world full of witches, unicorns, a magic ring, court intrigue, and the Dragon King. In the Secret, they can imagine anything into reality, and shape destiny. Then the unbelievable happens: by trick or by chance, they actually find themselves in the Secret Country, their made-up identities now real. The five have arrived at the start of their games, with the Country on the edge of war. What was once exciting and wonderful now looms threateningly before them, and no one is sure how to stop it... or if they will ever get back home.
"An intricate sparkling web of intrigue and magic. One of me very favorites.”—Patricia C. Wrede, author of Dealing with Dragons
371 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1985
49 people are currently reading
3579 people want to read
About the author
Pamela Dean
40 books183 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Pamela Dean is an American fantasy author best known for Tam Lin, a novel that reimagines the classic Scottish fairy tale in a Midwestern college setting inspired by her alma mater, Carleton College. She has written six novels, including The Secret Country Trilogy, The Dubious Hills, and Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, and has contributed short stories to various anthologies.
A member of the influential writing group The Scribblies, alongside authors such as Emma Bull and Patricia Wrede, Dean was also a contributor to the Liavek shared-world anthologies and is part of the Pre-Joycean Fellowship. Her work is often praised for its lyrical prose, literary depth, and rich mythological influences.
Both Tam Lin and The Dubious Hills were nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. She has also written essays and reviews, showcasing her deep engagement with fantasy literature. Readers drawn to intelligent, literary fantasy with a strong sense of folklore and academia will find much to love in her work.
Pamela Dean is an American fantasy author best known for Tam Lin, a novel that reimagines the classic Scottish fairy tale in a Midwestern college setting inspired by her alma mater, Carleton College. She has written six novels, including The Secret Country Trilogy, The Dubious Hills, and Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, and has contributed short stories to various anthologies.
A member of the influential writing group The Scribblies, alongside authors such as Emma Bull and Patricia Wrede, Dean was also a contributor to the Liavek shared-world anthologies and is part of the Pre-Joycean Fellowship. Her work is often praised for its lyrical prose, literary depth, and rich mythological influences.
Both Tam Lin and The Dubious Hills were nominated for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. She has also written essays and reviews, showcasing her deep engagement with fantasy literature. Readers drawn to intelligent, literary fantasy with a strong sense of folklore and academia will find much to love in her work.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews
July 30, 2007
OMG so awesome. Two siblings and their three cousins fall through a hedge into a magical realm—one they used to pretend was real. Like a non-preachy version of Narnia, but with better characterization and a more intriguing framing device. In fact, each and every character is well-rounded and interesting—I go the feeling that any one of them could carry a story of their own.
June 24, 2013
All right, this is technically a recent re-read, as I have read this book more times than I can count. I think the last time, though, may well have been ten or twelve years ago, when I was writing my own “children from our world are whisked away to another, which only they can save” book. Halfway through, I basically fell into a complete panic that I was not writing THE SECRET COUNTRY and that what I was doing was disasterous, so I did something I never ever do, which is went and read a book while writing one. And I discovered that although THE SECRET COUNTRY was indeed perfect in all ways, it wasn’t the story I wanted to tell, so it was all okay.
I still find it astonishingly wonderful. I love…God. Everything about it. It encapsulates the pure belief and strength of childhood storytelling, albeit with more Shakespeare references than your average 8-14 year olds have a handle on (and I say this as one who had quite a handle on them, for a person in that age range). The repeated impulses the children have once they realise they’re really *in* the Secret Country–”Let’s say that this happens instead!” Exactly how kids tell stories, except of course it doesn’t work when the game turns real. And the depth of that discovery, that it is real, the things that go wrong from how they’ve told the story, their mirror being imperfect–it’s all exactly how a game turned real should play out.
The relationships between the children are beautifully done, with characterization layered through their reactions to one another: Laura liked Patrick, but she did not trust him. God, Patrick is so annoying! In exactly the right way. They all play off each other well, although–and this is a personal thing due to having grown up with the family I did–the way that they tell each other to shut up all the time bothers me. But I recognize that’s because my family were taught that shut up was especially rude, so I don’t like seeing or hearing it often in any scenario. I like the struggle, particularly with Ted, to fit into the character they’re supposed to be playing.
I love the language, and I don’t mean the Bardic references. It is told in the way children tell each other stories as they’re playing them, with deceptively simple language and sentences. I wish I could do that, but I have a really hard time with it.
It *does* end a little abruptly. :) I wish I hadn’t packed my copies of THE HIDDEN LAND and THE WHIM OF THE DRAGON so I could carry on immediately, particularly since there are several things I think of as having happened in book one that actually happen in book two…
Someday I will get to meet Pamela Dean in person, and get her to sign my 28-year-old copy of THE SECRET COUNTRY, and the only slightly younger copies of its sequels, and then I will retire those battered, beloved, yellow-paged, bent-cover, broken-spined, finger-sweat-stained books to the Shelf Of Honor along with DRAGONSONG and one or two others, and I will get newer copies to actually read. (Somehow.)
I still find it astonishingly wonderful. I love…God. Everything about it. It encapsulates the pure belief and strength of childhood storytelling, albeit with more Shakespeare references than your average 8-14 year olds have a handle on (and I say this as one who had quite a handle on them, for a person in that age range). The repeated impulses the children have once they realise they’re really *in* the Secret Country–”Let’s say that this happens instead!” Exactly how kids tell stories, except of course it doesn’t work when the game turns real. And the depth of that discovery, that it is real, the things that go wrong from how they’ve told the story, their mirror being imperfect–it’s all exactly how a game turned real should play out.
The relationships between the children are beautifully done, with characterization layered through their reactions to one another: Laura liked Patrick, but she did not trust him. God, Patrick is so annoying! In exactly the right way. They all play off each other well, although–and this is a personal thing due to having grown up with the family I did–the way that they tell each other to shut up all the time bothers me. But I recognize that’s because my family were taught that shut up was especially rude, so I don’t like seeing or hearing it often in any scenario. I like the struggle, particularly with Ted, to fit into the character they’re supposed to be playing.
I love the language, and I don’t mean the Bardic references. It is told in the way children tell each other stories as they’re playing them, with deceptively simple language and sentences. I wish I could do that, but I have a really hard time with it.
It *does* end a little abruptly. :) I wish I hadn’t packed my copies of THE HIDDEN LAND and THE WHIM OF THE DRAGON so I could carry on immediately, particularly since there are several things I think of as having happened in book one that actually happen in book two…
Someday I will get to meet Pamela Dean in person, and get her to sign my 28-year-old copy of THE SECRET COUNTRY, and the only slightly younger copies of its sequels, and then I will retire those battered, beloved, yellow-paged, bent-cover, broken-spined, finger-sweat-stained books to the Shelf Of Honor along with DRAGONSONG and one or two others, and I will get newer copies to actually read. (Somehow.)
April 30, 2020
I remembered reading these and liking them when I was younger so I decided to revisit. So much better than I remembered. The author doesn’t dumb this series down, not at all. She assumes her readers are well-read critical thinkers with an excellent vocabulary. She knows her Shakespearean language and uses it like a fluent speaker (turns out she actually did her master’s on Shakespeare, so go figure). Many great turns of phrase, witty rejoinders, and subtleties she leaves for you to catch. There are parts where even my adult’s mind, accustomed to reading nasty heavy philosophy books, had to reread and puzzle through.
Basically the author is super weird and it’s so endearing and fascinating. Her mind seems like a wonderful place to live, and it’s a privilege to be allowed to visit it.
Basically the author is super weird and it’s so endearing and fascinating. Her mind seems like a wonderful place to live, and it’s a privilege to be allowed to visit it.
March 6, 2008
The Secret Country begins with a very Narnia-esque scenario of five children, cousins, who are accustomed to spend their summers together. And every summer they play the same imaginative game about a fantasy country of magic and intrigue, where they are all princes and princesses. But this summer they are separated and miserable—until they find two magical swords that seem to transport them into their imaginary country made real.
The true genius here is how Pamela Dean intertwines the children’s game, filled with literary and Shakespearean allusion, with the sudden unpredictable presence of the fantasy-turned-reality. The children sometimes guess what is going to happen as the plot of the story follows the plot of their made-up game, and other times they are lost as unexpected twists trap them. Not to mention that riding horses and fencing is not quite the same in reality as it is in imagination… And what is reality, really? The children begin to wonder as they try to change the course of their made-up plot, now playing out inexorably in real-life events. They suspect that there is another power at work, but is it their own imaginations still acting on the “game”, or something else?
These very complex ideas, the masterful character building, and the detail of the fantasy world, combine to make a very compelling read. Ms. Dean is one of those authors who assumes her reader’s intelligence, at the books are full of half-glimpsed clues and an immense backstory only hinted at in the dialogue and action. You have to pay very close attention.
The true genius here is how Pamela Dean intertwines the children’s game, filled with literary and Shakespearean allusion, with the sudden unpredictable presence of the fantasy-turned-reality. The children sometimes guess what is going to happen as the plot of the story follows the plot of their made-up game, and other times they are lost as unexpected twists trap them. Not to mention that riding horses and fencing is not quite the same in reality as it is in imagination… And what is reality, really? The children begin to wonder as they try to change the course of their made-up plot, now playing out inexorably in real-life events. They suspect that there is another power at work, but is it their own imaginations still acting on the “game”, or something else?
These very complex ideas, the masterful character building, and the detail of the fantasy world, combine to make a very compelling read. Ms. Dean is one of those authors who assumes her reader’s intelligence, at the books are full of half-glimpsed clues and an immense backstory only hinted at in the dialogue and action. You have to pay very close attention.
February 6, 2011
A group of children end up inside the imaginary world that they created as part of a secret game, and then they experience some of the adventures they used to play.
I liked the characters, and the setting was fun because it fit with how a bunch of kids that age would create a fantasy kingdom, complete with enchanted forests, a wizard's tower, and unicorns. Unfortunately, the rest of the book had some serious issues.
The kids were almost always confused about what was going on. They had a lot of knowledge about the country and its inhabitants, even if things in the game weren't quite the way they'd imagined them. That knowledge wasn't communicated effectively to me as a reader, especially thanks to the initial jumble of names and chatter about which child played which secondary character in which scene.
There were a lot of arguments about if their trip to the Secret Country was real or a hallucination. The exact nature of their experience might become important in a later book, but anyone who's reading a fantasy novel is pretty much willing to go along with its premise. There was no need to talk it to death, all that navel-gazing held back the pace of the actual plot.
If that ongoing disagreement wasn't enough, the characters spent a lot of time fighting over inconsequential things. It got old fast. Their motivations were also muddy, most of the time they seemed content to just go along with whatever was happening. I won't say they were entirely passive, but they were ineffective to the point of nearly being dull.
Having said all that, I may pick the second one up if I come across it, because this book didn't really answer any of the questions it raised.
I liked the characters, and the setting was fun because it fit with how a bunch of kids that age would create a fantasy kingdom, complete with enchanted forests, a wizard's tower, and unicorns. Unfortunately, the rest of the book had some serious issues.
The kids were almost always confused about what was going on. They had a lot of knowledge about the country and its inhabitants, even if things in the game weren't quite the way they'd imagined them. That knowledge wasn't communicated effectively to me as a reader, especially thanks to the initial jumble of names and chatter about which child played which secondary character in which scene.
There were a lot of arguments about if their trip to the Secret Country was real or a hallucination. The exact nature of their experience might become important in a later book, but anyone who's reading a fantasy novel is pretty much willing to go along with its premise. There was no need to talk it to death, all that navel-gazing held back the pace of the actual plot.
If that ongoing disagreement wasn't enough, the characters spent a lot of time fighting over inconsequential things. It got old fast. Their motivations were also muddy, most of the time they seemed content to just go along with whatever was happening. I won't say they were entirely passive, but they were ineffective to the point of nearly being dull.
Having said all that, I may pick the second one up if I come across it, because this book didn't really answer any of the questions it raised.
October 30, 2008
This is quite possibly the worst book I've read recently. I read 100 pages and I was so confused. Kids pretending to be others but thinking back to a script that they made and there were people who were playing on person but not someone in this part of the story. I gave up.
As the one reviewer said, it was a like a private joke that we weren't in on. As far as it being Narnia it's far from it, the whole idea would have been great but it's not anything like a Narnia. Great writer you aren't.
As the one reviewer said, it was a like a private joke that we weren't in on. As far as it being Narnia it's far from it, the whole idea would have been great but it's not anything like a Narnia. Great writer you aren't.
November 17, 2012
I read the Secret Country trilogy because I liked Tam Lin so very much.
The Secret Country trilogy was good, but not nearly as satisfying. Like Tam Lin, it takes a very long time to set up, and does so in a wandering way, but this time I didn't think that they pay-off was really worth it. I didn't feel like I really understood the characters' motivations for doing everything.
In the book, Ted, Laura, Ruth, Patrick and Ellen find the Secret Country that they have been playing with and imagining for years. It seems to be real, although there are differences from how they've imagined it. I wasn't really sure why the cousins decided to stay in the Secret Country once things started becoming difficult. I suspect much of the reason that the books weren't satisfying for me is that I didn't care for the premise nearly as much as I thought I would.
The Secret Country trilogy was good, but not nearly as satisfying. Like Tam Lin, it takes a very long time to set up, and does so in a wandering way, but this time I didn't think that they pay-off was really worth it. I didn't feel like I really understood the characters' motivations for doing everything.
In the book, Ted, Laura, Ruth, Patrick and Ellen find the Secret Country that they have been playing with and imagining for years. It seems to be real, although there are differences from how they've imagined it. I wasn't really sure why the cousins decided to stay in the Secret Country once things started becoming difficult. I suspect much of the reason that the books weren't satisfying for me is that I didn't care for the premise nearly as much as I thought I would.
December 29, 2013
You might wonder how I discovered this book. Well, my friends, even if you didn’t wonder, I’m going to tell you anyway. According to my somewhat possibly faulty memory, it happened something like this. I became aware of that fact that apparently on Goodreads you can review... fanfiction. As in, fanfiction—that, from what I gather, you can still find on fanfiction.net or what have you—can be found on its own page on Goodreads. And you can then review them.
I wasn't sure how I should feel about this, so decided to do some Googling, to hear different sides out and that kind of thing. It seemed like something that would be a big topic. (Apparently not, though?) I was looking for articles, mainly, I think. Long story short, I ran across this record/article/thing on JournalFen. (Warnings: some cursing in link. If the link doesn’t work, please tell me and I’ll try to fix it.)
What was revealed in the link was all new to me. I'm not gonna lie: I ended up checking out this book because I wondered what was so great about it that Cassandra Claire allegedly plagiarized it in fanfiction. Again, not gonna lie, I'm going to be honest and say I'm not too familiar with Claire's work. I know of it. I might have even read a book or two a few years ago (pretty sure I did), but clearly it didn't stick. I know she's a pretty popular YA author and I think there's a movie coming out based on her book series.
So, now that you know how I found this book... let me tell you about this book. It has a simple premise: some close cousins play a make believe game together every summer. Then they find a world that is the very world that they made up. In this magical world, they are the characters they made up and acted as in the real world. Simple enough, right?
But see, it's kind of fascinating. And there was this pretty fascinating conversation at one point as to whether or not the magical world was real, or a mass hallucination on their part. Think about it. What are the chances that the world you fall into via magical sword bring you to the world you made up with your cousins?
Keep in mind, this entire magical world operates on the fact that it is utterly real. There are politics (fascinating politics!) and there's different types of magic (and unicorns!) and dragons (DRAGONS!) and it's pretty cool. But the longer I read the more panicked I became. Why? Because you fall into a world and have to act like the character you used to play act as in the real world. For example, one of the cousins had to be a brave princess, when she herself isn't particularly brave. And in the magic world, the magic world denizens don't know that you're not the brave princess. So, when you act confused as to where you're bedroom is in the freaking castle, it concerns people. And this is an almost medieval place, so who knows what they'll do once if they find out you're from a different world and not their beloved princess or what have you?
The point: since they were thrown in the deep end in the middle of the magic world, even though it was a world they created, they had to act like their characters. And I was ready to beat my head against the wall the longer they messed around with it. What I'm saying is that it's all fun and games until you realize the world you created has monsters and sharp things and bad guys who will eat you for lunch. They spent a lot of the time bumbling about, making me want to scream, not taking anything seriously and I found it completely realistic. (It’s their world. It’s not entirely surprising they were somewhat arrogant about its ownership and their safety.) My only concern is that when they start taking it seriously, really seriously, it will be because something drastic has happened.
Like if one of the cousins were to die.
So, yes, good set up for an interesting series. The idea behind it is simple, but you can read a lot into it. The pacing did seem to drag at points and it can at times lose your attention if you’re not careful. I want to argue that there were too many main characters, but Dean pulled it off—if barely. My favorite was Patrick because he was the only one who seemed remotely to be taking this seriously and questioning reality. I like to think if I found a made up world I created with friends, I’d be questioning everything and if it was real or if I bumped my head too hard reaching for the milk.
What some people might be uncomfortable reading about in this book because of personal opinion or belief: there are a few sprinklings of very mild curses by the end, but they are few and far between—they’re also usually followed by a comment from someone “not to curse.” Also, I guess Claudia is a very sensual character that might not like to be read by some. It was very mild, though, and clean. If you are allergic to Shakespearian speech, be warned—many of the character speak it fluently in the magic world. Actually, if there’s one unrealistic thing in this it was the amount of comprehension and ease that all the cousins (who were all younger or around 15, I think?) had with Shakespeare and referencing him.
I wasn't sure how I should feel about this, so decided to do some Googling, to hear different sides out and that kind of thing. It seemed like something that would be a big topic. (Apparently not, though?) I was looking for articles, mainly, I think. Long story short, I ran across this record/article/thing on JournalFen. (Warnings: some cursing in link. If the link doesn’t work, please tell me and I’ll try to fix it.)
What was revealed in the link was all new to me. I'm not gonna lie: I ended up checking out this book because I wondered what was so great about it that Cassandra Claire allegedly plagiarized it in fanfiction. Again, not gonna lie, I'm going to be honest and say I'm not too familiar with Claire's work. I know of it. I might have even read a book or two a few years ago (pretty sure I did), but clearly it didn't stick. I know she's a pretty popular YA author and I think there's a movie coming out based on her book series.
So, now that you know how I found this book... let me tell you about this book. It has a simple premise: some close cousins play a make believe game together every summer. Then they find a world that is the very world that they made up. In this magical world, they are the characters they made up and acted as in the real world. Simple enough, right?
But see, it's kind of fascinating. And there was this pretty fascinating conversation at one point as to whether or not the magical world was real, or a mass hallucination on their part. Think about it. What are the chances that the world you fall into via magical sword bring you to the world you made up with your cousins?
Keep in mind, this entire magical world operates on the fact that it is utterly real. There are politics (fascinating politics!) and there's different types of magic (and unicorns!) and dragons (DRAGONS!) and it's pretty cool. But the longer I read the more panicked I became. Why? Because you fall into a world and have to act like the character you used to play act as in the real world. For example, one of the cousins had to be a brave princess, when she herself isn't particularly brave. And in the magic world, the magic world denizens don't know that you're not the brave princess. So, when you act confused as to where you're bedroom is in the freaking castle, it concerns people. And this is an almost medieval place, so who knows what they'll do once if they find out you're from a different world and not their beloved princess or what have you?
The point: since they were thrown in the deep end in the middle of the magic world, even though it was a world they created, they had to act like their characters. And I was ready to beat my head against the wall the longer they messed around with it. What I'm saying is that it's all fun and games until you realize the world you created has monsters and sharp things and bad guys who will eat you for lunch. They spent a lot of the time bumbling about, making me want to scream, not taking anything seriously and I found it completely realistic. (It’s their world. It’s not entirely surprising they were somewhat arrogant about its ownership and their safety.) My only concern is that when they start taking it seriously, really seriously, it will be because something drastic has happened.
Like if one of the cousins were to die.
So, yes, good set up for an interesting series. The idea behind it is simple, but you can read a lot into it. The pacing did seem to drag at points and it can at times lose your attention if you’re not careful. I want to argue that there were too many main characters, but Dean pulled it off—if barely. My favorite was Patrick because he was the only one who seemed remotely to be taking this seriously and questioning reality. I like to think if I found a made up world I created with friends, I’d be questioning everything and if it was real or if I bumped my head too hard reaching for the milk.
What some people might be uncomfortable reading about in this book because of personal opinion or belief: there are a few sprinklings of very mild curses by the end, but they are few and far between—they’re also usually followed by a comment from someone “not to curse.” Also, I guess Claudia is a very sensual character that might not like to be read by some. It was very mild, though, and clean. If you are allergic to Shakespearian speech, be warned—many of the character speak it fluently in the magic world. Actually, if there’s one unrealistic thing in this it was the amount of comprehension and ease that all the cousins (who were all younger or around 15, I think?) had with Shakespeare and referencing him.
March 10, 2019
The first book of a series that once upon a time was one of my regular comfort reads , returned to again and again with me always trying to pay attention to this character this time, or stating: okay, I will figure out all this twisted-up worldbuilding this time…' and will try to suss out so-and-so's motive this time…
I've never quite completed a series reread without feeling like I understood EVERYthing. And to this day, I could probably not tell you the Overarching Backstory of the Secret Country trilogy in one sitting without flipping here or there back to the books so I can recheck.
And upon this particular reread, I think that: that's just fine. Because this is a series that rewards with every read and if it is just Your Kind of Thing, you'll find something different all the time.
This time around? For me it was alllll about the Carrolls' and their genre-savviness.
This is about five cousins, ages ranging from eleven, to fifteen, who walk from the real world straight into 'The Secret', a fantasy story that they've been building and play-acting for nine years, complete with original characters and a role to play for each one of them. The Carrolls are genre-savvy, literate kids, clearly well-versed in fantasy tropes, raised on poetry and Shakespeare and mysteries, and knowing how things or should not BE in Story. And this is their plot, their characters, their baby: this experience should be a blast, right? Only…
"Why's he so grumpy?" Ellen asked Laura.
"He's always grumpy."
"But Prince Edward is meek and gentle."
"Heh," said Laura. p.144
There's an extremely fascinating struggle with kids' double identities and how the kids 'take' to the characters they have created for themselves. The second oldest Carroll, Ted, who is cranky and brash by nature, now has to face the facts that they created his own character, "Prince Edward" to be a 'quiet milksop' in The Secret, and that is hardly a great positon to be in when he, Ted, is faced with a grimmer prospect than the others: in The Secret his character had to kill his best friend and go into the underworld, among other things. Plot points that seemed terrifically exciting in The Secret are now harrowing events that Ted is desperate to change, all the while chafing under the constraints of Edward's personality. And the worst part is that his cousins and sister still see them as cool plot twists.
Laura, Ted's sister, is in a similar difficult position, being a wilting wallflower of a girl who now has to play chatty, adventure-loving "Princess Laura". Through walking into The Secret, she comes to realize just how much she's been missing out on in life, not because she, Laura, often refuses the call to adventure but because she never ever gives herself the choice to accept it or not, whether she's playing Princess Laura or just being herself. And the choice, to say "yes I will" or "no I'd rather not", is the key, for Laura. Her arc and coming to this epiphany is one of my favorite things in the first book.
On the other hand, Ruth, the oldest cousin, revels in her character perhaps more than anyone else. Ruth, who was always meek and dreamy, slips on the eccentric, surly "Lady Ruth" sorceress persona like hand in glove, much to her siblings and cousins' consternation. I often found myself at the Batman/Bruce Wayne question: is haughty Lady Ruth the real Ruth, and was even-tempered Ruth Carroll the secret identity all along?
And then there's Patrick! Almost certainly the most conventionally unlikable of the kids, and yet he intrigues me as a character: he is the scientist of the bunch, he was very, very good in playing at The Secret when it was a game, but now actually living it drives him absolutely crazy. And even living it, he is mighty convinced that none of this is real: that this is perhaps a hallucination, that this event or that character appearing means something for his hypotheses, that this bit of worldbuilding is proof that it's all in their minds. Oh, and speaking of worldbuilding, it amuses me to no end that his sister, Ellen, apparently never bothered to add dimensions to HER character "Princess Ellen" because oh, she was too busy building and creating islands here, lore over there, battles over here while they were playing, and so she is sort of the history-keeper of The Secret. Now that the Carrolls are actually living their world, they often turn to her in exasperation crying: "you added WHAT?! " But Ellen just loves everything and is so happy about all her worldbuilding and her world come to life that you can't begrudge her anything. I never fully appreciated Ellen until this reread.
"What's going on? " cried Ruth. "How can we do anything if it keeps changing all by itself?" p. 110
"I want to make it so we don't have to go back and forth all the time and get yelled at wherever we go, so we can settle down here and finish the story." p. 103
At some point in the book, Laura cries out "I don't want to grow up twice!" to which Ruth replies "It doesn't hurt." It's one of many "Hey, hey, these kids know their portal fantasy!" moments. (It's also a fun character moment— Ruth knows FULL well about the Narnia-wardrobe time discrepancy and is still willing to go through it?? Okay…I wouldn't do that, but you do you, Ruth. Lots of these moments in the trilogy.) Genre-savviness pervades this novel more than any other in the series– the technicalities of knowing they are in a portal fantasy and the nuts and bolts of it: wrangling the world and its quirks into shape, dealing with the pesky matter of controlling time here and time in the real world…and dealing with what the hell to do when the story starts NOT going your way. Or worse: when it starts going exactly your way.
Lady Claudia, a completely new person no one came up with, is introduced and continues to be a force to reckoned with through the rest of the trilogy. Lord Andrew, the cousins' designated bad guy, is more weaselly and less villainous than they imagined. Lord Randolph and Fence, the king's counselor and the court magician, respectively, were beloved characters in The Secret and their coming to life before the cousins eyes is a real treat to read about: oh my, suddenly, a favorite character is very much doing things of his own volition? Suddenly, their favorites are hooking up with strange magicians, entrusting the cousins as spies, taking away magical objects one shouldn't play with, commenting on the cousins' habitual quirks …being living breathing mentor figures? And how do you deal with all that, with a character you think YOU CREATED? With someone you love who was just supposed to stay a character?
"I think we'd better think about what we think," said Ted, and no one laughed at the way he put it. p. 189
Which brings us to the matter of ethics. The cousins' inevitable question of: what if these aren't characters and this isn't a playworld; what if these are actually LIVES we hold in our hands? This comes like a thunderclap on Ted about halfway through the book and slowly sets in on the rest of the Carrolls: what exactly are we playing at here? What does it say about all of us, about ME, that I want to experiment with plot twists and play in the world without much regard for how our beloved characters will be affected, for how war and magical bargains and DEATH are woven into our story? IS it our story? What IS this, why has this happened, and what exactly do we think we are doing here?
"Ellen Jennifer Carroll," said Ruth, "for the millionth time, this is not a game." p. 365
Start this if you think you'd be into fantasy books that yes, have court intrigue and elemental magic and fanciful creatures, but are also very meta about them . If you think you'd be into a book that both lovingly and critically peers at makings of a fantasy story, a book where the focus is on characters who don't deny themselves the delights and fears of being lost in their dream world but also grapple with the responsibility of having created it themselves. A book where you have characters who are already well aware of all the plot twists and turns …or think they are anyway, and then have to contend with even greater forces at work that will play out in some very strange ways through the rest of the trilogy.
And if you've never heard of anything like that before –I know I hadn't when I first picked the books up!—and think all these sound mighty tempting, then this series, starting with this novel, is very much worth a try!
I've never quite completed a series reread without feeling like I understood EVERYthing. And to this day, I could probably not tell you the Overarching Backstory of the Secret Country trilogy in one sitting without flipping here or there back to the books so I can recheck.
And upon this particular reread, I think that: that's just fine. Because this is a series that rewards with every read and if it is just Your Kind of Thing, you'll find something different all the time.
This time around? For me it was alllll about the Carrolls' and their genre-savviness.
This is about five cousins, ages ranging from eleven, to fifteen, who walk from the real world straight into 'The Secret', a fantasy story that they've been building and play-acting for nine years, complete with original characters and a role to play for each one of them. The Carrolls are genre-savvy, literate kids, clearly well-versed in fantasy tropes, raised on poetry and Shakespeare and mysteries, and knowing how things or should not BE in Story. And this is their plot, their characters, their baby: this experience should be a blast, right? Only…
"Why's he so grumpy?" Ellen asked Laura.
"He's always grumpy."
"But Prince Edward is meek and gentle."
"Heh," said Laura. p.144
There's an extremely fascinating struggle with kids' double identities and how the kids 'take' to the characters they have created for themselves. The second oldest Carroll, Ted, who is cranky and brash by nature, now has to face the facts that they created his own character, "Prince Edward" to be a 'quiet milksop' in The Secret, and that is hardly a great positon to be in when he, Ted, is faced with a grimmer prospect than the others: in The Secret his character had to kill his best friend and go into the underworld, among other things. Plot points that seemed terrifically exciting in The Secret are now harrowing events that Ted is desperate to change, all the while chafing under the constraints of Edward's personality. And the worst part is that his cousins and sister still see them as cool plot twists.
Laura, Ted's sister, is in a similar difficult position, being a wilting wallflower of a girl who now has to play chatty, adventure-loving "Princess Laura". Through walking into The Secret, she comes to realize just how much she's been missing out on in life, not because she, Laura, often refuses the call to adventure but because she never ever gives herself the choice to accept it or not, whether she's playing Princess Laura or just being herself. And the choice, to say "yes I will" or "no I'd rather not", is the key, for Laura. Her arc and coming to this epiphany is one of my favorite things in the first book.
On the other hand, Ruth, the oldest cousin, revels in her character perhaps more than anyone else. Ruth, who was always meek and dreamy, slips on the eccentric, surly "Lady Ruth" sorceress persona like hand in glove, much to her siblings and cousins' consternation. I often found myself at the Batman/Bruce Wayne question: is haughty Lady Ruth the real Ruth, and was even-tempered Ruth Carroll the secret identity all along?
And then there's Patrick! Almost certainly the most conventionally unlikable of the kids, and yet he intrigues me as a character: he is the scientist of the bunch, he was very, very good in playing at The Secret when it was a game, but now actually living it drives him absolutely crazy. And even living it, he is mighty convinced that none of this is real: that this is perhaps a hallucination, that this event or that character appearing means something for his hypotheses, that this bit of worldbuilding is proof that it's all in their minds. Oh, and speaking of worldbuilding, it amuses me to no end that his sister, Ellen, apparently never bothered to add dimensions to HER character "Princess Ellen" because oh, she was too busy building and creating islands here, lore over there, battles over here while they were playing, and so she is sort of the history-keeper of The Secret. Now that the Carrolls are actually living their world, they often turn to her in exasperation crying: "you added WHAT?! " But Ellen just loves everything and is so happy about all her worldbuilding and her world come to life that you can't begrudge her anything. I never fully appreciated Ellen until this reread.
"What's going on? " cried Ruth. "How can we do anything if it keeps changing all by itself?" p. 110
"I want to make it so we don't have to go back and forth all the time and get yelled at wherever we go, so we can settle down here and finish the story." p. 103
At some point in the book, Laura cries out "I don't want to grow up twice!" to which Ruth replies "It doesn't hurt." It's one of many "Hey, hey, these kids know their portal fantasy!" moments. (It's also a fun character moment— Ruth knows FULL well about the Narnia-wardrobe time discrepancy and is still willing to go through it?? Okay…I wouldn't do that, but you do you, Ruth. Lots of these moments in the trilogy.) Genre-savviness pervades this novel more than any other in the series– the technicalities of knowing they are in a portal fantasy and the nuts and bolts of it: wrangling the world and its quirks into shape, dealing with the pesky matter of controlling time here and time in the real world…and dealing with what the hell to do when the story starts NOT going your way. Or worse: when it starts going exactly your way.
Lady Claudia, a completely new person no one came up with, is introduced and continues to be a force to reckoned with through the rest of the trilogy. Lord Andrew, the cousins' designated bad guy, is more weaselly and less villainous than they imagined. Lord Randolph and Fence, the king's counselor and the court magician, respectively, were beloved characters in The Secret and their coming to life before the cousins eyes is a real treat to read about: oh my, suddenly, a favorite character is very much doing things of his own volition? Suddenly, their favorites are hooking up with strange magicians, entrusting the cousins as spies, taking away magical objects one shouldn't play with, commenting on the cousins' habitual quirks …being living breathing mentor figures? And how do you deal with all that, with a character you think YOU CREATED? With someone you love who was just supposed to stay a character?
"I think we'd better think about what we think," said Ted, and no one laughed at the way he put it. p. 189
Which brings us to the matter of ethics. The cousins' inevitable question of: what if these aren't characters and this isn't a playworld; what if these are actually LIVES we hold in our hands? This comes like a thunderclap on Ted about halfway through the book and slowly sets in on the rest of the Carrolls: what exactly are we playing at here? What does it say about all of us, about ME, that I want to experiment with plot twists and play in the world without much regard for how our beloved characters will be affected, for how war and magical bargains and DEATH are woven into our story? IS it our story? What IS this, why has this happened, and what exactly do we think we are doing here?
"Ellen Jennifer Carroll," said Ruth, "for the millionth time, this is not a game." p. 365
Start this if you think you'd be into fantasy books that yes, have court intrigue and elemental magic and fanciful creatures, but are also very meta about them . If you think you'd be into a book that both lovingly and critically peers at makings of a fantasy story, a book where the focus is on characters who don't deny themselves the delights and fears of being lost in their dream world but also grapple with the responsibility of having created it themselves. A book where you have characters who are already well aware of all the plot twists and turns …or think they are anyway, and then have to contend with even greater forces at work that will play out in some very strange ways through the rest of the trilogy.
And if you've never heard of anything like that before –I know I hadn't when I first picked the books up!—and think all these sound mighty tempting, then this series, starting with this novel, is very much worth a try!
June 2, 2019
3.5 stars rounded up
I don't think I've ever read anything else where I've wanted to keep reading and yet had no idea whether I liked the book or not right up until the last page. This is a staple of Pamela Dean's work, in fairness. I read Tam Lin last year and loved it, but the objections other reviewers made to that could be levelled here too. Dean gives you very little to go on, on the surface. So much of the action happens at a sub-sub level in the plot that you could be forgive for missing it and being confused when she finally ties the threads off in the final chapter. It's skilfully done but I think considering who this book should be intended for, it hasn't done Dean any favours here.
This is about two sets of cousins - five children - who have a long standing game/play where they have created a Secret Country. Every summer, they spend time together in their imagined land. Then one summer, the cousins are divided and cannot spend time together in their fantasy land. After an unpleasant beginning to the holidays, Laura and Ted discover a real way into the Secret Country - which is apparently just as real as our world. Their cousins - Ruth, Ellen and Patrick have found their way in too, so it looks as if they can really live out their fantasy story this summer. Except when your fantasy world becomes real, it also belongs to itself and to the other characters you thought you'd made up. Things start to go wrong. The rest of the Secret Country is not interested in following the children's script and events start happening out of order. The children find that living in a fantasy land is not nearly as much fun as they expected - medieval rules apply, none of them are able to act as they are supposed to, speak the way they should or have the skills they should have acquired. Laura, the youngest, is an excellent example of this - she's supposed to be the finest horse rider in the kingdom and the best dancer in five kingdoms. In reality she's pathologically clumsy and pretty much scared of everything. Many of these juxtapositions were amusing but I did find they grew wearing after a while. I love a character journey where the characters go from hopeless to competent but they needed a lot more wins than they got here and it grew perilously close to slapstick.
Like all portal fantasies, the children swiftly realise that there are huge barriers to them getting home. While Dean has subverted a lot of tropes, many of these subversions failed to hit in a satisfying way for me. Dean has an excellent style that is by turns plain and perfect and rich and strange, easy to read and apparently effortless - which suggests to me a great deal of effort went into achieving it. She's obviously an accomplished writer. The problem is this story is a snow globe. You're kept separated from it by a layer of invisible glass until you almost don't care about it. This is not immersive fantasy, and while I found it highly readable and will read the next too books, I am not surprised so many people found it frustrating.
My other issue is that the children are supposed to be between 12 and 15. They act like they are between 8 - 10. I know this was first published in 1985 but I doubt teens acted like this then either. If I was shelving this in the library, I would put it under older junior fiction (9 - 13) rather than YA.
That aside, there were things that really worked for me. Some of the most visual scenes were beautiful - the unicorn hunt for instance. The quiet fantasy was soothing if not very exciting (on the surface). And the book had the feel of something where it'll come to me later and click and I'll go 'ah ha!' Perhaps it suffers from being the first in a series because it stopped rather than ended. I'm interested to see where the next book goes.
I don't think I've ever read anything else where I've wanted to keep reading and yet had no idea whether I liked the book or not right up until the last page. This is a staple of Pamela Dean's work, in fairness. I read Tam Lin last year and loved it, but the objections other reviewers made to that could be levelled here too. Dean gives you very little to go on, on the surface. So much of the action happens at a sub-sub level in the plot that you could be forgive for missing it and being confused when she finally ties the threads off in the final chapter. It's skilfully done but I think considering who this book should be intended for, it hasn't done Dean any favours here.
This is about two sets of cousins - five children - who have a long standing game/play where they have created a Secret Country. Every summer, they spend time together in their imagined land. Then one summer, the cousins are divided and cannot spend time together in their fantasy land. After an unpleasant beginning to the holidays, Laura and Ted discover a real way into the Secret Country - which is apparently just as real as our world. Their cousins - Ruth, Ellen and Patrick have found their way in too, so it looks as if they can really live out their fantasy story this summer. Except when your fantasy world becomes real, it also belongs to itself and to the other characters you thought you'd made up. Things start to go wrong. The rest of the Secret Country is not interested in following the children's script and events start happening out of order. The children find that living in a fantasy land is not nearly as much fun as they expected - medieval rules apply, none of them are able to act as they are supposed to, speak the way they should or have the skills they should have acquired. Laura, the youngest, is an excellent example of this - she's supposed to be the finest horse rider in the kingdom and the best dancer in five kingdoms. In reality she's pathologically clumsy and pretty much scared of everything. Many of these juxtapositions were amusing but I did find they grew wearing after a while. I love a character journey where the characters go from hopeless to competent but they needed a lot more wins than they got here and it grew perilously close to slapstick.
Like all portal fantasies, the children swiftly realise that there are huge barriers to them getting home. While Dean has subverted a lot of tropes, many of these subversions failed to hit in a satisfying way for me. Dean has an excellent style that is by turns plain and perfect and rich and strange, easy to read and apparently effortless - which suggests to me a great deal of effort went into achieving it. She's obviously an accomplished writer. The problem is this story is a snow globe. You're kept separated from it by a layer of invisible glass until you almost don't care about it. This is not immersive fantasy, and while I found it highly readable and will read the next too books, I am not surprised so many people found it frustrating.
My other issue is that the children are supposed to be between 12 and 15. They act like they are between 8 - 10. I know this was first published in 1985 but I doubt teens acted like this then either. If I was shelving this in the library, I would put it under older junior fiction (9 - 13) rather than YA.
That aside, there were things that really worked for me. Some of the most visual scenes were beautiful - the unicorn hunt for instance. The quiet fantasy was soothing if not very exciting (on the surface). And the book had the feel of something where it'll come to me later and click and I'll go 'ah ha!' Perhaps it suffers from being the first in a series because it stopped rather than ended. I'm interested to see where the next book goes.
February 26, 2016
Children discovering a fantasy world in the wardrobe or down the rabbit hole is, well, as old as Alice. Pamela Dean does take this trope and turn it on its head (like some of Neil Gaiman's work) but rather makes it into something more adult. Her Secret Country trilogy, taken as a whole, veers into literary fiction-land without ever properly leaving fantasy; it's like a magical blurring of the lines betweent the worlds. Unlike Lewis or Carroll (but like the more modern Gaiman), Dean's dense prose, her careful, elegant use of language, and most of all her exploration of characters emotionally stability is what sets her work apart from those that came before, and makes it much more adult (like The Magicians but without the sex and drugs). When Laura & Ted & Ruth & Patrick & Ellen fall down the rabbit hole into the world they created as a fantasy game among themselves, like those Pevensie children, they are kings and queens (or at least prince and princesses), and like Peter, Susasn, Edmund and Lucy, the physical world is a threat. But Claudia, the White Witch of this book, fucks with the their heads too; emotionally stable before, the secret country is a worrisome, adult place that turns them into something else. That is what makes this book such a delight to read; it's contains deeper (literary) magic. It's not an Oprah book though, not all dark corners and abused children. I don't think you can write a book about a magical world just around the corner from ours without having some shades of C.S. Lewis; but there's more than a bit of Nesbit at work here too. There are five children, and the It is The Secret Country, as helpful and occasional spiteful as any psammead. Jo Walton suggests on Tor.com that the three books in this series should be read as a whole; I heartily agree.
April 6, 2012
I discovered this trilogy in the best way - at the book store long ago when the first book had just come out. So as the story unfolded I was left on tenterhooks until each book came out. Frequent rereading has done nothing to dim my enjoyment. Here's the brief summary.
For the past nine years, cousins Patrick, Ruth, Ellen, Ted, and Laura have played at "The Secret"-a game full of witches, unicorns, a magic ring and court intrigue. In The Secret, they can imagine anything into reality, and shape destiny. Then the unbelievable happens: by trick or by chance, they find themselves in the Secret Country, their made-up identities now real. They have arrived at the start of their game, with the Country on the edge of war. What was once exciting and wonderful now looms threateningly before them, and no one is sure how to stop it . . . or if they will ever get back home..I particularly enjoy the fact that when they arrive in the Secret Country much of what they imagined doesn't match the Secret Country's "reality." People look different, the story goes off target occasionally, and so forth. That makes it all the more disconcerting when it is exactly right. Great fun, an imaginative "country" and I highly recommend it.
August 18, 2007
The Secret Country is like Narnia for teenagers (or for people who read YA lit). For the past several years, five children have created a fantasy world called Secret. Then, one year they find our that the world they have created is real. Trapped in Secret, our heroes must play the parts that they have created for themselves in the story. Will they manage to change the plot and prevent the murder of the king?
The Secret Country is a incredibly fun and fascinating fantasy book. In fact, the only thing I can find to complain about it the fact that it doesn't really end. I understand that it's a trilogy, so the storyline will be continued in the next volume. Still, I hoped that there would be just a little more resolution at the end.
Luckily, I have the next volume coming to me. I can't wait to see where the story goes next!
The Secret Country is a incredibly fun and fascinating fantasy book. In fact, the only thing I can find to complain about it the fact that it doesn't really end. I understand that it's a trilogy, so the storyline will be continued in the next volume. Still, I hoped that there would be just a little more resolution at the end.
Luckily, I have the next volume coming to me. I can't wait to see where the story goes next!
December 12, 2021
At first, this book felt like a solid punch in the face delivered by my own childhood.
I only wish my worldbuilding had been this good as a kid. And the relationships between the kids which are simultaneously iron-strong bonds of friendship and also extremely fraught rivalries? Iconic. Personally we were never this rude, but the feelings were there.
This is a portal fantasy, where a group of cousins fall into their own game of pretend and find out it's all real. The kids then go about trying to figure out why the events of this world are differing from the events of their pretend story, and why all this is happening to them in the first place.
If you've read a recent middle grade book with a similar premise - no, it's not like that. This is from the eighties and it operates on Old Kids' Book Rules.
The story starts out confusing, because the kids are comparing their own knowledge of the story they made up with what's happening in reality -- and the reader doesn't know anything about the story they made up. At first, it has the uncomfortable quality of listening to people argue furiously about things you've never heard of. Quickly, though, I started to get it and I was fully invested before the 25% mark.
Unfortunately, the story kind of just didn't capitalize on that great start.
The world and worldbuilding here are extremely interesting. I WANT to know what principles the Secret Country runs on and how it came to exist. Did it create the kids' story, or did the story create it? I also want to know the answers to all of Patrick's scientific questions. Why is the story going wrong? Who is in charge of it, if anyone?
The personal dynamics here are also great. Half the time I feel like I don't know what's going on and what different interactions are supposed to signify, but also it's GREAT, if you know what I mean.
The kids, I think, are characterized extremely well. They are a little older than I expected. Laura is the "baby" at eleven, when usually eleven is a perfectly respectable age to be the hero and the main character. Their perspectives and dialogue really, deeply remind me of being a kid in the way that is equally fun and also infuriating.
The problem I ran into is, first, that this book seems to have been artificially and badly separated from its sequel. It just... didn't end on any sort of point in a thematic arc that would have made sense. It just ended, seemingly randomly. Truncated and whacked off after a certain chapter that could have been literally any chapter, for all the closure it gave. Very frustrating.
Second, pretty much all the book's mysteries are set up in the first fourth of the story. The worldbuilding mysteries are established, and most of the characters and conflicts are revealed and onstage. And then... none of these questions get meaningfully furthered at all.
The kids end the book arguing over the worldbuilding just like they started. The lines of political and personal conflict end exactly where they began. Nothing happens.
As we tread water in the narrative, the character interactions that were enjoyable at first become grating. By the end, I had almost had it with every single one of the kids except Ted. Their arguments became deeply irritating instead of entertaining. We just didn't go anywhere at all, and that fact made everything else I liked about the book sort of sour.
I am still very interested in finding out what's going on and I loved getting to inhabit my own childhood perspective again, like looking back in time. But this was honestly disappointing, and 90% just because of the (lack of) pacing.
I only wish my worldbuilding had been this good as a kid. And the relationships between the kids which are simultaneously iron-strong bonds of friendship and also extremely fraught rivalries? Iconic. Personally we were never this rude, but the feelings were there.
This is a portal fantasy, where a group of cousins fall into their own game of pretend and find out it's all real. The kids then go about trying to figure out why the events of this world are differing from the events of their pretend story, and why all this is happening to them in the first place.
If you've read a recent middle grade book with a similar premise - no, it's not like that. This is from the eighties and it operates on Old Kids' Book Rules.
The story starts out confusing, because the kids are comparing their own knowledge of the story they made up with what's happening in reality -- and the reader doesn't know anything about the story they made up. At first, it has the uncomfortable quality of listening to people argue furiously about things you've never heard of. Quickly, though, I started to get it and I was fully invested before the 25% mark.
Unfortunately, the story kind of just didn't capitalize on that great start.
The world and worldbuilding here are extremely interesting. I WANT to know what principles the Secret Country runs on and how it came to exist. Did it create the kids' story, or did the story create it? I also want to know the answers to all of Patrick's scientific questions. Why is the story going wrong? Who is in charge of it, if anyone?
The personal dynamics here are also great. Half the time I feel like I don't know what's going on and what different interactions are supposed to signify, but also it's GREAT, if you know what I mean.
The kids, I think, are characterized extremely well. They are a little older than I expected. Laura is the "baby" at eleven, when usually eleven is a perfectly respectable age to be the hero and the main character. Their perspectives and dialogue really, deeply remind me of being a kid in the way that is equally fun and also infuriating.
The problem I ran into is, first, that this book seems to have been artificially and badly separated from its sequel. It just... didn't end on any sort of point in a thematic arc that would have made sense. It just ended, seemingly randomly. Truncated and whacked off after a certain chapter that could have been literally any chapter, for all the closure it gave. Very frustrating.
Second, pretty much all the book's mysteries are set up in the first fourth of the story. The worldbuilding mysteries are established, and most of the characters and conflicts are revealed and onstage. And then... none of these questions get meaningfully furthered at all.
The kids end the book arguing over the worldbuilding just like they started. The lines of political and personal conflict end exactly where they began. Nothing happens.
As we tread water in the narrative, the character interactions that were enjoyable at first become grating. By the end, I had almost had it with every single one of the kids except Ted. Their arguments became deeply irritating instead of entertaining. We just didn't go anywhere at all, and that fact made everything else I liked about the book sort of sour.
I am still very interested in finding out what's going on and I loved getting to inhabit my own childhood perspective again, like looking back in time. But this was honestly disappointing, and 90% just because of the (lack of) pacing.
Want to read
February 6, 2023Marissa Lingen says:
"Pamela Dean, The Secret Country. Reread. I read this because I was in a mood to enjoy something. I continue to marvel at how well the kids’ relationships are drawn, how very real they are to that kind of pretend game that is now no longer pretend. One of my favorite portal fantasies of all time."n!
All right then! TBR, in due time.
"Pamela Dean, The Secret Country. Reread. I read this because I was in a mood to enjoy something. I continue to marvel at how well the kids’ relationships are drawn, how very real they are to that kind of pretend game that is now no longer pretend. One of my favorite portal fantasies of all time."n!
All right then! TBR, in due time.
April 27, 2023
I have such mixed feelings about this book! I loved it so much in my early teens -- or really, I did not even love it then, but I desperately wanted to, because I wanted to be the sort of child who quoted Shakespeare like breathing and had cousins who would imagine detailed fantasy worlds with me and act out all of the details. It seemed like it ought to be the perfect wish-fulfillment for me, and it wasn't, but even so I kept rereading it, holding on to the parts that worked -- and eventually finding more Pamela Dean that *did* work for me (Tam Lin and Points of Departure: Liavek Stories) and obsessing over those instead.
Rereading it as an adult nearing middle age, I see clearly why it never really worked for me -- the protagonist of the first 2/3 of the book, Laura, is an excruciatingly anxious and unhappy 10-yr-old who is constantly trying to keep out of trouble only to inevitably break something or hurt herself or otherwise draw unwanted adult attention. I think this is likely realistic to Dean's own experience of childhood (based on how the type shows up in some of her other books), and in some ways not unlike my own childhood, but it makes for an incredibly frustrating protagonist -- Laura spends most of her time hiding in her room trying to avoid everyone, because she's too scared to talk to people or ask questions, and when she does get pulled into the plot she spends most of the time spacing out instead of paying attention, which means *the reader* has to spend long periods sitting in a bedroom or hiding under a table or ignoring important conversations to think about how scary horses are. Once the book shifts POV to Laura's older brother it immediately picks up speed and all the interesting ethical complications start being explored -- these children are finding out
The second & third books are much better, although still not entirely the books I wish they were -- but even this first one, flawed as it is for me, is still a book I am glad I have read, and I probably will reread it again eventually, just because it is so much a part of my imaginative landscape.
Rereading it as an adult nearing middle age, I see clearly why it never really worked for me -- the protagonist of the first 2/3 of the book, Laura, is an excruciatingly anxious and unhappy 10-yr-old who is constantly trying to keep out of trouble only to inevitably break something or hurt herself or otherwise draw unwanted adult attention. I think this is likely realistic to Dean's own experience of childhood (based on how the type shows up in some of her other books), and in some ways not unlike my own childhood, but it makes for an incredibly frustrating protagonist -- Laura spends most of her time hiding in her room trying to avoid everyone, because she's too scared to talk to people or ask questions, and when she does get pulled into the plot she spends most of the time spacing out instead of paying attention, which means *the reader* has to spend long periods sitting in a bedroom or hiding under a table or ignoring important conversations to think about how scary horses are. Once the book shifts POV to Laura's older brother it immediately picks up speed and all the interesting ethical complications start being explored -- these children are finding out
The second & third books are much better, although still not entirely the books I wish they were -- but even this first one, flawed as it is for me, is still a book I am glad I have read, and I probably will reread it again eventually, just because it is so much a part of my imaginative landscape.
August 5, 2012
I used to think I was quite a prolific reader as a child, but now, looking back, I realize that I spent a great deal of time rereading books. Even with the wealth of my local library at my fingertips, I would often check out the same books over and over again. I think this may have had to do with the fact that my family could not afford to buy me all the books I wanted, so I had no way of revisiting my favorites. The point of this is, I do think I missed out on a quite a few treasures in favor of searching out familiarity.
I'm fairly certain I would have loved this book as a kid. The main characters are four children who have been separated by a move to Australia. They have such a strong bond though, through their game of inventing a "secret country" that they somehow bring themselves into it, and begin experiencing the stories they have been creating for their entire lives. A twist in this book that sets it apart from other "children falling into magical worlds" stories is that these kids mostly know exactly what is going to happen. But then, their presence in the secret country begins to alter and muddle events.
As an adult, I found it rather dissatisfying to read about kids who already knew everything about where they were going. I didn't feel like there was a great sense of magic or mystery. In addition, the flow of the plotline didn't really appeal to me; too little happened within the space of the pages to keep me interested. Dean does manage some interesting concepts, like nightmare grass, in a chilling sequence. But those moments are few and fleeting.
I actually only picked up this novel because of its involvement in the Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle, in which it was revealed that now famous author Cassandra Clare included large portions of Dean's writing in her fan fiction. Having read this book, it's easy to see why Clare might have wanted to steal Dean's words. Dean writes with a clear and eloquent voice. It is obvious that she deliberately chose each word, and chose them well. I think it's unfair and unethical that Clare has achieved fame and fortune on the back of plagiarism, but am glad that her actions have led to me discovering this author. I plan to read Dean's other works, including the highly-acclaimed Tam Lin.
I'm fairly certain I would have loved this book as a kid. The main characters are four children who have been separated by a move to Australia. They have such a strong bond though, through their game of inventing a "secret country" that they somehow bring themselves into it, and begin experiencing the stories they have been creating for their entire lives. A twist in this book that sets it apart from other "children falling into magical worlds" stories is that these kids mostly know exactly what is going to happen. But then, their presence in the secret country begins to alter and muddle events.
As an adult, I found it rather dissatisfying to read about kids who already knew everything about where they were going. I didn't feel like there was a great sense of magic or mystery. In addition, the flow of the plotline didn't really appeal to me; too little happened within the space of the pages to keep me interested. Dean does manage some interesting concepts, like nightmare grass, in a chilling sequence. But those moments are few and fleeting.
I actually only picked up this novel because of its involvement in the Cassandra Claire Plagiarism Debacle, in which it was revealed that now famous author Cassandra Clare included large portions of Dean's writing in her fan fiction. Having read this book, it's easy to see why Clare might have wanted to steal Dean's words. Dean writes with a clear and eloquent voice. It is obvious that she deliberately chose each word, and chose them well. I think it's unfair and unethical that Clare has achieved fame and fortune on the back of plagiarism, but am glad that her actions have led to me discovering this author. I plan to read Dean's other works, including the highly-acclaimed Tam Lin.
July 23, 2017
Each summer, five cousins have created the Secret--a fantasy world whose story and magic they've built in bits and pieces over the years. But one year, they find themselves in the Secret Country itself, a real place whose magic and politics are much more complex from within. Dean pens some beautiful lines and the Secret's unicorns are superb, but the world and magic of the Secret Country aren't particularly unique; what's compelling, instead, is the nature of its creation. The children may have built this world, but they're no longer its architects: their insights into the story war against the difficulty of playing the roles they've written, and they're never sure if the Secret is real; it's a fascinating take on portal fantasy. But for better or worse, The Secret Country is a children's book; it holds up to an adult reader, but the cast is distinctly young and the book has a lightness of tone which, while not frothy or twee, didn't work for me, and which sometimes slows the pacing by quelling any sense of risk. It's also only half of a story (The Hidden Land is the other half), for all it lacks a glaring cliffhanger. I enjoyed The Secret Country, but had hoped to like it more; still, I recommend it. While imperfect, it's frequently clever and delightful.
November 18, 2011
I'm rereading this after many years (needed a dose of fantasy), and all I can say is that it is every bit as good as I remembered. Dean gives these kids such powerful identities, and she presents them so deftly, through word and action and the observation of the other kids, that I'm hardly aware of how I got to know them so well.
And oh, the language. Oh Pamela, how I wish you were more prolific, for I would devour anything that came from your pen (or computer).
And oh, the language. Oh Pamela, how I wish you were more prolific, for I would devour anything that came from your pen (or computer).
June 5, 2008
I tried to read this book a year or so ago but couldn't get into it. Then I picked it up this year and loved it! It's really good, and totally worth it!
June 2, 2010
I got 1/2 way through and gave up. I just couldn't get into this book.
February 26, 2022
I love the idea of this book. It reminds me of the Narnia Chronicles, and I love the whimsical feel of the story. That said, it is a little muddled and confusing. Maybe it's because it's told from the perspective of children who are suddenly thrust into their own made-up world and can't quite make sense of it. But it makes the story hard to follow sometimes. And it just ends with no real resolution or explanation. I'm hoping that comes in the second book, because despite the confusing moments, I'm dying to see how this story plays out.
January 12, 2020
I've read so many books and series about children going through a door of some sort, finding a new country and spending time there. And there are many other stories about children creating their own worlds, which usually don't manage to manifest in any way. This book combines those two, with one very interesting twist: the country doesn't always conform to the way the children imagined it would (or set it up to function).
That twist creates tensions that the children don't fully understand and adds to their problems fitting in the Secret Country (like when trying to fence expertly while not ever really having been taught, or realizing they're shorter than their characters are supposed to be). Despite all that, there is a lot of padding here and things that feel a little thrown in "because" rather than organically flowing from either the country or the children's stories. Add to that a few characters that are completely two-dimensional and this got rounded up from 3.5.
Rumor has it that Book 2 is better, so stay tuned.
That twist creates tensions that the children don't fully understand and adds to their problems fitting in the Secret Country (like when trying to fence expertly while not ever really having been taught, or realizing they're shorter than their characters are supposed to be). Despite all that, there is a lot of padding here and things that feel a little thrown in "because" rather than organically flowing from either the country or the children's stories. Add to that a few characters that are completely two-dimensional and this got rounded up from 3.5.
Rumor has it that Book 2 is better, so stay tuned.
Read
November 11, 2024I wish I had encountered this when I was 13. A band of five children so obsessed with Shakespeare that they make up an elaborate shared fantasy world where everyone speaks in pseudo-Shakespearean dialogue with tags from the plays? And then (of course) they fall into it? I would have read these to pieces.
January 2, 2025
This just did not work for me. I had trouble keeping character's straight and it didn't help that the kids were two people each, themselves and their 'playtime' characters, so there were two name each to keep track of.
April 4, 2021
DNF@54%
4. Apr 2021
1. This is one of those books which make me sad about not having read it when I was younger. I like how the characters interact with each other, and I really like the idea. But I feel like there was a general acceptance of strange circumstances by the characters that was absolutely not convincing? I think people would maybe be more freaked out? Hell, forget the children why aren't these adults more freaked out? Why do they LET the kids run around like this?
2. Look, I'm sure I can come up with plausible explanations for this if I think through it but none of it will make it feel any less strange. It was less like reading a book ans more like watching someone else read a book. Everything was one step removed. And I don't think the dialogue heavy, details-sparse writing style (with the character knowing far more than the reader and constantly talking about the things only they know) helped in any way.
3. This would totally have worked when I was a kid because I was happy to be along for the ride. But now I have less time and less patience and I slightly annoyed and mostly disinterested. Sorry, book.
4. Apr 2021
1. This is one of those books which make me sad about not having read it when I was younger. I like how the characters interact with each other, and I really like the idea. But I feel like there was a general acceptance of strange circumstances by the characters that was absolutely not convincing? I think people would maybe be more freaked out? Hell, forget the children why aren't these adults more freaked out? Why do they LET the kids run around like this?
2. Look, I'm sure I can come up with plausible explanations for this if I think through it but none of it will make it feel any less strange. It was less like reading a book ans more like watching someone else read a book. Everything was one step removed. And I don't think the dialogue heavy, details-sparse writing style (with the character knowing far more than the reader and constantly talking about the things only they know) helped in any way.
3. This would totally have worked when I was a kid because I was happy to be along for the ride. But now I have less time and less patience and I slightly annoyed and mostly disinterested. Sorry, book.
July 13, 2018
Every summer, cousins Ted, Ruth, Patrick, Ellen, and Laura play a game of magic, adventure, intrigue, and romance in their Secret Country.Then one summer, when they are kept apart, they find themselves IN the Secret Country, only nothing is quite right. Things aren't quite how they'd imagined them, characters have taken on a life of their own, new elements kept cropping up, and the plot's gone awry.
Tonally, this book is pitch-perfect. I was immediately transported back to my childhood with the warm, vivid descriptions of the fantasy world that evoked The Chronicles of Narnia, E. Nesbit, Edward Eager, and The Forbidden Door (a little known fantasy I loved to pieces when I was young). However, the make-believe/not-make-believe nature of the Secret Country invites a certain meta-awareness, which comes across in a sly humor. The passage where the children complain about their Secret Country being no good because the time stays the same made me laugh at loud.
All of the cousins feel like real kids, and they react to the Secret Country in all the myriad and contradictory ways I would expect a real bunch of kids to - sometimes in wonder and excitement, sometimes trying to pick apart the logic and rules, sometimes desperately wanting to just go home, and sometimes worried that if they leave they'll never be able to come back. Meanwhile, the Secret Country characters also feel real, so real that you can understand the kids' confusion over what actually IS real and what is make-believe.
I thought perhaps the plot would get confusing, but the beginning does such a good job of establishing the basics of the made-up Secret Country lore, and the primary (and competing) goals for the children are so clear: keep the Secret Country from being destroyed, try to follow their "part" correctly without raising suspicions, and somehow change the story so that several characters don't die (one by Ted's hand), that the plot never felt cluttered and kept me well engaged.
For such a glowing review, why only three stars? Simply put, the ending, or rather the lack of ending. Seriously, this book doesn't end in the slightest. None of the major plot threads are resolved and the ending doesn't feel any more climactic than the ending of any other chapters (and less than some). There is something of a change in the status quo, but not as big as some of the other shifts throughout the story (at least it doesn't feel so). You turn the page, expecting the children to go on experimenting and trying to figure things out as they've been doing the whole book, only there's nothing but a blank back cover. Yes, I knew this was the first book in a trilogy, but it still has to be a complete book!
Tonally, this book is pitch-perfect. I was immediately transported back to my childhood with the warm, vivid descriptions of the fantasy world that evoked The Chronicles of Narnia, E. Nesbit, Edward Eager, and The Forbidden Door (a little known fantasy I loved to pieces when I was young). However, the make-believe/not-make-believe nature of the Secret Country invites a certain meta-awareness, which comes across in a sly humor. The passage where the children complain about their Secret Country being no good because the time stays the same made me laugh at loud.
All of the cousins feel like real kids, and they react to the Secret Country in all the myriad and contradictory ways I would expect a real bunch of kids to - sometimes in wonder and excitement, sometimes trying to pick apart the logic and rules, sometimes desperately wanting to just go home, and sometimes worried that if they leave they'll never be able to come back. Meanwhile, the Secret Country characters also feel real, so real that you can understand the kids' confusion over what actually IS real and what is make-believe.
I thought perhaps the plot would get confusing, but the beginning does such a good job of establishing the basics of the made-up Secret Country lore, and the primary (and competing) goals for the children are so clear: keep the Secret Country from being destroyed, try to follow their "part" correctly without raising suspicions, and somehow change the story so that several characters don't die (one by Ted's hand), that the plot never felt cluttered and kept me well engaged.
For such a glowing review, why only three stars? Simply put, the ending, or rather the lack of ending. Seriously, this book doesn't end in the slightest. None of the major plot threads are resolved and the ending doesn't feel any more climactic than the ending of any other chapters (and less than some). There is something of a change in the status quo, but not as big as some of the other shifts throughout the story (at least it doesn't feel so). You turn the page, expecting the children to go on experimenting and trying to figure things out as they've been doing the whole book, only there's nothing but a blank back cover. Yes, I knew this was the first book in a trilogy, but it still has to be a complete book!
December 25, 2015
This book pleasantly surprised me.
Most of this book reads like you're watching children playing a game.
Yes. I know that that's exactly what this book is. But hear me out.
There are several parts of the story that get bogged down because the characters know the how the game works, and they know what's happening, but they never stop to explain what's going on to the audience. For instance, there's no explanation given for the whole Nightmare Grass scene until after the event, where the characters just kind of go, "Oh yeah. That's there."
Don't get me wrong. I was impressed that the book managed to keep from breaking the fourth wall. Each explanation about a part of the world or story is due to the fact that the characters have been writing this world for nine years, and nobody's around for everything. Or, a character will have an idea about something, and not share it with the others. It makes sense that, with such a long story told over several summers, things are bound to be forgotten.
It would have been nice to have the world explained more before everything starts going insane, though.
The last quarter of the book was, to me, where the story really started to shine. Events start to diverge more and more from the original story, and instead of worrying about the characters not bothering to explain something (that to them, would be obvious), the book puts both the reader and the characters on the same level. NOBODY knows what exactly is going on.
Personal hang-ups with the narrative aside, the lore is what makes this such an enjoyable read for me. The story within the story is so much fun. The world is a combination of Shakespeare, Narnia, general mythology, and whatever the children happened to think was cool at the time.
The scenes with the unicorns were just amazing.
It's also a lot of fun to watch the main characters realize just how little thought they put into the smaller details of the world itself - they'd create huge, elaborate feasts and holidays, but never thought to make breakfast more than plain oatmeal and pork chops.
As an aside that has nothing to do with the story, but everything to do with my copies of the books -
I'd been putting off buying this series because there weren't any digital copies, and I wanted to be sure that I got all three at the same time. So, there was a few months' gap between when I started scouting the series, and when I went to buy them. When I finally get around to putting in an order for a paperback set, what do I see?
They've all been digitally released.
The paperbacks were still cheaper than the digital copies, so I went with them anyway. But UGH. XD
Most of this book reads like you're watching children playing a game.
Yes. I know that that's exactly what this book is. But hear me out.
There are several parts of the story that get bogged down because the characters know the how the game works, and they know what's happening, but they never stop to explain what's going on to the audience. For instance, there's no explanation given for the whole Nightmare Grass scene until after the event, where the characters just kind of go, "Oh yeah. That's there."
Don't get me wrong. I was impressed that the book managed to keep from breaking the fourth wall. Each explanation about a part of the world or story is due to the fact that the characters have been writing this world for nine years, and nobody's around for everything. Or, a character will have an idea about something, and not share it with the others. It makes sense that, with such a long story told over several summers, things are bound to be forgotten.
It would have been nice to have the world explained more before everything starts going insane, though.
The last quarter of the book was, to me, where the story really started to shine. Events start to diverge more and more from the original story, and instead of worrying about the characters not bothering to explain something (that to them, would be obvious), the book puts both the reader and the characters on the same level. NOBODY knows what exactly is going on.
Personal hang-ups with the narrative aside, the lore is what makes this such an enjoyable read for me. The story within the story is so much fun. The world is a combination of Shakespeare, Narnia, general mythology, and whatever the children happened to think was cool at the time.
The scenes with the unicorns were just amazing.
It's also a lot of fun to watch the main characters realize just how little thought they put into the smaller details of the world itself - they'd create huge, elaborate feasts and holidays, but never thought to make breakfast more than plain oatmeal and pork chops.
As an aside that has nothing to do with the story, but everything to do with my copies of the books -
I'd been putting off buying this series because there weren't any digital copies, and I wanted to be sure that I got all three at the same time. So, there was a few months' gap between when I started scouting the series, and when I went to buy them. When I finally get around to putting in an order for a paperback set, what do I see?
They've all been digitally released.
The paperbacks were still cheaper than the digital copies, so I went with them anyway. But UGH. XD
August 3, 2009
Every October I reread Pamela Dean's Tam Lin because it's such a good Halloween book. But this year, I couldn't find my copy of Tam Lin, I'm sure I have it somewhere, but it hasn't resurfaced since we moved last spring. I'm sure it will eventually. Fortuitously, I was able to read The Secret Country instead. It's the first book in a trilogy about five cousins who play an on-going pretend game about a fantasy kingdom, and it becomes real and the kids are shocked and surprised and there they are. Because it's based on their own game, they have a general sense of how the "plot" is supposed to go, but things don't always work out the way they expect. The kids are fantastic characters, I love how they alternate between being thrilled to be in a magic adventure, and then indignant when they realize there isn't any normal breakfast food.
It did remind me of a funny thing about Pamela Dean books -- that they are filled with things that go completely over my head, but seem like the kind of things that will make sense if you read the book again knowing how things turn out ... except they don't. Like Tam Lin is full of Nick and Robin doing things like exchanging meaningful glances, and I know how the book ends and I still have no idea what they were supposed to be so glanciful about. And Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary ... forget it. I have no idea what's going on most of the time. Usually I would be annoyed by this, but in the case of Pamela Dean, it makes me feel confident that she's brighter than I am. So it's good that she's in charge of the story.
Grade: Solid A, although I will have to read the entire trilogy to be sure.
Recommended: Very thoughtful, thorough YA fantasy, and it's serious but not so serious that you wish you were reading a book about grim totalitarian societies.
It did remind me of a funny thing about Pamela Dean books -- that they are filled with things that go completely over my head, but seem like the kind of things that will make sense if you read the book again knowing how things turn out ... except they don't. Like Tam Lin is full of Nick and Robin doing things like exchanging meaningful glances, and I know how the book ends and I still have no idea what they were supposed to be so glanciful about. And Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary ... forget it. I have no idea what's going on most of the time. Usually I would be annoyed by this, but in the case of Pamela Dean, it makes me feel confident that she's brighter than I am. So it's good that she's in charge of the story.
Grade: Solid A, although I will have to read the entire trilogy to be sure.
Recommended: Very thoughtful, thorough YA fantasy, and it's serious but not so serious that you wish you were reading a book about grim totalitarian societies.
May 17, 2012
Having immensely enjoyed one of Dean's other works, Tam Lin, I was looking forward to reading this, and I was disappointed that I didn't find it all that interesting. I kept waiting for the story to get going, even as I could see that I was past the halfway point of the book and that this was probably about as gripping as it was ever going to get. The children already know who the people in the Secret Country are and what's "supposed" to happen because they've been acting it out as a play for years, so there's not much for them to discover about this world, and it felt like the author forgot that the readers wouldn't know all this as well as the children do. This is the first book in a trilogy. In the last chapters, the children begin to really grapple with deeper mysteries—wondering if they can change the story and why they've been able to come here—and in the hopes that these issues will be developed further, I'm going to give the second book a chance at some point.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 152 reviews