** spoiler alert ** 
 So...many...conflicting....feelings. 
 First half of the book: dark, rich, melt-in-your-mouth fantasy, beautifully written adaptations of folklore, complex characters, insights into life and death, a lot of sexy scenes....there was no where to go but up. 
 until it went down. 
 Second half: bleak. bleakness, shifts in tone and setting that were all over the place, bad decisions, character death left and right. BDSM (I swear to god this time I didn't know it was gonna be in there, I promise. Sorry mom.) Character death, character death, character death. Fate worse than death. Confusing, foggy ending? 
 yay? 
 Deathless is like being at a stunning party in a beautiful mansion, but all the guests hate each other and you get shuffled off into a crappy unfinished basement for the remainder of the evening after a tour of the elegantly designed rest of the house. You know there are good times to be had an many things to see, you just aren't allowed to see them also two Real Housewives are fighting in the corner so you have to either watch that or ignore it. 
 My love for this book really stems from how much I romanticize Czarist Russia. And like almost all narratives that involve Russian Imperialism, it includes the fall of Imperialism very quickly. Then we have a wartime narrative full of rations and poverty and cold. 
 The language of the book is stunning, as is the folklore, the "everything comes in threes" very consistent and stretches through the whole book. 
 For anyone who gets analytically feminist in fantasy books, this is not the book for you. You have to check your brain at the door for a good portion. While Marya Morevna does grow into a badass, rifle-wielding domme with a cruelty streak only rivaled by her husband, it is a substitute for character growth. While she's starving her ass off and going through all this pain, her empowerment stems from tying up and dominating her arguably abusive husband. Koschei and Marya are never equals. Neither are Ivan and Marya. The only conclusion I can take from this book is...you need a master and a sub? Two husbands? I guess? Don't choose? Morph them into one person? Have a baby and watch them die? From the baby? Baby dies? What? Who? Where? Why? 
 BECAUSE LIFE IS LIKE THAT, AMIRITE? 
 This books failing became perfectly clear once I started Valente's children's book, the Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making. Never had I read a crueler kid's book. Catherynne Valente does not seem to like people all that much. That was my problem with Deathless, everyone is so damn unlikable. Marya Morevna is a selfish, stupid bitch, Koschei's behaviors are borderline abuse and consent is wildly dubious between him and his partners, we're supposed to find Ivan to be a clueless bastard, all the side characters are dead by the end, everyone in the universe is just a dick. That's Valente's style, I guess. Everyone is an asshole but at least you snagged yourself a handsome asshole, right ladies? He whips you because he loves you and wants to train you into being an unfeeling, loveless monster just like him. But the thing is, the author is pretentious about it. Valente graduated high school at the age of 15, something mentioned in her author bio with an attitude I don't appreciate. I feel like this is something she'd tell you the first five minutes you talk to her at a cocktail party. She treats everyone (including her readers) like they couldn't possibly understand the stakes of the world they're in. She seems so above the drama and chaos of the world she creates, yet she poses it as better than our world, so as a narrator she is doubly pretentious. She just creates this sense of unease that, if it was on purpose, I don't find rewarding at all. 
 My problem with Marya -other than being a selfish, self-centered, self-serving monster- is none of her choices are her own. A guy shows up and that influences her. This is the plot of the book. Guy shows up, takes her away. She has to prove herself by completing three tasks to marry said guy. Learns about a prophecy about betraying first guy with second guy and how bad it's gonna suck when she does. She still chooses second guy. Leaves with second guy. First guy follows. Keeps first guy secretly in the basement. Second guy finds out. Leaves with first guy. First guy dies. Goes to Second Guy. Second Guy dies. She dies. Goes to the underworld to look for first guy (I think...? the ending was really confusing). 
 Basically the first half is a very well done Rape of Persephone. Like, everything you want to see in this sort of Abduction & Seduction myth. But Persephone then turns out to be a power-hungry, perpetually unsatisfied bitch. 
 And then it's basically a Hades and Persephone hate sex-fest in hell, which is fun and badass and you have these two equally strong-willed people getting all up in each other's sex faces and it's a glorious thing until... well, I honestly thought Ivan's introduction was well done and he did offer things Koschei could not, and the triangle was done well and not forced, buuuuut.... I couldn't rationalize Marya leaving. It's like her brain went on walk-about. All we heard was what happened to her is she left, how she wasn't safe, how Koschei would be so fucking pissed and enslave her just as it's happened OVER AND OVER THROUGHOUT HISTORY. And yet she's like "I'm moderately unsatisfied, YOLO!" and gets the hell outta dodge. We also don't have enough of Ivan to make him a justifiable first choice, other than Koschei is being a dick and marriage is hard. We barely get enough Koschei, and when he is there he's usually a fucking monster. 
 Marya gets more bitter and jaded throughout the book, and that's her arc. She even starts off bitter and jaded, as a kid secrets are revealed to her of the naked world and it's what makes her...well.. this term has been so overused it's devoid of meaning but she totally is a Mary Sue. Dragged between two guys, powerful because she's...."strong"?, this weird chosen one, gets whatever she wants without working towards anything. Stuff happens to her for an entire book. Granted, it only gets boring the last third of the book, but that's the bug disappointment. This book started SO STRONG. And suddenly everyone's dead and everyone but her remembers what happened, so who cares? She hasn't learned anything. nobody else remembers if they've learned anything. Okay. Go underground Marya. Go and fuck your hybrid of your two husbands. 
 I'd re-read this book. Honestly, I did get a large amount of enjoyment for the first two thirds. My anger is in the let-down. My love for this book stems from my strange..inexplicable desire to fuck a Russian (I blame Leigh Bardugo). So you have your Mashas and your Volchitsas and your tsarevnas, but it all vanishes after a while to the evil of communism. Also the romanovs show up for no reason in the third act...so there's that? 
 I think that statement best sums up this book: "Oh! Cool? Wait, what the fuck? Why? What? Huh?"