Amber & Clay

To be honest, when I first started this book, I wasn’t expecting it to be that good. I was proven wrong. Set back in ancient Greece, Amber & Clay is mainly about two children’s perspectives. A Thracian boy who was born into slavery and the spoiled daughter of a wealthy Athenian. Their lives couldn’t be any more different. One is forbidden to go outside, while the other is forbidden to go in.

The story starts with the Thracian boy’s perspective. His name is Rhaskos, and he lives with his mother as a slave in Alexidemdus’s property. Rhaskos receives common beatings and insults, but for a slave, he holds a relatively good life. He plays with Alexidemdus’s sons and loves his mother, Meda. That is, until Meda gets sold and shipped away to Athens. At five years old, Rhaskos was deemed old enough to work and off in the stables, picking up horse turds and tending to the horses. He loves horses. Rhaskos wants to capture their beauty. So he starts scratching pictures of horses in the dirt, doing his best to draw. He draws them every day, trying to improve. Until he captures the attention of Menon, the elder son of Alexidemdus. Rhaskos is chosen to be Menon’s personal assistant, waiting on him and leading him home when he gets drunk at bars. Then, Menon decides to drag Rhaskos with him to Athens. There, Rhaskos accidentally pisses Menon off and is sold to a potter named Phitatus.

Now, let’s talk about the wealthy daughter, named Melisto. From her birth, her mother had despised her, and Melisto had always favored her father, who was almost never around. Growing up, she was taken care of by none other than Meda, Rhaskos’s mother, who was renamed Thratta. When she was old enough, she was whisked away to be a Bear, one of the chosen girls who had to honor Artemis, goddess of the moon. Melisto and dozens of other girls pray and honor Artemis. During their day, they are unsupervised and can go outside, doing whatever they please. At night, they make sacrifices to Artemis and pray to her. Then, a bear is captured and killed. The cub is kept in the stables until his sacrifice. Melisto falls in love with the cub, playing with it and bringing it food. Until the day of its sacrifice. Melisto is unable to bear parting with it and decides to free the cub. Then, she gets struck by lightning and dies. Yes, it’s disheartening, but at least the cub survived.

However, even in death, Melisto contributes to the story. Thratta, Rhaskos’s mother, calls upon Melisto’s spirit to help free Rhaskos. Thratta escapes on a boat, where she too, dies when the boat sinks. Once again, disheartening, but she turns into a dolphin, so maybe dying isn’t that bad in ancient Greece. And there they are, a slave boy and a wealthy girl, united by a mother’s love and a well-placed curse.

Surprisingly, I actually highly enjoyed reading the book. Some chapters present different perspectives, and the “exhibits” link and tie sections of the book together perfectly. Due to the suspense and character development, I highly recommend Amber & Clay.