Low Fantasy, Young Adult

Review: A Hat Full of Sky

Jay
Cover of "A Hat Full of Sky," featuring a face from the eyes up wearing a pointy black witch's hat with red-haired blue men in kilts on the brim.

Title: A Hat Full of Sky

Series: Discworld #32 (Tiffany Aching #2)

Author: Terry Pratchett

Genre: Low Fantasy

Trigger Warnings: Death, mind control, vomit (mentions), verbal/emotional abuse

Spoiler Warning: This review will probably contain spoilers of the first Tiffany Aching Discworld book, The Wee Free Men, but probably not any of the other Discworld books.

Back Cover:

WE SEE YOU. NOW WE ARE YOU.

No real witch would casually step out of their body, leaving it empty.

Tiffany Aching does. And there’s something just waiting for a handy body to take over. Something ancient and horrible, which can’t die.

To deal with it, Tiffany has to go to the very heart of what makes her a witch …

Review:

This picks up the adventures of Tiffany Aching after the events of The Wee Free Men. Tiffany is now eleven years old, and she’s leaving the Chalk for the first time to apprentice to the witch Miss Level to learn more about how to be a witch. But Miss Level’s version of witchcraft seems mostly like chores and helping out the local village people. Tiffany is good at chores, though, and she doesn’t complain.

But there’s something after Tiffany. Something ancient and unkillable, drawn to power and wanting a body to inhabit, lacking a mind of its own so using its host’s until everything that makes its host them is gone and all that’s left is it. It recognizes Tiffany’s power and it wants to make her its host.

I wish I’d had this book when I was young. Even more than in The Wee Free Men, Tiffany is forced to confront her flaws and the parts of herself that she keeps hidden because she thinks they’re bad and wrong (and possibly make her a bad person). It’s a magical adventure, absolutely, but it’s also very touching and poignant and says a lot of things that I could have stood to hear when I was Tiffany’s age and feeling the same anxieties about being a bad person as she is in this book.

It’s not a short book, but it feels short because the story just flies by. It doesn’t feel rushed or even like there’s a lot happening, it’s just the kind of story you devour. It also has one of those false endings where it seems everything is pretty much wrapped up but there’s still two hours of book to go, which was absolutely delightful.

I’ve read several Discworld books by now, and I think that the Tiffany Aching sub-series is my favorite at the moment. My library doesn’t have Wintersmith on audiobook at the moment, but I am absolutely going to be requesting it.

The Discworld series:

  1. The Colour of Magic
  2. The Light Fantastic
  3. Equal Rites
  4. Mort
  5. Sourcery
  6. Wyrd Sisters
  7. Pyramids
  8. Guards! Guards!
  9. Eric
  10. Moving Pictures
  11. Reaper Man
  12. Witches Abroad
  13. Small Gods
  14. Lords and Ladies
  15. Men at Arms
  16. Soul Music
  17. Interesting Times
  18. Maskerade
  19. Feet of Clay
  20. Hogfather
  21. Jingo
  22. The Last Continent
  23. Carpe Jugulum
  24. The Fifth Elephant
  25. The Truth
  26. Thief of Time
  27. The Last Hero
  28. The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
  29. Night Watch
  30. The Wee Free Men
  31. Monstrous Regiment
  32. A Hat Full of Sky
  33. Going Postal
  34. Thud!
  35. Wintersmith
  36. Making Money
  37. Unseen Academicals
  38. I Shall Wear Midnight
  39. Snuff
  40. Raising Steam
  41. The Shepherd’s Crown