I received a copy of this book for free through LibraryThing's Member Giveaway program in exchange for an honest review.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed this one. It was a slow read for me, but I don't mean that in a bad way- rather I took it a chapter here and a chapter there, and the slice-of-life style made it like checking in with friends to see how they were doing.

Aligare is inhabited by three sentient, humanoid species: the winged, dragonlike korvi; the numerous insectoid aemet, who live in close-knit groups; and the diminutive, weasel-like ferrin.

Rue is an aemet who lives in a new settlement, Aloftway, that is plagued by problems from the start. She must find a place for herself and step up to save the community when it becomes obvious that others are not going to take action, being either afraid or overwhelmed with their own duties.

It's an interesting book in that the emotional core is the relationship between an individual and society, community spirit, rather than romance (which this book does not have), family relationships, or friendship, though the latter two do play significant parts as well.

There was another interesting complication as well in that Rue is something of an outsider and a loner, lacking close friends and caring for her family yet spending much of her time apart from them- a temperament that is respected by others. It was refreshing to see this rather than the outsider being portrayed as dangerous and evil or as bullied and ostracised. Other characters- a solitary korvi and a group of "wild" ferrin- provide interesting foils to Rue as well in this way.

One place I sometimes felt a little lost with the terminology or confused by the descriptions of the characters' physiology. For example, Rue's mother spends most of her time at the "Middling circle," some sort of communal gathering place, but the significance of the name never came clear for me. The aemet are insectlike, and Rue is described as having a shell, but also feeling things "in her bones," indicating to me that the aemet have internal skeletons of some kind as well. The exact dynamics between the different peoples seemed vague at times as well, but I think Rue's outsider perspective would have made that hard to work into the story naturally.

There was also one subplot that seemed to get dropped a little late in the book, where Rue obtains a new means of self-defense through an improbable coincidence but then discovers it could be actively harmful, whereupon it was set aside and not really referred to again.

Overall, though, Aligare was an interesting place to visit, and I foresee re-reading this story in the future to revisit earlier events in the context of revelations later in the story. I'll definitely be checking out the other two Aligare stories, Remedy and Ravel. ( )

Heidi C. Vlach’s Render (A Story of Aligare) is OK. However, it started off in a slow, dragging pace. The words somehow depicted a heavy, somber tone. It made me feel a little lost as I try to decipher the images and relevance of the characters, its motives, its meaning. There were some dialogues that the story can do away with to make the plot tighter, more effective. (I received a free copy of this book from the author as a LibraryThing giveaway that I won. I have written my honest opinion about the book.)

--- Note: This review's taken from my blog post: "Book Reviews: 8 Books, Various Genres (Part 2)" at http://sittiecateslovestories.blogspot.com/2014/01/book-reviews-8-books-various-... ( )