All words are made up. Some words—like a lol that you actually pronounce instead of just laughing out loud—are more made up than others. But in the world of Jedediah Berry’s The Naming Song, words have to be divined and delivered by officials. Generations ago the something fell from the something tree and the Silence wiped out all of the words from before. Our protagonist delivers words where they are needed (she famously delivered the word “trouble.”) and life rolls along just like the naphtha-powered train the diviners, namers, and others use to get from here to there. That is, it rolls along until our narrator has a couple of near-fatal meetings with the nameless and a conspiracy begins to appear...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.