“I know its dangerous, that’s what the armor and the weapons are for.” – Vox Machina: Origins Vol. 2 // Matthew Mercer and Jody Hauser . Yay! This volum“I know its dangerous, that’s what the armor and the weapons are for.” – Vox Machina: Origins Vol. 2 // Matthew Mercer and Jody Hauser . Yay! This volume is all about my boy Grog, who goes missing in the night after a little adventure. We also get to meet Pike, the gang loses and gains a member, and also more Grog. I liked this volume a little more as I love Pike and Percy. Again, I wish there was more movement and action in the actual art during the action/adventure scenes. That being said I am now revisiting Critical Role again and I am enjoying this Origin series even more. I am excited to read Volume 3. Also grabbing my Mighty Nein free comic book this summer. You know that will be on my list. ...more
“Although I had never envisioned marriage, I had thought of love. Not the furtive love I heard muffled in the corners or rooms of some of the harem wi“Although I had never envisioned marriage, I had thought of love. Not the furtive love I heard muffled in the corners or rooms of some of the harem wives. What I wanted was a connection, a shared heartbeat that kept rhythm across oceans and worlds. I didn't want the prince from the folktales or some milk-skinned, honey-eyed youth who said his greetings and proclaimed his love in the same breath. I wanted a love thick with time, as inscrutable as if a lathe had carved it from night and as familiar as the marrow in my bones. I wanted the impossible. “
When I saw the cover I knew that I was going to read it. I read the description and I had a feeling I would love it. Some books are like that. Some books I just find myself drawn to before I even read the first page. Does that ever happen to you or is it just me?
Now I have always loved mythology. From Hades and Persephone to Tamsin, the Morrigan, and even Loki. I am not well versed in Middle Eastern and Asian mythos, but I am starting to. I think I first got interested in Hindu mythology from a Christopher Pike series growing up of all things (The Last Vampire series). There is something fascinating about tales of Sati, Rama, & Shiva. I am also a big fan of fairytales and One Thousand and One Nights. So this gorgeous little book was completely right up my alley.
In the kingdom of Bharata, horoscopes hold weight. Unfortunately, Princess Mayavati was born with a cursed horoscope, one that declares her to be married to death and destruction. Because of this, the other women of the harem have always treated her differently (such as blaming her for any misfortune that occurs) as have her half siblings and other members of the court. Her only friend is her little sister Gauri who she lulls to sleep with fantastic tales of the Night Bazaar. However, a life of isolation has meant that can do many things alone such as read and sketch, spy on her father and his court from the rafters, and dream of a different life.
Until her father announces that Maya will marry a foreign prince to avert war. The choice of a husband is for her to decide, but her fate will be the same. She will be another pampered harem wife in a gilded cage. Her freedom will be gone. Her life no longer her own. Except that her fate is to be even darker than what she ever expected. Her father wants her to drink poison and martyr herself to save her kingdom and her little sister.
But something unexpected happens on her wedding day. Before she can take the first drop of poison a mysterious new suitor walks into her life. She chooses not to be a pawn in that moment. Something feels right. She chooses him. From that day on she becomes the Queen of Akaran and wife of Amar, whisked away to an unknown kingdom and married to a man whose face she cannot see.
When I looked at him, something stirred inside me. It felt like recognition sifted through dreams; like the moment before waking - when sleep blurred the true world, when beasts with sharp teeth and beautiful, winged things flew along the edges of your mind.
Through Amar she finds love and passion. She finds the partner she had always been hoping for though he seems to be spun from the myths and fairytales she used to tell her little sister Gauri. But Akaran is also full of secrets. There are locked and hidden rooms, things her husband cannot and will not say, and a profound feeling that something is missing. Who can she trust? Can she even trust herself?
Things I liked: "I want your perspective and honesty," he said, before adding in a softer voice, "I want to be humbled by you. My kingdom needs a queen. It needs someone with fury in her heart and shadows in her smile. It needs someone restless and clever. It needs you." When you have such prose like this, how could you not fall in love with such an exquisite fairytale. Seriously this fairytale killed me with its gorgeousness. This was a book I loved to read; read for the prose, the way the words wound together to create something magical. It was all so beautifully lovely. It all reminded me of a story that Scheherazade would weave in One Thousand and One Nights.
Oh and the world building. Le Sigh. It’s a mushy, sugary concoction of romantic goodness and I loved every last bite. It made me smile and my heart sing. I fell in love with the magic. Is that not what fairytales are supposed to do. The mythology roots are there too. Also makes my heart smile.
I loved Maya. I love that she found strength in her solitude. I love that she persevered. I might not have been so lucky. Sure I am an introvert, but I am an introvert who needs to be social. Oh and the whole wanting everyone to be happy thing. Let’s back to Maya though. Maya is curious. Maya is brave. Maya has edges. Maya is flawed. She makes bad decisions, she falls prey to an Iago like character and doesn’t trust her heart and herself when she needs to Many fairytales have flawed heroes and heroines. It’s part of the journey and this is Maya’s journey to find herself and what her power is. Even better when she does mistakes, and oh boy does she, she takes responsibility for her actions even when her decisions are bad ones.
"I want to lie beside you and know the weight of your dreams," he said, brushing his lips against my knuckles. "I want to share whole worlds with you and write your name in the stars." He moved closer and a chorus of songbirds twittered silver melodies. "I want to measure eternity with your laughter." Guh. As you might be able to tell, I also loved Amar. Sure Amar is the mysterious stranger trope, but so are many loves in fairytales. It is why I love them so. I really can’t blame Maya for falling for him. All her life her view of love and life as a wife was through the harem. For Amar, she is his world. There is no harem, no other wives…just her. Yeah at first glance there might be insta love or at least the insta desire. The real love, the trust, and the commitment will come later. Plus there is more to the story. Still Amar says things like this and I can’t help but love him. "The truth," said Amar, taking a step closer to me, "is that you look neither lovely nor demure. You look like edges and thunderstorms. And I would not have you any other way."
Kamala the horse is hilarious. Aside from her flesh eating tendencies I think she would be great to have around. It’s probably the snark. Yep definitely the snark. I wanted more of Gauri. Looks like I will get my wish as the next tale set in this universe is hers. 2017, come quick. I absolutely enjoyed it, and I cannot wait to read more by Roshani Chokshi.
Things I didn’t like so much: This book is not without its flaws. Sometimes the prose can so lovely that it chooses style over substance, almost too descriptive. This is a minor nitpick though.
I think I also wanted Maya to make her own choice, to embrace her former life not because of fate, but because she wanted to. I also wanted more. Of everything.
My last gripe isn’t really with the book. I read a few reviews that said Maya slut shamed. The quote in particular is “I’d rather spread ideas than legs,” I hissed back. “But I doubt you would agree-" Whoa, hold on there cowboy. One, none of the harem wives are sluts. It is true that the harem wives are pretty things in gilded cages. Their sexuality is owned instead of owning it. I can’t blame Maya for wanting to spread ideas rather than spread her legs. She didn’t learn to cherish the harem as they were so cruel to her. Instead she read, she learned, she spied on her father and discovered the kingdom she lived in. She learned that she wanted more. I would want the same. Maya wants to be more than a harem wife, one of many, and far from independent. She wants her freedom. Can you blame the girl? Just because she does not want the life of a harem wife does not mean she sees the harem wives as sluts. Maybe I read the passage and the book differently. But I saw her as just wanting more. It just bugged me when I read some other reviews and …sigh. Anyway….
Buy or Borrow: Buy. So so gorgeous and worth every page.
Part of: Part of a series
Also Recommended: For more fairytales or tales with perhaps a Hindu flair please try the following: Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor, The Orphan’s Tales beginning with In the Night Garden by Catherynne Valente, The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh, Abandon by Meg Cabot, and The Twentieth Wife by Indu Sundaresan...more
“The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.”
I have been reading a lot more young adult novels of late and for good“The truth is what I make it. I could set this world on fire and call it rain.”
I have been reading a lot more young adult novels of late and for good reason. There have been some excellent offerings in the past couple of years. They also tend to have some sublime cover art. I will admit that I first picked up Red Queen because of the cover. How could I not? It really is gorgeous in its simplicity and made me want to read more.
While the premise of the book may be similar to other stories I had heard a lot about the book. I mean Red Queen was everywhere. People raved as they did Throne of Glass and Leigh Bardugo’s Tales of the Grisha series. I liked those so I picked this one up.
There are two kinds of people – Reds and Silvers. The Silvers are the ruling class, their silver blood giving them special abilities such as pyrokinesis or the ability to control metals. They live in absolute power and a good lot of them think themselves Gods over the lowly Reds. The Reds are the labor class. Most live in poverty and long for a freedom they might never get.
Mare Barrow is a Red as are her friends and family. She is also running out of time. As a Red when she turns eighteen she will be conscripted to the army just like her brothers. With no apprenticeship to pardon her, she pickpockets to try and support her family. When her best friend Kilorn loses his apprenticeship, Mare thinks that everything is lost. Until one night she meets a stranger who says he can get her a job inside the Silver Palace. With this job she could save her family, her best friend, and maybe even herself.
When her powers manifest in front of the Silver Court, Mare’s life will never be the same. Mare is an impossibility, an anomaly. The Silver King realizes he cannot kill a ‘Silver’ in front of his nobles, but he also cannot tell them that a Red has the powers of a Silver. It would give the Reds hope. It would fuel the Scarlet Guard. Ultimately it would make his kingdom weak and there are other players just waiting for a sign of weakness.
In order to control her and discover more about her abilities the Silver Queen and King disguise her as a lost Silver. Now that the lost Silver girl has been found after being brought up by Reds her entire life, she will wed the younger prince Maven for her parents noble sacrifice. Living a lie Mare finds herself dropped into a very dangerous game of revolution, power, and thrones. Will she survive?
Things I liked: Yep it is a story about a young, poor girl who discovers that she is a special snowflake. Yep, we’ve read it before and probably many, many times. And yet I kept reading. Even if it is an often told story, I like it. I found myself liking Mare. She is reckless and flawed, but also incredibly brave. I liked her snark. She is unpredictable like the electricity that hums in her veins. She acts without thinking and because of this there are consequences. Real consequences. Despite this, she sometimes comes off as the damsel in distress. A lot. A bit too much really. At least until the latter half of the book which is a shame because I felt like she started off rather strong. However, things picked up in the latter half of the book. Mare became a stronger character, the final arena battle was awesome, and I looked forward to reading more.
I really wanted to like the characters, as cookie cutter as some of them may have been (The evil Queen -Stepmother of course, the wise tutor who becomes mentor and friend, and the two different princes.) Cal believes in the hierarchy, believes that once he is King he can somehow make it all better. He knows that change needs to occur. And Maven, forever living in his brother’s shadow garnered some sympathy. He was quiet and unsure, knew his place. How could I not like him.
I like the premise even if it is one we have read a hundred times over. I enjoyed the political themes, the rebellion and the revolution, the fact that when there is revolution even the innocent are often destroyed. And whoo hoo for the surprise dystopia for me. I didn’t really get it until almost halfway through and in some ways reminded me of Shannara, but maybe that is because the Rogue and I just finished watching that on Netflix.
I was happy to see some gender equality. Yay. Both Red boys and girls are conscripted to the Silver army just as both genders of the Silvers are trained to develop their abilities. Sure the whole vying for the Crown Prince parade of noble ladies is a bit annoying. Meh.
The pacing was quick, so despite some flaws it was a quick and fairly enjoyable read. I of course wanted more, but I think I had enough to read the next book in the series.
Things I didn’t like so much: “You want me to pin my entire operation, the entire revolution on some teenaged love story? I can't believe this.” Yeah, please don’t. There isn’t one really. But there is a love triangle, because of course there is. Actually it might be a love square. Love squares are dumb (looking at you Season Three of BSG). I didn’t like any of the love interests. Too many choices, not enough depth to any of them. Instead it just came off like Mare is loved by all men because of her special snowflake status and heated by all women.
Speaking of bitchy ladies…why is that? Guys don’t hate each other on sight when they might be potential rivals or at least they are not written that way or portrayed that way most of the time. However, we ladies are just horrible to one another. Seriously I think the only ladies that like Mare are her family. Evangeline could have been such a more interesting character had she not been the bitchy bitca from the moment she laid eyes on Mare. Why is Mare hated so much? Or is it just perceived hatred because Mare feels so alien? Either way it induced some eye rolling. It made Mare a cliché.
I also have question about disguising Mare as a Silver. You can’t look at someone and automatically know if they are Silver or Red. It is all in the blood. Let’s face it every Silver would want to see her bleed. If you are playing the throne game and suddenly a new player shows up on the game board, you would poke until you found weaknesses. Or maybe that is just what I would do. Because I am evil?
It’s a book that took so long for something to happen. I knew there would be a gut wrench or a betrayal. I kept feverishly reading, hoping there would be something. Anything. There wasn’t enough conflict or at least any real conflict. It all felt too easy, which it shouldn’t as there were real stakes involved. After all a revolution is brewing not to mention the whole courtly intrigue. I felt slightly detached through a good portion and yet I didn’t stop reading. So I suppose that is something.
Buy or Borrow: Buy. Despite my gripes, I still enjoyed it and will be keeping it on my shelves.
Part of: Series Red Queen (Book One) Glass Sword (Book Two) Kings Cage (Book Three) 2017
Also Recommended: I would give the Throne of Glass series a try by Sarah J Maas or Maas’ other series the Court of Thorns and Roses. You might also like Graceling by Kristin Cashore. ...more
Neil Gaiman is one of my heroes and one that I hope to meet some day. When I need an escape it is his stories I instinctively go to. When I want sometNeil Gaiman is one of my heroes and one that I hope to meet some day. When I need an escape it is his stories I instinctively go to. When I want something with a little bit of teeth, I go to Gaiman. And when I want to let my imagination run wild I reach for Neil’s works. It is through him that I learned to love comics through the Endless and so many more things.
Now if you are new to Gaiman and have no idea what I am talking about when I speak of the Endless or Coraline or Good Omens, or even Shadow Moon, this may be a good place for you to start. As you know I love anthologies. Short fiction is not something that every writer is good at, but I think Neil excels at it. I love short stories, the brief glimpses into a world. I love how there is perfect beginning and end and I don’t have to read thirteen books into a series. They are easy for me to pick up, though not always to put down. And they are usually varied, almost like listening to a soundtrack or seeing Paris Je T’aime.
It took me a while to pick up Trigger Warning and then David Bowie died and I read The Thin White Duke that Gaiman had posted. I also started being in short fiction mode. I needed snippets and episodes. I needed Gaiman.
Trigger Warning begins with an intro by Neil where he tells you about the origins of each of the tales. I prefer to read them after I read each of the entries as I didn’t want his explanations to color my enjoyment of any of them. But it is lovely to read about the ideas behind each of them. I will try to remain as spoiler free as I can on each of the stories. I will say I loved them and this will join the many other beloved books and collections I have on my shelves. It is not perfect, but some of the stories made a definite impact and whisked me away. It was exactly what I needed.
The Stories: Making a Chair: A simple poem about the writing process. If you are a writer you may relate to it quite a bit. A thought it was a lovely way to begin the collection.
A lunar Labyrinth: A tribute to Gene Wolfe, it features a traveler who loves roadside attractions and oddities. He loves the idea of a maze that forms only when the moon is full, but one must be wary of what else lurks within the labyrinth. I loved this story.
The Thing about Cassandra: The imaginary becomes real. I want to say so much about the tale, but I don’t want to give it away. This was one of my favorites. I love the idea behind it, the twists and the turns, and the fantastical nature of it all. I would love to see this in visual form as an episode of Outer Limits or something.
Down to A Sunless Sea: The sea promises so much. It promises adventure and new worlds, but also so many tears. A woman tells the tale of her son as the rain pours around. So sad and dark. Short as well, but worth the read.
The Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains: One of the longest stories in the collection, this is the story of a strange little man who seeks a guide to a mysterious cave. It is a story about the truth, of revenge and regret, and a cave that is said to hold many riches. It is a dark and sad story with amazing imagery. It is also crushingly beautiful in the way that it is told. Maybe I have been watching too many episodes of Lost Girl, but I could see the Blood King making the trek up the mountain. I also envy those who saw Neil read it live with a string quartet and Eddie Campbell’s art. Lucky bastards.
My Last Landlady: The rent may be a bit too high for one tenant. Great. Again I love the imagery. I can see them all, eyes to the shore, watching the landlady.
Adventure Story: Adventure can mean many things. Maybe even Pterodactyls. Fun and light story.
Orange: The answers on a questionnaire for one teenage girl. Quirky and fun, but I didn’t really enjoy the format. Just took me out of it.
A Calendar of Tales: These snippets, the collection within a collection, were based on tweets. What a great idea. One tweet per month, one tale per month. Its a bit of a mixed bag, but there are some standouts (May, July, August, September, and October) I really love the way the way were written.
The Case of Death and Honey: A Sherlock Holmes story involving a trip to China and a certain honey and the bee that made it. It’s a bit odd and yet perfectly Holmes like. I enjoyed it.
The man who Forgot Ray Bradbury: This is a tribute to Gaiman’s mentor and someone who captured my imagination growing up as well. But it also holds some resonance as I remember the friendship between Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. I cannot imagine losing pieces of my life, names, faces while strange little tidbits remain. A good story, a nice tribute, but also a sad one.
Jerusalem: A tale about Jerusalem Syndrome. Not one of my favorites. For me it was one of the weakest. Just a little meh for me really.
Click Clack The Rattlebag: Another one of my favorite stories. Perfectly creepy and a tale I wish I could see visually as well. Loved it. I adore it when Gaiman does horror.
An Invocation of Incuriosity: A time travel piece that was bit too odd for me.
And Weep, Like Alexander: Ever wonder why we don’t have flying cars or jetpacks? Cute story. Now if he could just invent the Kardashians that would be great.
Nothing o’Clock: Yay Doctor Who. Seriously Gaiman should write more Doctor stories. I think this would make a great episode. The paper masks of the enemies remind me of the film ‘The Strangers’ except the masks are even creepier because of their simplicity. You know that someone is wearing a mask. You are worried to know what lies beneath the mask or why they are choosing to wear one. It is that creeping horror, the one that is just on the fringe of your sight. So creepy and wonderful and completely Doctor Who.
Diamonds and Pearls: A fairy tale, but one with prostitutes, drugs, stepmothers, and just a little bit of magic. I like the contemporary or modern fairytale nature of it.
The Return of the Thin White Duke: I picked up Trigger Warning after Bowie died and Gaiman posted this story who inspired the story. It is beautiful and I hope Bowie had a chance to read it. ‘You are here to rescue yourself’. What a gorgeous little tale.
Feminine Endings: Be wary of living statues. I can imagine that living statues learn many a thing. I love the love letter as creepy as it might be..
Observing the Formalities: A poem with Maleficent as the narrator. It is a shame that people no longer observe proper etiquette. If they had just followed proper formalities…
The Sleeper and the Spindle: Speaking of Sleeping Beauty. Yay! A lovely mashup of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty/ I always wanted Snow to be a bad ass. I love that Snow has found her own strength and courage. She is her own hero now and I could want for nothing more. My favorite story of the bunch.
Witch Work: A little poem about a witch and her magic.
In Relig Odhrain: Another poem about a Saint or perhaps a druid.
Black Dog: Shadow Moon stops by an old village pub. Everyone seems perfectly nice and harmless, but Shadow knows better. Everyone has ghosts. It is a great story about jealousy and rage, but also about the past. The prose in this story deserves a shiny gold star. Seriously, you have passages like…The mummified kitty that looks as if it ‘had been constructed out of tendons and agony’, or ‘Shadow imagined the black dog squatting on the roof, cutting out all sunlight, all emotion, all feeling and truth’. Amazing story. Makes me want to go revisit Shadow again.
In all I loved this collection. It was exactly what I needed. I absolutely loved the introduction where Gaiman is talking to all of his readers. I like the title, the warning label on the very cover of the book. "Many of these stories end badly for at least one of the people in them. Consider yourself warned."
Buy or Borrow: Buy.
Part of: Standalone
Also Recommended: For more Neil Gaiman short stories please try Fragile Things or Smoke and Mirrors. For more great Anthologies try Strange Brew edited by PN Elrod, Mean Streets edited by Jim Butcher, and Powers of Detection edited by Dana Stabenow ...more
“You're nobody's rainbow. You're nobody's princess. You're nobody's doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is“You're nobody's rainbow. You're nobody's princess. You're nobody's doorway but your own, and the only one who gets to tell you how your story ends is you.”
Whatever happened to the children who fell down the well or the rabbit hole, those who escaped through a wardrobe or walked through a doorway? What happens when they come back to this world? It’s an intriguing thought. As is what would my doorway be if I found it? Where would it take me? What would it be like? Would I ever want to come back? Or are doorways just for children?
Nancy walked through a door once and found a home she did not realize she had. She lived a life of silence and stood as still as a marble statue. But she was loved. She was wanted. She was accepted for who she was. Her liege, The Lord of the Undead, called to her very soul. But then she came back and couldn’t find her door again.
She is not the same young woman her parents thought she was. No one believes where she has been. This world is the one she is supposed to belong to. This loud world full of colors and chaos, loud and bright, and always moving. No one understands that Nancy likes the quiet, the darkness, and the stillness. There, in her real home, she felt like she was in control. There, she felt like she could finally be herself and be loved for it.
Nancy’s parents think that they are helping her overcome the trauma of her recent disappearance and kidnapping by sending her to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. Eleanor knows the sadness and loss that Nancy is feeling because she had a door once too. Here, at her home, they are believed. Nancy is not alone. There are other kids like her, one who entered mysterious and magical worlds and came back.
Soon after Nancy arrives students begin dying. Who is killing the students and why? And will Nancy ever find her door again?
Things I liked: “For us, places we went were home. We didn't care if they were good or evil or neutral or what. We cared about the fact that for the first time, we didn't have to pretend to be something we weren't. We just got to be. That made all the difference in the world.”
Imagine if you traveled to a world that was nonsensical or magical, one that was dark or virtuous, perhaps twisted or light. It was an amazing place, one where you felt like you belonged. Then one day you were cast out. Maybe you became too old, too unsure, too other, or perhaps your benefactors want to make sure that this world is the one you want forever. You still are not there. The return to this world is gut wrenching, traumatic, and undeniably painful. You have lost something. You will never stop looking. You want so desperately to go back, to feel whole again. It’s hard to live in this world when you know another one is out there. One that you called home. One where you finally felt like you belonged. Not everyone is allowed to go back. For some, their door will never open again. For some, if they are lucky they might find their door again on a quiet night. Holy cow is that a premise. How can that not just hit you in the feels.
Like I said I love the premise. I also love that is quite often little girls or girls in general that are taken. This quote sums it up pretty perfectly, “Because ‘boys will be boys’ is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Lundy. “They’re too loud, on the whole, to be easily misplaced or overlooked; when they disappear from the home, parents send search parties to dredge them out of swamps and drag them away from frog ponds. It’s not innate. It’s learned. But it protects them from the doors, keeps them safe at home. Call it irony, if you like, but we spend so much time waiting for our boys to stray that they never have the opportunity. We notice the silence of men. We depend upon the silence of women.”
Obviously the whole thing is just heartbreaking because these kids were cast out of a place where they felt acceptance. Now they are forced back into a world that doesn’t understand them, outcasts yet again. Sure I can see the parallels between childhood and adulthood, the loss of innocence and imagination. Which is why I love this concept so so much.
This book tries to tackle a lot of things as well. You have morality, mental health, and the desire to feel accepted for who and what you are. The whodunit feels tacked on and a bit forced. Again, I will get to that in a bit.
I will say that it is the small things that bring the world to life just as Toby’s world relies on the small things (like how magic smells). Through the spattering of color, the creak of a door, the smell of something just beyond reach, or the sound of an empty classroom bring it all to life. This is what makes Seanan’s writing so great for me. I get transported, which is exactly what I want when I read a book.
The characters are also great in this book if not fully realized which is one of the small gripes I have which I will get to later. But you have to love the diversity Seanan was trying to achieve in her characters and her world. Nancy is asexual and Kade is transgender. Where Nancy is reserved and quiet, her roommate Sumi is loud and energetic. Lundy the school’s therapist looks like a child because her world made her age backward in this one. Eleanor’s world was one of nonsense while another student’s was one of rainbows.
Things I didn’t like so much: My biggest gripe is how selfish these kids are. Sure some of them have shitty parents. Some of them have loving parents, parents who thought they had lost their children. Parents who grieved and some who never stopped hoping that they would come back, that they would be returned from wherever and whomever had taken them. There are parents and families who don’t understand, but they want to. They don’t know what their children went through. They weren’t there. They did not experience it. It doesn’t mean that they don’t love their children. They are trying to help in the only ways that they know how. And yet…
Their kids don’t seem to care. Seriously, what about the parents, the families, the friends, the siblings? Are these characters so self-absorbed that they matter not? Selfish. So selfish. Maybe I would feel better if they all came from horrible homes, they were all only children, and no one really was changed by their disappearance and reappearance.
I also felt like the entire story was rushed. It was as if she was trying to write a full length novel but realized she only had 170 pages to do it. I know what Seanan was trying to do or at least I think I do, but I felt like it should be more than just 173 pages. I’m not sure why it was decided that it should only be a novella. I guess I was wanted more. I wanted to understand and learn more about high logic worlds and high wicked ones. I wanted to learn about how each of these characters played a part in those worlds. I wanted to know how those worlds changed them forevermore.
Like I said the concept is amazing, the execution not as much. Such as its not really a crime thriller or mystery. Or at least a believable one. Maybe it was because I never was connected to any of the characters enough to mourn their loss, to feel a sense of worry on who might be next. Plus Eleanor’s solution for what to do when there is a serial killer on campus? It’s not call the cops or do anything resembling any sort of responsibility for her charges. Its suggest that everyone travels around in threes? Sigh.
Finally I felt like the diversity was a bit forced at times. For example, when Kade is introduced as transgender. It felt weird and a little forced. Almost a let me get this out of the way instead of making it feel natural and making Kade more fully developed and realized. It didn’t feel like a natural reveal. And while yes we are a diverse little human world, there was so much inclusion that it felt heavy handed. Sure, maybe it is because most lit out there is so far from diverse that when you feel like you actually have a splice of real life that it just makes things feel off. I don’t know. Again, one of those loved it and hated it things.
This really is such an odd story. Its full of magic, loss, love, and anger. But it is real and beautiful in its own way. This little novella was also very hard to review for me. I love Seanan to little bitty pieces and enjoy her creations. But this novella had some great highs, but some low lows for me. I wanted there to be more. I expected just a little bit more. It’s not a bad book by any means. I just wanted more.
Buy or Borrow: Buy. Despite my gripes, I still enjoyed it and will be keeping it on my shelves.
Part of: Series
Also Recommended: For more Seanan goodness please read her Toby Daye series beginning with Rosemary and Rue. Another young adult book that is has that eerie beautifulness is Midwinterblood by Marcus Sedgwick. You might also like Holly Black’s The Coldest Girl in Coldtown. ...more
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