seraphcelene (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seraphcelene) wrote2014-09-22 09:17 pm
seraphcelene) wrote2014-09-22 09:17 pm
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Book Review: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Val
"All children are heartless. They have not grown a heart yet, which is why they can climb tall trees and say shocking things and leap so very high that grown-up hearts flutter in terror. Hearts weigh quite a lot. That is why it takes so long to grow one."
Valente's charming and beautiful fairy tale tells the story of a little girl named September who takes off for an adventure in Fairyland only to discover that adventures are scarier than she imagined, lonely, exhausting, difficult, and not all they're cracked up to be. Whisked away from the boredom of washing dishes by the Green Wind, September is dropped into the middle of a fairy story and discovers that there are choices to be made, friends to meet, people to save, hearts to break, and many ways to her way. It's a great adventure evocative of all the best fairy stories written in the past 100 years (Narnia, Oz, Wonderland, Lemony Snicket). There are witches (and Marquesses, who are worse than witches), dragons, golems, talking leopards, and fairies (of course).
Beautifully written, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland would be perfect to share with a child; although I would not recommend that a child read it alone. This is a tale, like the best stories, designed for reading aloud. I loved that September, our plucky, semi-heartless, know-it-all-heroine, faced a lot of tough, deadly, scary and dangerous challenges. I loved that the rules of faerie, rules that September thinks she knows all too well, are turned on their ear and upside down. From changelings to the Ravished, the rules of river crossings and the ways of wyverns and death, Valente recasts our ideas of fairy tale elements. I loved September's compatriots and that September is the hero of her own story. Valente has a beautiful way with language and I found myself studying the language as much as anything else. A fun, whimsical, enchanting read.
Valente's charming and beautiful fairy tale tells the story of a little girl named September who takes off for an adventure in Fairyland only to discover that adventures are scarier than she imagined, lonely, exhausting, difficult, and not all they're cracked up to be. Whisked away from the boredom of washing dishes by the Green Wind, September is dropped into the middle of a fairy story and discovers that there are choices to be made, friends to meet, people to save, hearts to break, and many ways to her way. It's a great adventure evocative of all the best fairy stories written in the past 100 years (Narnia, Oz, Wonderland, Lemony Snicket). There are witches (and Marquesses, who are worse than witches), dragons, golems, talking leopards, and fairies (of course).
Beautifully written, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland would be perfect to share with a child; although I would not recommend that a child read it alone. This is a tale, like the best stories, designed for reading aloud. I loved that September, our plucky, semi-heartless, know-it-all-heroine, faced a lot of tough, deadly, scary and dangerous challenges. I loved that the rules of faerie, rules that September thinks she knows all too well, are turned on their ear and upside down. From changelings to the Ravished, the rules of river crossings and the ways of wyverns and death, Valente recasts our ideas of fairy tale elements. I loved September's compatriots and that September is the hero of her own story. Valente has a beautiful way with language and I found myself studying the language as much as anything else. A fun, whimsical, enchanting read.