So Many Books... - January 9th, 2009

08:41 pm - KNIFE

Not a threat, though it possibly should be a bit worrying that I find "Knife" a much more appealing title than "Faery Rebels"...  (I like the British cover more than the US one too, though it might be a bit misleadingly young.)

Anyway, the author,rj_anderson, is on my flist, and despite the reassurance of "there are humans at the bottom of the garden", and the enormous intelligence of what I've read of her non-fiction, when I picked up the book in town early, I said nothing, put aside the book I was reading (the wonderful Graceling), and set out to see what I might see.  Because, well, it's fairies.  And fairies - or faeries, even  - can be very difficult to get just the way you like them.  Cute has been done so much that the anti-cute, as in the "kick-ass" variety, is also pretty standard these days.  And the heartless-as-hell YA types are usually seen from the perspective of the teen who has to try to escape them, while this is clearly from the POV of the faery.  So it could have been competent and well-written but nothing to write home about. Or think about.  Or eagerly anticipate the sequel.  Oh - let's go for full disclosure here: or to say to oneself "That's a bit dim of Knife and friends, but I guess she doesn't have the experience of reading Fire and Hemlock, or she'd know to avoid that peril", only to find oneself totally and utterly wrong instead, because *nothing* was standard or predictable.

( More about KNIFE, short reference to Auralia's Colors, and a short babble about fantasy as conservative or not )
No spoilers behind the cut, and I'll keep it that way for this post, but I may crack and need to do a whited-out mini-post with the thoughts I've been turning over and over concerning just one line near the end!  It's impossible to say anything about it and remain spoilerless. Or maybe I'll go searching for other reviews which do have spoilers on Goodreads, possibly.   I just can't see waiting however long it'll take for the sequel to come out....