The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

The sequel to Catherynne M Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making returns to a September who is a no longer quite a child. She has just turned thirteen and is staring down that twisting and treacherous path to adulthood. But just because she's grown up a bit doesn't mean she has nothing left to learn in Fairyland. Instead September must return to deal with the consequences of her first trip there.

In the first book, September sacrificed her shadow to save the life of a young girl. Now that shadow has declared herself the ruler of Fairyland-Below and is stealing more shadows to be her loyal subjects. September finds herself on a quest to awaken the legendary Prince Myrrh so he can rule in he'd stead and restore the balance.

The quest is fun and full of all manner of interesting characters. Through it all, September learns a lot of the lessons of early adulthood. Sometimes your friends move on to different lives, leaving you behind. Sometimes your friends betray you or push you too far. And sometimes the people that you thought were your enemies turn out to be friends in their own way.

There's also a rather fantastic passage about the physical laws of quests and stories. It was a perfect marriage of two of my favorite things.

All in all, this book does a great job of addressing those first hurts and lessons on the road to adulthood. September emerges triumphant, though not in the way she expected. And everyone is happy again. Until the next adventure, anyway.

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