Bookish Thoughts

The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home  is a nearly perfect ending to a nearly perfect book. I have a small quibble about September's age, which seems terribly inconsistent. But then again time passes differently in Fairyland and even moreso when you get aged up and back down. And the story resonated a bit better with her being older. But it never quite felt fully explained. The rest of the book is so good, though, that I can't be too mad. It does a great job of bringing back all the characters and places we've fallen in love with over the series. September ends the book firmly in adulthood, having taken her destiny into her own hands. She's not the queen, but where she ends up is even better. And of course this book has all the lovely narration of the previous books. It's paced a bit better than them, too. And it was nice to actually spend time with September's friends in the beginning before the adventure kicked off. And then during the adventure, t...

The fourth book in Valente's Fairyland series is a bit of a departure from the series so far. It follows a whole new cast of characters, and in some ways it acts as a mirror to the first book. This one is about Hawthorn, a troll who's plucked from his crib by a wind and taken to our world as a changeling. He has a difficult childhood. It's hard for him to figure out the rules of our world, and it's hard for his parents to relate to the new, changed him. But eventually he meets another changeling and finds his way back to Fairyland, where we start to understand the scope of the problems that September is at the root of. The beginning of the book is a lot of fun, filled with callbacks to the beginning of the first book. Hawthorn's journey to our world isn't so different than September's first journey to Fairyland. And the meddlesome winds all seem to be reading from the same script. Then again, the beginning of the book is heartbreaking. We're not follow...

Some of my favorite quotes come from the third Fairyland  book, which sees September traveling to the moon as a criminal and professional revolutionary (she has overthrown two monarchies at this point). There are a lot of lovely passages about what it means to grow up and how to navigate relationships that seem to be constantly changing. Unfortunately, all this great lyrical prose comes at the expense of the plot which is only barely there. It takes nearly half the book to get the gang back together and introduce the main conflict. And then it's resolved almost immediately, which is a bit of a letdown. This book is short, and September herself is angry about how little time she got in Fairyland this time around. But it might be my favorite for all the wisdom the narrator dispenses. There's a lot in here about the power of naming and perceiving and how you become what other people call you but it also matters what you call yourself. Saying no comes up again and again, as som...

In the second Fairyland book, September has to deal with some unintended consequences of her actions in the first book. When she sacrificed her shadow to save a child, it seemed like a purely good action. But now her shadow has crowned herself Queen of Fairyland Below and is slowly stealing everyone else's shadows (and with them, their magic). These book are all about growing up, and this one has September coming to terms with consequences, saying goodbye to friends, being introduced to betrayal, and learning how to make hard choices. September is thirteen now and getting her first taste of adulthood. The language remains as lyrical as ever, and it's a delight to see more of Fairyland with September and her friends. Of course, we've only got the shadows of her friends now. They act different, because September has suddenly become privy to the bits of themselves they usually keep hidden. It's a nice little metaphor for getting to know someone better and suddenly wond...

I have finally collected all five books in this series, which means I can read it straight through. I've been wanting to revisit the early ones for a while, and it's nice to finally have all my ducks in a roll. Back when Gavin was first born, I attempted to read the first book to him, but I could never get through more than a paragraph or two at a time, which got frustrating. So I've adapted and am now using the series as my bedtime book. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making  was everything I remembered and more. It's a lovely story about beginning to grow up and all the choices you make as you start to navigate that scary path of adolescence. It's about making new friends and figuring out who you are and starting to see and accept the darkness of the world. I hadn't remembered how dark this book gets at the end, and it was a nice counterbalance to all the sweetness that came before it. It grounds the book and makes it more than...

In the third installment of Catherynne M Valente's  Fairyland  series, September is growing up. She's worried she won't even be able to return to Fairyland this year, but that quickly becomes the least of her problems. She has to find her friends, confront her fate, battle a yeti, and deal with all the confusing emotions that come with growing up and falling in love. Valente's prose is, as always, enchanting. The narrator shares more than a few insights and jokes with the reader. There's things September isn't ready to learn. Things that children reading this book would probably skip right over. Wisdom you only really earn by growing up the hard way, which makes it all the more heartbreaking when you can't provide easy shortcuts for the younger set. This whole series is really just lovely to read. It's the sort of language you can get lost in, and I was moved to tears more than once. September's journey to adulthood is at once specific and common...

The sequel to Catherynne M Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyl and 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...

I can't very well be expected to resist a title like that, can I? September, like so many other heroines in so many other stories, finds herself traveling to a magical land where she makes friends with interesting creatures and has wonderful adventures. She learns a lot along the way, and I love the way the lessons pop up throughout the text. The narrator is incredibly self-aware. This is one of those books that I had to fight not to read out loud. The language is just so much fun. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making has elements of all the childhood stories I loved growing up. September receives a pair of special shoes. She falls down a hole and travels by boat to an island full of one-legged creatures. She meets a girl who arrived via a wardrobe in an attic. She is warned to stay away from fairy food, but munches on pomegranate seeds anyway. But it has it's own charms too, setting itself apart from the other books by not forcing...