The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There
The Fairyland series, Book 2
Catherynne M. Valente
Square Fish
Fiction, MG Fantasy
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: It has been a year since Nebraska girl September met the Green Wind and rode the Leopard of Light Breezes to Fairyland, faced strange wonders and dark dangers, and defeated the evil Marquess. She's been reading up on mythology in the meantime to prepare herself to return (and help hide from the radio reports, for her father is still overseas fighting in someone else's war, while her mother still works long hours as a mechanic), but hasn't seen a speck of a green coat or flick of a spotted tail in all that time. September's starting to fear that her friends have forgotten about her, and she'll never leave the mundane world again. Then she sees a rowboat among the corn, as Fairy a thing as she's ever spied. Sure enough, she follows it straight into Fairyland... but things are not well here. Shadows have gone missing, draining away the world's magic, and there's talk of a new Hollow Queen in Fairyland-Below. A girl made of shadow herself, who draws all the lonely and neglected shadows to her. September's own missing shadow, left behind in her first adventure - now the greatest threat Fairyland has ever faced. Since she created the problem, September sets out to fix it, but quests invariably go awry, and even heroines can fail.
REVIEW: The first installment of Valente's Fairyland series was a pure delight, a perfect balance of whimsical phrase and solid storytelling and singular characters. Here, the author proves that, at least in Fairyland, lightning can indeed strike twice. September's not quite the same girl she was when the Green Wind came to her and offered her an adventure a year ago; as she grows up, Fairyland reveals more of its own darkness and complexity, and her new, wild heart adds extra problems as it compels her to care more deeply, even in instances where she might be better off not caring at all. Some of what she learned before helps her, but many of the challenges she faces are new, sometimes even complicated by what she knew (and who she met) last time: she finds the shadows of her Wyverary friend A-through-L and the Marid boy Saturday, but are shadows true reflections of their former owners, or something darker, with their own agendas? The story starts quickly and moves at a brisk pace, blending old faces and new, as September delves into the deeper magics and peculiar physicks of the magical realm... a realm that is not, as in some portal fantasies, just a figment of childish imagination. (Valente definitely earns extra points for this: even as a young child, it irked me when the wonderful, magical place couldn't really exist, and the "just a dream" ending has always struck me as literature's greatest cop-out/waste of a reader's time. But, I digress...) As before, the prose is beautiful, downright lyrical at times, and while the main arc wraps in this volume, sufficient stray threads remain to weave seamlessly into the third installment. A very enjoyable outing from an author who rarely disappoints.
You Might Also Enjoy:
The Divide (Elizabeth Kay) - My Review
In an Absent Dream (Seanan McGuire) - My Review
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making (Catherynne M. Valente) - My Review
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