Review Summaries

• Readers tend to value the distinctive subject and dense description, while the historical setting and style can make the work demanding.

Reviews

• Dark, disturbing, and mesmerizing--these are NOT your daughter's fairies

  Based on the odd title and the fairy/fantasy book description, I normally wouldn't have given this book a chance. Fortunately for me, I was seduced by the Philip K. Dick Award and the promise of pernicious faerie threats, and I'm glad I was. The book opened up a whole new world to me, filled with fascinating ideas and delightfully terrifying monsters. And I do mean monsters. These are not your happy, frolicking, friendly Disney Fairies. No, they are faeries, and they are dangerous. In fact, one scene involving an attack by a "pookah"--a nature spirit, the origin of "Puck" of A Midsummer Night's Dream fame--was one of the more shocking scenes I've read (and that's saying something because I am a huge horror fan). The book is divided into three main stories. The first story takes place around 1913, and focuses on Emily, a spoiled and annoying girl living in a romantic house surrounded by an idyllic forest. When I say "annoying," I mean it in a good way--a Flannery O'Connor way--in other words, part of the fun is watching this character's teenage hubris set her up for her fate. This section of the book is narrated through letters, Emily's father's diary, and most importantly, Emily's diary, which alternates between teenage silliness and beautifully lyrical descriptions of nature and the supernatural. Emily accidentally causes the "otherworld" to intersect with the real world, with enormous consequences. The second story annoyed me at first. I thought I had accidentally picked up my copy of Ulysses and was having flashbacks to my college days of slogging through James Joyce. I kept thinking I was imagining the Joycean style, until Jessica, the main character, is asked on a date and responds with an unmistakably Molly Bloom-esque "yes, I will, yes." Then there are Tiresias and Gonzaga, characters of that overused ethereal carnival type (think Something Wicked This Way Comes, before hundreds of authors jumped on the "aren't carnival people creepy?" bandwagon), whose adventures are often convoluted and confusing. But again, lucky for me, I stuck with it and everything eventually made sense. This part of the book focuses on young Dubliner Jessica, and the repercussions upon her life of the door to the otherworld that her mother Emily opened. The third story is vastly different. Enye, granddaughter of Jessica, is a strong, independent, modern woman. An advertising writer (and eventually bike courier) by day, she is essentially an action hero by night, using her swords and martial arts to battle mythic beasts and send them back to their own world. She is the first one, after generations of "mythoconscious" female ancestors, who has the potential to finally close the door to the otherworld. This book is beautifully written, and each of its three stories is stylistically different and uniquely engaging. It's the kind of book that will haunt you and stick in your mind, and maybe, if you stay up too late reading it, it will make you see menacing shadows lurching and stalking, just outside your field of vision.

• Wow, what a difference clear text makes

  I've been reading the book for decades, but mass market, muddy font, foxing pages. I've been hoping for a trade paperback edition all this time. I pulled up the mass market paper edition again, started reading and said, enough! I bought the e-book, started reading, and it was a joy again. Clear text, bright pages. I'm no longer having to fight the page to read the story. The book is a Ur text, that rewards after many readings, with the author having fun, playing many games that are now fun to join in again, because I can read the page. Well done.

• Not my favorite

  Starts out interesting, but goes downhill. It's a long, dry read to the end. Not exactly one of those books you can't put down.

• epic fantasy with three parts in one book

  interesting fairy fantasy that takes place through generations, liked the plot and storyline, with its unexpected twists and turns, will keep you turning the pages.

• Hated it.

  I couldn't even get through Part 1. It didn't make any sense to me and I typically enjoy fantasy/science fiction.

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