Michelle
I've discovered while reading Nigerian authors that the vibe is really different from the books I'd read prior that are written from more Eurocentric schools of literature. The style is more matter of fact and deadpan, and the reader most look to nature and symbolism to extract the full intended meaning.
Okonkwo beats his wives, he can't express love, he can't give the child he loves most – his daughter – her due, and he betrays someone who trusts him. All he knows or understands is his place in his village and his need to be traditionally masculine.
I didn't like him much, but in the end I felt compassion for him. Everything changed that he relied upon to be constant, all the respect he valued was lost to him, the people he felt he could count on – in his mind – let him down. And after having a place, a life, an understanding of the world, and story enough to fill a novel, someone who can't begin to know him proclaims him worthy of perhaps an interesting paragraph. In his native land, a stranger dismisses the value of his life, and instead replaces him as the center of attention.
Formatting on a Kindle made bits of this a chore. The story is kinda a jumble at times, with too many POVs. The ambiguities worked better for me in the author's previous book, A Head Full of Ghosts. Some genuinely creepy moments that I imagine will linger for me.
Edited to add that I've been watching a crazy amount of YouTube year-end round ups of books people have read – the ones they loved, hated, and were disappointed in. One reviewer couldn't say enough about A Head Full of Ghosts, but was disappointed in “Disappearance.” This is exactly my experience. I loved, loved, loved A Head Full of Ghosts, and was deeply ambivalent about “Disappearance.” And now I'm worried that the things I found so refreshing in the first book – the unreliable narrator and ambiguity about the level of supernatural involvement – will grow old if that's the twist in every book.
He wants to believe that playing by the monarchy???s rules will keep us safe, but nothing can protect us when those rules are rooted in hate.
One of the best reads of 2018. If you like strong women characters, magic, adventure, PoC representation, and a compelling story, this will probably be your jam.
Excited for the rest of this series.
I had both the Kindle and the audiobook copy, and Bahni Turpin is a great narrator. I've never been disappointed in her.
Really torn on the stars to give – I'd say 3.5.
The premise is good, the characters are likable, but the main character has to spend the book being thick as a brick for the events to happen.
Move into the house where you saw malevolent spirits as a kid? Where your parents were brutally murdered? Where you were convinced your brother was possessed? With all the secret passages? The house you cannot think about without nearly falling apart? Where animals die horribly? Where your incestuous, abusive, crazy aunt still lives? Where the food was often secretly defiled?
Yes, please, because it's a great place to raise kids?
To share the biggest thing he'd have to be stupid not to get would be a spoiler. It's okay, if you read the book, you'll know.
Also, the author really, really hates poodles. :) But likes cats.
Also2, the book being published 20 years ago made some of the stance toward LGBT character seem a tad, er, dated. Not crazy bigoted, just 20 years old.
A tendency toward general repetition that an editor should have fixed. This line was not, um, award winning”
Those houses had perfect paint and perfect yards, not a blade of grass out of place, while he had an award-winning collection of shaggy bushes and award-winning weeds.
The ending was pretty touching, so there's that. I thought of abandoning the book at 17%, but I actually did like the characters and was curious about what was going to happen.
(Review originally published at Red Adept Reviews.)
Overall: 4 1/2 stars
Plot/Storyline: 4 1/4 stars
This is simply a very rich retelling of Cinderella, with many of the well-known details intact, and a few changes and additions. If you are a fan of the Celtic style of fairy tale/folklore - with fairies as a magical race that humans stumbled across at their own peril - I believe this will be extra pleasing. Ash interacts with the fairy race throughout the story and this adds a level of suspense and danger since it's not all bibbity bobbity boo, and there are stories throughout to remind us of how dangerous these interactions can be.
The love story - Ash and the huntress - is not treated as controversial. In this world, people don't seem to give a thought to it as a forbidden thing, and the treatment is matter of fact. People fall in love and this one girl, Ash, almost without realizing it falls in love with the Royal Huntress. There is more controversy in the class difference between someone who looks and acts like a scullery maid and a person who is part of the royal court. Their relationship is only overtly romantic well into the book, and this aspect is quite G-rated.
(It's worth noting that the author comments on her blog that “in Ash's world, there is no homosexuality or heterosexuality; there is only love. The story is about her falling in love. It's not about her being gay.”)
The novel length is of benefit to the story, allowing Lo to give more time to Ash's profound grief over the loss of her parents, particularly her mother, as well as to show our heroine as a tough character, and to wed this tale, with the most popular tellings of French or German derivation, with the storytelling traditions of the British Isles.
One of my complaints is that the author downplays Ash's dilemma between a life with the fairies and love in the real world. I think it could make her feelings seem shallower than had been intended, and her transition perhaps seemed less than completely explained.
The other complaint is the ending. It ends happily, as it should! However, the resolution was simply too easy, as if the writer couldn't think of a more complex way to get the same result. To say more would be to spoil, but there was definitely some missing conflict.
Characters: 4 1/4 stars
Ash is a likable character, with courage and spirit. Whether or not you'll consider her intelligent is a matter of how you perceive her interactions with the fairy world since pretty much every story she'd read and her mother and everyone who believed in fairies told you they don't play! However, in the beginning she was longing to be with her dead mother and felt she had nothing left for her, and so it makes some sense to me.
I would have liked at least one more scene where we get to see what's in the love interest's heart, but - as is often the case with romantic stories - it's enough that a sympathetic character found love.
Lo made one of the stepsisters awful, but still with a hint of girlish hopes for herself, and one on the brink of likable. The stepmother seemed to have a justification for her actions, or at least she was able to justify it in her own mind. For the most part, I cannot say the secondary characters were fully fleshed out, but fairytales do tend to be told in broad strokes.
Writing style: 4 1/2 stars
Lo does a nice job of making the story feel both traditional and new - honoring folktales and traditions while seamlessly including a message of acceptance. By having it not matter to these people, in Once Upon A Time Land, that a girl's heart is given to another girl, it points out pretty sharply that it's odd that it bothers so many people in this world.
As someone who enjoys fairytales, and folktales, and the reimagining of them, I found the author's choices and treatment of this story to be quite satisfactory.
I was sent an ARC of this in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed it, and there were a couple nice twists. Also, the story raised actual ethical questions. I particularly liked Jess second guessing constantly if she was being tested. The relationship between the msin characters was engaging. The climax fizzled a bit for me, with little of the anticipated tension. Would definitely read more by these authors.
I gave this 5 stars because I was wildly entertained a good portion of the time, and excited for the third book when I finished. This isn't to say that Sarah J. Maas doesn't do messy things as an author, and the Feyre isn't a total Mary Sue, and beyond insufferable. Also, come on on Rhys being that effing perfect, with every act always having been for the greater good.
That said, I found myself buying that he was the better choice for her, and acknowledging Tamsin was always a control freak, and the events in the first book only made that worse. Feyre could have genuinely loved him in the first book and have processed it all in a way that makes them a bad fit in ACoMaF. I believe she has a healthier relationship with Rhysand because he allows her to chose.
