Ballad for Jasmine Town

3 stars, Metaphorosis reviews

Summary
Rafi, a half-fae ‘counted as human' becomes involved with a fully human witch and her family, just as political and social forces in the fae and human communities are driving renewed tensions.

Review
Ballad for Jasmine Town has a very rocky start – an awkward wiki entry on faery and then a plunge into the world with haphazard introduction of elements and concepts. There are also two completely different names for a key character (a grandmother) who is sometimes referred to by one, sometimes by the other, with the usage never clarified. Hard as I tried, it took a long time for me to be certain that the two names referred to the same grandmother. As with most infodumps, the wiki didn't work. And it was only at the very end of the book that I realized that this was a sequel, which perhaps explains some of the trouble. It does in many ways function as a standalone book, but only once you've managed to get through the first 25% or so. For me, that opening left a distaste that lingered.

I'm not quite sure what ‘romantasy' really is, but this might qualify, at least on the fringes. It's not bodice ripping, but there's a small amount of bosom-heaving sex, and there's a central romantic relationship. I liked the relationship, though it did border a little too often on wish fulfillment and faced no major obstacles.

Romance aside, the main plot is tension between human and fae, with what I took to be some not too disguised to real world events in one country or another. The concept was good, but the execution not as successful as one might hope. For a book that clearly leans heavily toward a progressive, politically correct view of the world, it fell quickly into a bit of a racism trap. A group of korreds (a type of fae) are just bad news. Not all korreds, the book is quick to point out, just this group (with one exception). But the story quickly settles into a shortcut that korred = bad, which seems more reductionist than seemed to fit the story. Similarly, a solution that the protagonists come up with is not explored as deeply as I might have hoped. They do debate its propriety and justice, but I felt the ending didn't come to grips with the drawbacks as directly as I thought it should have.

I'm not usually a skimmer, but even after I felt grounded in the world at the 1/4 mark, by the 2/3 mark I found myself wanting to skim. I couldn't quite pin down the issue beyond just not feeling as interested in the story as I wanted – perhaps because, ethically difficult solution aside, the emotional and moral issues all seemed so cut and dried; there was never much question of how things would work out. It also, despite being set in a fae world with humans there on sufferance, seemed peculiarly focused on impacts to humans. Perhaps for those who enjoy angsty voyages to happy romantic endings, this will be a joy. For me, I found it just didn't keep my attention.

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.