Tag Archives: Fae

half

Book Review of Half, by Eli Lang

I received a copy of Eli Lang‘s Half from Netgalley.

Description from Goodreads:
Living between worlds has never been comfortable, but it’s where I’ve always fit: between human and fey, illness and health, magic and reality. 

I’ve spent the last six years looking for a cure for the nameless sickness eating me up. If I believed there was one out there, I would keep searching. But there isn’t, so I’ve come back home, where my past and present tangle. Come home to live . . . and to die. 

But my father insists I meet Kin. He’s a healer, and determined to help, even though I’m not so hopeful anymore. But Kin isn’t what I expected, in any way. He sees me, not my illness. He reminds me of what it’s like to be alive. And I can’t help falling for him, even though I know it isn’t fair to either of us. 

Kin thinks he has the cure I’ve been looking for, but it’s a cure that will change everything: me, my life, my heart. If I refuse, I could lose Kin. But if I take it, I might lose myself. 

Review:
Oh man, what to say about Half? It’s absolutely, devastatingly, hauntingly beautiful. The writing and language in this book is amazingly poignant. The characters are similarly lovely. The dilemma the main character finds himself in, the decision he has to make and the effect it will have on the people he loves is a gripping one. And that final decision was the harder, certainly literarily rarer one and I appreciated that. I think it’s one disabled readers should get to see more often.

However, it’s basically insta-love, leading to insta-relationship, there isn’t a lot to the plot considering how long the book is, and a lot seems to hinge on decisions of the past. It’s also very slow. Slow in a contemplative way, not a boring way, but it’s certainly not action packed. In a very real way I kind of felt like all the lush language got in the way of telling the story. It’s evocative, but tended to stall the forward movement. I do look forward to more of Lang’s writing though.

Book Review: Thorn Jack (Night and Nothing #1), by Katherine Harbour

I borrowed Thorn Jack, by Katherine Harbour, from my local library.

Description from Goodreads:
They call us things with teeth. These words from Lily Rose Sullivan the night of her death haunts her seventeen-year-old sister, Finn, who has moved with her widowed father to his hometown of Fair Hollow, New York. After befriending a boy named Christie Hart and his best friend, Sylvie Whitethorn, Finn is invited to a lakeside party where she encounters the alluring Jack Fata, a member of the town’s mysterious Fata family. Despite Jack’s air of danger and his clever words, Finn learns they have things in common.

One day, while unpacking, Finn finds her sister’s journal, scrawled with descriptions of creatures that bear a sinister resemblance to Jack’s family. Finn dismisses these stories as fiction, but Jack’s family has a secret—the Fatas are the children of nothing and night, nomadic beings who have been preying on humanity for centuries—and Jack fears that his friendship with Finn has drawn the attention of the most dangerous members of his family—Reiko Fata and vicious Caliban, otherwise known as the white snake and the crooked dog.

Plagued with nightmares about her sister, Finn attempts to discover what happened to Lily Rose and begins to suspect that the Fatas are somehow tied to Lily Rose’s untimely death. Drawn to Jack, determined to solve the mystery of her sister’s suicide, Finn must navigate a dangerous world where nothing is as it seems.

Review:
I’m a sucker for old school, dangerous, horrific fae. And this book has them in spades. So, A+ for that. But the writing was often confusing, the plotting dragged at times, and it tried so hard to be mysterious and goth that it came across as forced.

I’m not saying I didn’t like it. It was amusing enough. I just wasn’t blown away by it. Plus, I was left with questions. For example, Finn couldn’t see the fae for most of her life, didn’t even know her sister could. But she sees them just fine in the course of the novel, is shown to have seen them in the past. So, how’d she stay so clueless? Or what was the cause of the insta-attraction between Finn and Jack? Sorry, the little bit we’re given didn’t convince me at all.

The writing, other than being overly dramatic and unclear at times, was mostly ok. But there were some issue with repeat words that started to feel like nails on a chalkboard. I plan to read the rest of the series, though.

Review of Twelve Days Of Faery (Shards of a Broken Sword), by W.R. Gingell

I picked up a free copy of W. R. Gingell‘s Twelve Days of Faery free on Amazon. (It was still free at the time of posting.)

Description from Goodreads:
King Markon of Montalier is at the end of his tether. His son, Prince Parrin, is afflicted with a rather nasty curse that slaughters, maims, or brutally attacks any woman with whom he so much as flirts. After the rumour that sweeps around the kingdom, promising that any woman breaking the ‘curse’ will be eligible to marry the prince, there is no shortage of willing volunteers. Unfortunately, there is also no shortage of bodies piling up. 

Markon needs to do something, but what? Can a visiting enchantress from Avernse help, or is she simply another accident waiting to happen? And will Markon be able to give her up to his son if she does break the curse?

Review:
Honestly delightful in an irreverent, slightly absurd, but purposeful way. I love that the POV is slightly off from what you would expect for a fairytale, that what Markon thinks of himself and what we’re shown don’t align in a charming way, that Althea runs circles around everyone without even batting an eyelash, that the hero/heroine are mature (Markon in his mid forties at least) and that the whole thing is written in a witty, engaging voice.

My only complaints are that I’m never pleased with the whole scorned woman turns villainous trope and some of the challenges were overcome a bit too easily. Though, to be fair, they weren’t meant to be the focus of the book anyhow.

What can I say, I finished the book and immediately looked for more Gingell stories.