everythinginstatic
5/24/2013
Oh... Oh! Oh, this book, this world. Oh, I want to take it in my arms and rub my face into it, and bite big chunks out of it because I know it will taste like pomegranates and childhood and pumpkins and autumn. Valente's just reached into my heart and taken everything I ever squirrelled away, and brought it right out into the open. And once again it's like September grabbed my hand and pulled me right back into Fairyland with her.
This one feels so much more mature and exquisite. It feels darker, because we're now in the land of Halloween, the Hollow Queen (no really feel how that rolls off the tongue, seriously), and Fairyland-Below is not quite what it seems. The Persephone parallels are somewhat more pronounced now, or maybe I'm noticing them more; but pomegranates feature heavily in the story, and at times it feels a lot like September herself is playing the role of Demeter, come to take Persephone/Halloween back up. For you see, when September rescued that Pooka in the first novel by giving her shadow to the Glashtyn, she set in motion a chain of events that leads to all of Fairyland losing their shadows and, inherently, their magic. So September has to be a Heroine again and set things to right, even though Halloween is nowhere near being on board with this plan.
It's like everything I loved about the first Fairyland book, but cranked up and always sneaking behind my back. I want to trust Saturday and A-Through-L, because someone's shadow is pretty much them, isn't it? Well, it isn't, and Valente keeps you guessing as to how much September should really trust them. You can really feel the danger now, so much more than before, because Valente isn't afraid to kill off characters, and she isn't afraid of melancholic endings. Not everything has to be 100% perfect and happy at the end, and she knows that we know this.
The writing, if anything, has only got better. The Alleyman is a truly frightening creation, and he's deployed so well that I got chills reading about him. I truly feel like this is probably one of the best series out there in fantasy and YA being written today. September is a nuanced, complex and complicated girl, and it's painfully obvious just how human she is, and also how she's changed since the events of the first novel. The mythos and world-building is once again something fabulous and truly beautiful, with layers upon layers that readers are encouraged to peel away. Honestly, I just want to shower praise on this book, it's just that amazing. I can't wait for the third instalment in the series, because any kind of wait away from Fairyland and September is too much. Incidentally? The last 10 or so pages had me crying in ways that haven't happened for a long time, and the last sentence was too much. Valente gets it and nothing could be better.