The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
247 pages
Published 2011
Read from September 22 to September 23
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
As
a writer who's more wanna-be than actual, I am disgusted by Catherynne
M. Valente's productivity. Referencing only the volumes at my local
library, it would seem that she's been publishing two or three novels a
year for the last three or so years -- which is ridiculous. It makes me feel ridiculous, anyway, seeing as I can barely manage to complete two or three short stories within twelve months.
And
so far they've all been good novels, which only makes me feel worse. I
was a bit on the fence about this book; it was cute, aggressively twee
in the current post-modern fantasy fashion, but for the first hundred
pages or so Valente seemed to be going through the motions, cranking out
the expected clever tweaks of fairy tale folklore and Gaiman-esque
wordplay without supplying much heart to the underlying story. And even
after finishing it, I have to say parts of it were lacking -- we are
told, several times, how "dear" the character Saturday becomes to the
central heroine, but I for one felt he never matriculated beyond
placeholder status. The ending, however, was terrific, especially the
revelation of the identity of the Evil Ruler (though, possible spoilers,
that particular twist was essentially identical to the equivalent
reveal in Lev Grossman's The Magicians, so no originality points
for Valente). Cumulatively speaking, I feel confident bumping this up to
the "really good book" grade. Mainly because I have a weakness for this
cutesy-fey shit.
So yeah. Stop writing so much, Valente. You're making me feel bad.
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