The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home, Catherynne M. Valente

Nooo, I don’t want it to be the end! That said, it isn’t as bad as I’d feared: it doesn’t end like Narnia, with all the magic going away in favour of allegory. Fairyland remains as real and wild and strange, and the ending as bitter-and-sweetly magical as the other books. I was a little disappointed not to see more of Hawthorn and Tam’s adventures; The Boy Who Lost Fairyland is really a one-off in going so far from September, and I’m not sure I like that I never got my answers to questions about Hawthorn and Tam and how they feel about leaving behind their human families.

The weird wonders of Fairyland continue, as beautiful and strangely perfect as ever. I want to meet most of the characters (or hide from the nastier ones). And sometimes I can’t help but feel that the narrator looks into my heart just as much as she does September’s. Especially when the hippos named after bottles from the liquor cabinet come in (if you know me, you probably know about Helen, and if you know Helen, you know my heart).

Also, Blunderbuss! I love that at least we get Blunderbuss in this one, and A-Through-L being awesome and the whole bit with the main library and the book bears and…

No, I’m probably not capable of writing a coherent review of these books. This one is just as charming as the rest, though perhaps a bit sadder, because you know it’s the last, and because various things that happen during the race to be ruler of Fairyland make you worry about the characters and whether things can ever be the same.

Oh, and some things that some characters have been waiting for since the first book finally come to pass. So all in all, it’s a very satisfying end to the series, except for the fact that nobody wants it to end. The whole series might be marketed as young adult, but I think perhaps it has more for the adult who can still dream.

Rating: 4/5

The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, Catherynne M. Valente

I just want to eat Valente’s words. All of them. They’re like cream cakes and jam-covered scones and fairy cakes with buttercream and cookies with gooey centres still warm from the oven and… Yeah, as usual, Valente’s writing is great in The Boy Who Lost Fairyland, and I’m not sure, but I think I may well prefer it in these self-aware, charming, cheeky fairytales than in her adult novels. It’s beautiful there, too, but here it’s stripped down to suit the audience and genre, and that works really well for it.

As for the story, well. It’s not about September, really. Most of the time. It’s about another Changeling — a Changeling in the opposite direction, who finds our normal world just as strange and magical as his own, and yet… and yet he always knows something is missing, and he does want to find it. He really does. I’m just a little sad that we don’t see him being bothered about being separated from Gwendolyn, his human mother, at the end. That would have been an awesome opportunity for some of Valente’s wise words on children and hearts and home.

I didn’t, perhaps, love it quite as much as I love the books which feature September more heavily, Changeling-child as The Boy Who Lost Fairyland itself is in the series. But I did enjoy viewing everything aslant, and not once but twice — both our world and fairyland turning out to be strange to Hawthorn. (And how will he cope? Will he miss his human family? Will Tamburlaine? I hope we find out.)

And now there’s only one more book? I want it, I want it now — but I don’t want Fairyland to end, not ever.

Rating: 4/5

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two, Catherynne M. Valente

At this point, if you haven’t read the first two books, I definitely don’t suggest you jump in here. If you have, then what’re you waiting for? Fairyland has more enchantment, sadness, and whimsy for you. And in this book, September gets to spend time with Ell and Saturday again — the Ell and Saturday she knew in the first book, and not their shadows.

Once again, September doesn’t go back to Fairyland; at least, not so simply and directly. We have another new setting for the friends to explore, and another new problem for September to try to solve. Or do we? There’s no Marquess or Shadow Self to defeat this time, that’s for sure. I enjoyed the setting, and stuff like the taxicrabs, and all the puffins. I’m not entirely certain what the Blue Wind is up to in this book, and it looks like we might have to wait another book to find out…

My only real criticism is that despite the lovely whimsy, there’s a bit too much of it. The plot doesn’t really get going until nearly halfway through, and instead we seem to sort of sightsee — only for things to then rush past enormously fast. But it does say gorgeous things about friendship and love and having a heart, and growing up.

Just as this was settling into a rhythm, where September goes to Fairyland in the first part, wanders about gathering allies, and then solves all the issues, this book shakes things up a bit. It does take a while to get going, but once it is, things don’t quite turn out the way September expects them to, from prior experience, and it ends differently, too. And I gather the next book shakes things up even more, with new protagonists! I don’t know how much I’ll like that, but I can’t wait to give it a try.

Rating: 3/5

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, Catherynne M. Valente

If you liked the first book, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, I can’t see why you would dislike this one. The writing is of the same quality, the world is just as strange and intriguing — and there’s a lot of new things — and the characters are just as dear. Particularly Aubergine, who was the star of the book. There wasn’t enough of Ell and Saturday, but the plot with their shadows was interesting because it looked at familiar characters and the parts they didn’t show to September originally, and dealt pretty sympathetically with what it might like to be a shadow, without independent existence.

For me, the one sour note was that it began to feel very rushed in the last couple of chapters. September bounced from person to person, place to place, after a slower progression up to that point. It’s Fairyland! Of course I’d like to stop and smell the roses, and get to know just a little bit more of the many many things there are to know. The speed here, though, made it feel that little bit disjointed — I think the pacing of the first book was better.

Rating: 4/5